The Muppets – “Too Hot to Handler”
Story by Margee Magee and Angeli Millan
Teleplay by Shane Kosakowski and Franklin Hardy
Directed by Matt Sohn
The Muppets returns with another episode about Muppets having relationship issues, but for once it isn’t because there are a bunch of sadsack Muppets being sad sacks full of sad sacks. In fact, Scooter finds exactly what he wants for a relationship, except that is just too much for him to handle!
Scooter is enthralled by Chelsea Handler, which is handy because she’s a guest on Miss Piggy’s show that night. She even seems to be looking for a nice dork like him. Uncle Deadly points out Scooter would just be a boy toy, and I’m not sure Scooter seems to understand what that term means. This gives Scooter the confidence to go ask Chelsea out on a date, but he manages to cause a big mess while trying to act cool and calm while doing so. Luckily for him, Chelsea is cool with dating him, anyway.
Fozzie is planning to ask his girlfriend Becky to move in with him after dating for a whole 12 weeks. This makes Kermit nervous, as he thinks Fozzie is moving too fast and doesn’t know Becky that well. He suggests they double date at trivia night at Rowlf’s, a contest Becky always wins. Kermit’s attempts to get Becky to reveal any hidden secrets through casual conversation backfires into finding lots of bad things about his own girlfriend, Denise. But Kermit also witnesses Becky looking at her phone while hiding under the table, and is convinced she is cheating in the trivia contest. He knows he can’t confront her right now, but needs to expose her to save his friend from someone who is dishonest.
Scooter’s date with Chelsea goes fantastically, in fact so fantastically he gets a kiss, which causes him to run off in a panic. Chelsea sends him a bunch of flowers the next day and he freaks out again, nervous that he’ll have to break up with her because she moves too fast and he’s a slow lane kind of guy. Chelsea agrees to go slower so Scooter won’t get put off, and we get a romance on this show that doesn’t end in disaster. Don’t get used to it!
Kermit’s attempts to expose Becky by asking her random trivia questions are continually foiled by a parade of random Muppets giving the answers. It also turns out she wasn’t cheating, she was secretly bidding on eBay for a gift for Fozzie’s birthday! This causes a rift in the Kermit/Fozzie friendship, as Kermit was just watching out for his friend, but also needs to let his friend be an adult and make his own decisions. They reach this conclusion while Kermit and Fozzie having it out while Fozzie is doing a series of regional promos dressed in random costumes and Uncle Deadly making wisecracks all the while. That fight alone was worth watching the show, but Deadly dropping laugh bombs and Fozzie getting his wig stuck in a fan seal the deal.
The rest of the show has a lot of strong humor. There is a cool running gag of Kermit talking, turning out to be talking to someone instead of doing an interview, and that person wasn’t paying attention because they thought he was doing an interview segment. The goofy plays on the docuseries concept was one of the things I hoped the show would do more of, so it is welcome to see it again.
I want so bad to see Uncle Deadly’s historical flag clothing line! The band discussing the gossip about Kermit and Fozzie goes from hilarious to super hilarious, especially when Floyd’s conspiracy theories kick in. Fozzie’s explanation about Mt. Rushmore succeeding William McKinley as president was awesome. Overall, this was a pretty strong episode, the kind I wish the show had started off with, and it made the next episode equally disappointing when it didn’t live up to “Too Hot to Handler“. If you only watch one episode of the first 10, it should be this one.
