The Muppets Turn 50 This Year but They Nearly Didn’t Get Made at All: ‘It Was a Real Study in Perseverance’

Since their series debut in 1976, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and the rest of the Muppets have attained an iconic status in pop culture, as evidenced by the four Emmys this picked up last month for Disney+’s “The Muppet Show” special featuring Sabrina Carpenter. It’s an achievement that is all the more impressive given […] The Muppets celebrate their 50th anniversary this year — but they almost didn't see the light of day. Since their series debut in 1976, Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and the rest of the Muppets have attained an iconic status in pop culture, as evidenced by the four Emmys this picked up last month for Disney+’s “The Muppet Show” special featuring Sabrina Carpenter.

It’s an achievement that is all the more impressive given how close they came to obscurity. “It was such a hard road to get ‘The Muppet Show’ made,” says Lisa Henson, daughter of Muppets creator Jim Henson and CEO of The Jim Henson Company. Having created puppets for “Sesame Street” and “Saturday Night Live” in the early 1970s, Henson was itching to make his own show. But after two failed “Muppet Show” pilots for ABC and some further development work for CBS that went nowhere,