The Muppets S01E08 “Too Hot To Handler” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on Sky One, Mondays, 8pm
Writers: Shane Kosakowski, Franklin Hardy (teleplay); Margee Magee, Angeli Millan (story)
Director: Matt Sohn

Essential Plot Points:

• Fozzie tells Kermit that he’s going to ask Becky to move in with him, but Kermit is worried.
• He arranges a double date to a pub quiz to suss out Becky – and discovers that she cheats!
• He’s proved wrong when he confronts her, though, and Fozzie is not happy.
• Scooter books Chelsea Handler for the show and they start dating…
• …but things move way too fast for our little dork.

Review:

First up, an important note: people who cheat on pub quizzes are evil. Like, really evil. Murdering puppies and drowning kittens evil. If you know someone who Googles answers during a quiz – or, worse, you are one (gasp!) – rest assured that there’s a special place in Hell just for cheaters, and once down there they’ll be rubbing shoulders with people who press all the buttons in a lift or don’t say ‘Thank you’ when you hold a door open for them. Curse them! Curse them all!

And so, in case you hadn’t guessed, we are 100% on Kermit’s side in this episode, because if Becky was indeed cheating and was pulling the wool over Fozzie’s eyes, the gormless bear had every right to know about the kind of wicked creature he was dating. The fact it turns out that Becky was innocent… well. Ahem. Yes. Awkward. Still, Kermit and Fozzie sorted it out in the end, so that’s okay.

Meanwhile, the Scooter/Chelsea Handler subplot is rather amusing, with poor Scooter falling for the x-rated TV host before realising that she’s x-rated in real life, too (and, as he tells her, now he can’t just flick over to the Weather Channel while he cools down!). It’s sweet to see Scooter getting his first kiss (we assume) and even sweeter to see Chelsea fall for him – this is a woman who, according to Scooter’s Wikipedia-memorising, once dated 50 Cent. Talk about a contrast. We’re rooting for these guys!

The Guests:

• Chelsea Handler

The Good:

• Scooter doesn’t think he’s a dork, but he cries, “Weeeee!” every time he rides an escalator. Bless. Bet he also makes USS Enterprise “ssssshhhh” noises when he walks through automatic doors. And come on, don’t pretend you don’t do that yourself.
• The band become convinced that Kermit is a robot, and their conversation about it is hilarious. Dr Teeth & The Electric Mayhem were created in 1975 and gently mocked the counterculture of the time (hippies, stoners and acid-freaks). And yet, 40 years on, they seem just as relevant as they did back then – incredible, really.
• “Canine-Americans still can’t hold public office,” complains Rowlfe. And boy, ain’t that just a can of worms waiting to be opened in this Muppet-filled world? Do they have equal rights? Can they vote? Are they fully integrated into society elsewhere on the planet? Is there Muppet racism? Our minds are boggling…
• Beaker speaks. It doesn’t matter what he says. It never does. It’s just funny.

The Bad:

• This is a nice little episode with a few laugh-out-loud moments – most notably, Bobo suddenly looming into shot after Kermit’s argument with Fozzie and asking, “Hug?” But there’s nothing here that’s particularly striking; it feels like filler.

The Random:

• Several times, we see Kermit talking to the invisible documentary crew’s camera before discovering he’s actually talking to a colleague. You can’t help but feel the show could do a lot more with this kind of casual fourth-wall-breaking.
• Best quote: Rizzo: “How did it go with Chelsea? And don’t skip the dirty stuff – I was born in a sewer, you are not gonna shock me.”

Reviewed by Jayne Nelson

• Read more reviews of The Muppets