SNL's The Muppets sketch was a case of the pot calling the kettle a hack

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"Both The Muppet Show and SNL established themselves long ago as comedic institutions whose best parodies were able to capture the essence of things by heightening and deconstructing what they were poking fun at," says Charles Pulliam-Moore. "Disney+’s recent Muppets Now shifted away from that approach and was a big part of what made the series feel more like a late-to-the-game attempt at inserting itself into modern streaming culture rather than clever lampooning, and something similar is true of SNL’s Muppets sketch. There is something quite funny about the fact that we’re living through the Muppets’ flop era despite the fact that, at least online, people are still quite nostalgic about them and excited for any new projects announced. It would have been interesting to see SNL dig into the fact that Kermit’s an overexposed stage manager who needs to stop dating his employees, or how the Muppets ended up being conscripted into a deranged culture war they probably wanted no part of. As self-aware and self-deprecating as the Muppets are, being bound to Disney means that there are certain things the brand can’t say about itself. Presumably, SNL could if it wanted, and with tighter execution, it’d likely end up being the sort of sketch that people would actually tune in to see on the regular. SNL isn’t new to missing the mark, and the Muppet sketch is far from being the show’s most egregious misfire in recent history, but it did highlight how the present-day incarnations of both classic variety acts haven’t exactly been holding up in recent years. It’s a shame because they’ve traditionally been such fertile grounds for much stronger, actually funny comedy. " ALSO: Forget the naysayers: SNL is having a post-Trump renaissance.