Like last time, three segments have Muppets messing around with seemingly unscripted actors while another one is purely just Muppets. Our first one is so far the highlight of Muppets Now and has to be what the series creators had in mind when they first pitched it. Pepe the King Prawn – probably the best post-Henson Muppet, in my opinion – hosts “Pepe’s Unbelievable Gameshow” with Scooter as his second banana. While Scooter tries to stick to task, Pepe finds the rules too confusing and doesn’t even try comprehending and following them.
What we get instead is Pepe making things up as he goes along while our two contestants (two non-celebrity humans) happily play along. This bit is rapid-fire and remains hilarious up to the fantastic and silly ending.
Up next is the return of “Okay Dokey Kookin’” where talking turkey Beverly Plume hosts a cookoff between the Swedish Chef and a celebrity guest. Swedish Chef’s stuff continues to be kind of weak yet again, but the segment is easily saved by special guest Danny Trejo. Trejo definitely seems to be performing at the top of his intelligence as he nearly gets in a fight with Swedish Chef over who has the better mustache and he instinctively steps into his threatening persona towards Beverly, only to stop himself at the last second and rein it in. Much like Muppets Most Wanted, mixing Danny Trejo with Muppets is a fun combo.
After a quick shout from Kermit and new character Joe the Legal Weasel, we get a good old Muppet Labs segment starring Professor Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker. This time, they get in on modern times by bringing in Beak-R, Honeydew’s off-brand Amazon Echo with a bit of a mean streak. The three make a game out of science by seeing what objects melt when set on fire and what objects simply burn. It’s fine. The animated bits tossed in are well done.
I don’t think that pun was intended.
