- Starring
- Matt Danner, Dee Bradley Baker, Melanie Harrison
- Creator
- Mr. Warburton & Chris Hamilton
- Rating
- TV-Y
- Genre
- Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Musical
- Release date
- March 23, 2018
- Where to watch
- Disney+
The 2018 reboot of Muppet Babies is an animated series on Disney+ that brings toddler versions of beloved Muppet characters to life in their imaginative playroom adventures. The show features Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, and Animal, along with new additions like Summer Penguin and Miss Nanny.
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James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
One comment
Sweet Deals
February 24, 2025 at 6:10 pm
I screened 71 episodes of Muppet Babies so I could determine whether it was a safe show or not. But let’s cut to the chase. You want to know about the infamous cross-dressing episode “Gonzorella”.
Miss Piggy and Summer Penguin are hosting a make-believe royal ball where princesses get to wear fancy dresses. Gonzo thinks a sparkly gown and glass shoes look neat, but the girls say he’s not supposed to wear a dress because he’s a boy and it’s not proper according to their princess manual. Disappointed, Rizzo the Rat casts a magic spell and allows Gonzo to make-believe he’s wearing a fancy dress to go to the royal ball and no one will know that it’s really him. But he has to leave the royal ball before the cake is served because the spell will break and he’ll go back to being himself again. The point the show wants to make is that it’s okay to go off-manual and try something different and unexpected once in a while because it might be fun.
I understand that cross-dressing is untoward and improper, and most people don’t like to see it. I myself have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to queer things and children, but this is one time where I’m inclined to be lenient. Gonzo isn’t wearing a dress because he wants to be a girl, and he doesn’t think wearing a dress will turn him into a girl. He wants to wear a sparkly gown and glass shoes for the same reason he likes to put pickles on everything and hang out with chickens; Gonzo is well-known to be a delusional character with weird tastes. The show also makes clear that every wild adventure the Muppet Babies have is “make-believe”; it doesn’t really happen, they’re just pretending, playing around and being silly. I would say that’s no more “woke” than Corporal Klinger of the 4077 MASH wearing fancy women’s dresses every day to get discharged from Korea. Everyone in his unit knows Klinger is faking it, so they’re amused by his antics but they know full well that he’s not actually crazy.
If you’re still antsy about it, you can safely skip this episode and not miss anything important. I’ll also warn you ahead of time that Gonzo puts on the sparkly dress a second time in the final episode: Kermit is expecting Gonzo to shoot himself out of a cannon like he always does, but Gonzo decides he’d rather do a fashion show with his chicken friends just to switch things up because the audience isn’t expecting it. Beyond that, I don’t think any of the other episodes contain anything woke or inappropriate. Like most Disney Junior shows, Muppet Babies is highly saccharine and conflicts tend to be resolved a lot more gently than in real life because best friends always understand, they rarely get angry with one another, and never mock each other for being weird.