LOL: 'Saturday Night Live' Tries To Stop 'The Muppet Show' Hecklers Statler & Waldorf
Last night, Keegan-Michael Key took the stage at Studio 8H in 30 Rock to host a new episode of Saturday Night Live. With years of experience in improv and sketch comedy, including the hit Comedy Central series Key & Peele, the comedian made for one of the best hosts of the season. As a pleasant surprise, SNL also came with other special guests in the form of some of The Muppets, including the balcony hecklers Statler & Waldorf. But security wasn't going to let them get away with it this time.
Check out the Saturday Night Live Muppets sketch below.
Saturday Night Live Muppets Sketch
Framed as an episode The Muppet Show, the SNL sketch finds Statler & Waldorf giving Kermit the Frog a hard time, as usual. But in this episode, the theater where The Muppet Show is filmed has a new security team, and they're not going to stand for any heckling. Not only do they come out and yell at the old Muppet men to stop them from interrupting the show, but things get a little physical when they don't listen. It's a fun twist on a staple of The Muppet Show, especially with Keegan-Michael Key and Kenan Thompson as the security guards.
However, it's clear that these aren't the real Muppets who are appearing on the show. Even though SNL has a history of bringing in Jim Henson's characters to appear on the sketch series, this is not one of those instances. Though the puppets created for the sketch are very well-made, they're not quite Muppet quality, and the same can be said for the puppeteering. On top of that, it's the cast members of SNL providing the voices for Kermit the Frog and Statler & Waldorf. They're not bad, but they're not the usual voices you're used to hearing (though whoever is voicing Kermit in this sketch sounds better than Disney's current Kermit voice actor Matt Vogel).
All things considered, this was a fantastic sketch. I'm sure the reason that the real Muppets didn't actually appear in the show is that it would have been logistically difficult to pull off. Plus, even if that wasn't the case, having a human physically beat up Statler is probably something Disney wouldn't be on board with. But it certainly was hilarious.