Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Muppets Mayhem’ On Disney+, Where Dr. Teeth And His Band (Try To) Record Their First Album

Did you know that Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem were created the year before The Muppet Show debuted? Like many of the beloved characters that debuted on that 1976-81 series, they were created for a 1975 Muppet Show pilot subtitled — believe it or not — Sex And Violence. They’ve always been there to provide a rockin’ soundtrack to the show and the Muppets’ various films. Now they’re being featured in a new Disney+ series that shows what they’ve been doing since those halcyon days with Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie and company.

THE MUPPETS MAYHEM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: As we see the marquee of a music club, we hear Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem playing “Rock And Roll All Nite” in front of a cheering crowd.

The Gist: As we hear the band playing the song, then singing it in their van, we see Nora (Lilly Singh) singing to the song in her car. When a drive-through barista (Colton Dunn) tells her that the line that she thinks is “Part of every day” is actually “Party every day,” she argues the point. After all, she is a music executive.

Actually, she’s an assistant at Wax Town Records, working for old school boss Penny Waxman (Leslie Carrara-Rudolph). Penny tells Nora that the business is dying and that Nora is about to lose her job, but not before she shreds a mountain of contracts from the past 40-plus years.

She comes across a decades-old record contract for The Electric Mayhem, and looks them up. In a report by Ryan Seacrest, the band is called one of the top touring bands since their ’70s debut on The Muppet Show, with millions of fans. Among them: Tommy Lee, Lil Nas X and Chris Stapleton. We see interviews with Dr. Teeth (Bill Barretta), Janice (David Rudman), Zoot (David Goelz), Floyd Pepper (Matt Vogel) and the nonsensical Lips (Peter Linz). Even Animal (Eric Jacobson) blurts out a few words.

One thing Nora finds out is that the band has never recorded an album, meaning the contract in her hands has yet to be fulfilled. Her plan: Find the band and get them to record that album, which should be a huge hit.

She finds the band after a show, and meets Gary ‘Moog’ Moogowski (Tahj Mowry) one of the biggest “Mayheads,” who follow the band everywhere they play. The band agrees to meet Nora in “our office”, aka the van.

They agree to it, saying they’ll crash with a friend when they come to LA, but the Type-A Nora doesn’t realize what any of that means, including the “friend” being her. When the band busts through the door at her house, which is actually the house of her younger, influencer sister Hannah (Saara Chaudry), she realizes how chaotic life with the Mayhem will be.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Somewhat a combination of the mid-2010s reboot of The Muppets and the pop-culture-heavy nuttiness of The Goldbergs (Adam F. Goldberg is one of the EPs of The Muppets Mayhem).

Our Take: Goldberg, Barretta and Jeff Yorkes, the creators of The Muppets Mayhem, have accomplished something we haven’t seen with The Muppets since the Jason Segel-written film from 2011: They managed to update the world around their Muppet stars without necessarily updating the Muppet characters themselves.

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem are still fundamentally the same band they were when they debuted 48 years ago, a group that the good doc says “does not subscrabulate to a frontman disposition”; in other words, it’s a democracy of the highest level. They do what they want and spread happiness everywhere, even when they paint Danny Trejo’s house by mistake. We see some minor extensions of these characters, like Dr. Teeth’s enjoyment of naked hot tubbing, Janice’s veganism or Animal’s crush on Nora, but it all makes sense in context of what we’ve known about them.

What makes the show as enjoyable as it is are the human characters, which Goldberg has more than a little experience with. Because of the writing and because of Singh’s funny performance, we already know a lot about Nora, and by extension, her little sister Hannah, by the end of the first episode. She’s Type-A, which will be something she’s going to have to fight against to manage the Mayhem, and she took care of Hannah after their father died. Because she’s a number of years older, she remembers her father and the Joe Cocker song he sung to them at bedtime. Music has been a part of her entire life and is her passion now, and that will come through as she tries to get this crazy band in the studio.

That’s a great start, even on a show that promises to be jam packed with celebrity cameos in every episode. It also helps that the overriding story doesn’t have Nora trying to bring the Mayhem back from obscurity; they’re the Grateful Dead of felt-based bands, so them recording an album is really more of a favor to Nora (and maybe Penny, lover of compression socks) than something that will facilitate a comeback. That will also help the story, as the Mayhem can continue to do what they want — like go on a nine-week spontaneous trip — and drive Nora crazy in the process.

What Age Group Is This For?: The Muppets Mayhem is rated TV-PG, but should be suitable for all ages. Some of the guests and other references will likely go over the heads of the youngest viewers, but the Muppets have never been just for the young’uns, have they?

Parting Shot: The episode literally ends on a cliffhanger, with the van hanging off a cliff, and Animal hanging onto the van by his fingertips.

Sleeper Star: We love Animal, so we’ll give this to Eric Jacobson, who took over the role from Frank Oz over 20 years ago.

Most Pilot-y Line: Penny sees Dr. Teeth, who took her money for the contract and didn’t deliver, and notes that “you’re still hanging around with all those other schmegegges, huh?” Animal hears the word as he walks in and yells “Schmegegge! Schmegegge!” We didn’t realize Animal loved Yiddish so much.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Muppets Mayhem is a funny, fast-paced show which doesn’t sacrifice story or characters for pop culture references and celebrity cameos. And the fact that it’s family friendly is a bonus.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.