The Muppets have released a first look at their upcoming series The Muppets Mayhem. This comes ahead of its arrival on Disney+ in the not-so-distant future. The series focuses on an aspiring record producer named Nora (Lilly Singh). With the help of her social media influencer sister Hannah (Sara Chaudry) and also Electric Mayhem super-fan Gary “Moog” Moogowski (Tahj Mowry), they set out to help the Electric Mayhem’s first album.
The series is co-created by Muppets veteran Bill Barretta with college friends Jeff Yorkes and Adam F. Goldberg. The idea for the series came out of a performance at Outside Lands music festival in 2016 when The Electric Mayhem performed a set.
It was unbelievable,” Bill Barretta told EW. “It was … one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had with the Muppets. There was something like 30,000 people that came to the park. I thought, ‘Well, there’s something there.’ What if this band went on the road? What if the band went on tour? And so, I started developing an idea for a show about the band because we don’t know that much about them.”
While this was happening, York’s and Goldberg had also already been thinking about ideas for a series around the band for eight years. “Jeff conceived the whole thing,” Goldberg shared with EW. “He’s an editor, so he cut a whole sizzle reel to convince me to get on board. And then that was the sizzle we used to actually sell this thing.”
Now the story of the band is being told and details about its members are being filled in, something that has never been done before. Because they aren’t the central characters like Kermit or Miss Piggy, there is room for some creativity on where to take the story that is being told. There will also be a lot of music heard. It could lead to some humorous moments as the 70s classic rock sound of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem clash with the new world order of music production.
Yorkes shared that “The conceit of the show is bringing this old school band to the modern age and way of making music. That’s the comedy of it. They’re a group of characters that have no real goals or ambitions. Whatever you want to do, they roll with it. So, when you have a character that’s really determined to get them to do something, that’s also the comedy of the show. It’s Type A wrestling with Type, I would even say, C.”
Bill Barretta also hit on how the conflict for the band will between the band’s efforts to go with the flow and also please everyone. “They want to remain true to themselves, but they don’t want to leave anybody out,” he explains. “How do you find that balance? That’s every musician or artist’s struggle — they would love everybody to love them. What’s fun about this band is we like to take the creative approach that they can play just about anything. That allows us to dip ourselves into different types of music and be silly and have fun with it.”
The show promises to have quite a lot of music included with it. The first half of the series will be a lot of covers from the classic rock era where the band finds its origins. By the nature of the premise of the show, there will also be some other things coming as well during the 10 episode season.
As is the case with most Muppet productions, there will also be multiple cameos throughout the season as well. “We are telling a regular story in the real world with Muppets,” Goldberg told EW. “So we tried to ground everything and keep it realistic as opposed to all of a sudden there’s talking fruit in your fridge.” The realism will apparently continue as the backstories for both humans and Muppets are explored.
The series has not had a debut date announced yet. However, with more promotion arriving for the series it will more than likely be sooner rather than later. It also promises to be unlike any Muppet series that has come before.
Are you excited about The Muppets Mayhem? What are you most looking forward to with this series? Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below!
