Muppets Tonight introduced us to cool characters like the Nine Inch Snails, an all-gastropod grunge band who sing a morbid little song that includes the line “give me some salt and turn me to gel” and put on one shell of a show. That being said, it’s a little bit creepy and definitely on par with everything Disney has been rolling out as of late. I get the feeling sometimes that Walt Disney, if he were alive, might not know just what to think about the type of programming that’s been allowed to date, and might even think that Disney is on a fast track to the underworld in some cases.
That might be kind of harsh but then again stuff like this kind of comes around now and again and then goes away for a while since it’s all dependent on how much of a response it gets. It’s not a bad show, it’s not vulgar or disturbing on a level that might scare children, but it’s just odd enough that kids might not know what to think about it. Little kids love Disney, as do older kids, but usually it’s for the colors, the motion, the action, and unfortunately for the snails they don’t have a lot of any of it.
If there’s one snail that had any kind of verve and action to him it was Turbo, and now that Disney owns Fox they happen to own Turbo if they didn’t already. That snail is something to watch and something to enjoy. The Nine Inch Snails are a gimmick obviously but unless they play something that a lot of people know, if they come back, then it’s possible they were just a one-off and are better off being left that way. The Muppets tend to have a lot of guest stars and new characters that pop up from time to time but not all of them happen to be that great. While their show has kind of gone up and down throughout the years they’ve always had a solid base with their core characters.
Even when new characters have been added they’ve never been a sure thing. A lot of work goes into the puppets to make them work, but sometimes it doesn’t pan out the way people want, like this time perhaps. If they’d parodied one of Nine Inch Nails’ more popular songs then they might have gotten more notice. There’s nothing to say that they couldn’t have found a way to get permission after all. This being on the Disney channel the corporation could have paid a boatload just for one song, if they were interested. That could have been why they didn’t though since it was just a small blurb and nothing worth shelling out any more than was absolutely necessary.
Yes, that pun was intentional.
If they developed this small group of puppets it could be something interesting and it could lead to an act on the show that could go beyond the stage. It’s all a matter of whether they make them interesting enough.
Follow Us
