The Muppets star in a popular series of new viral videos on YouTube.
If you needed any proof that the Muppets were still popular you needed to look no further than YouTube, where Muppet sketches have been proliferating for years. With such an obvious demand it's been a mystery to many people (myself included) why the Muppets haven't been utilized more effectively on the web. Although there have been attempts to adapt the Muppets for the web (Muppets.com in the late `90s, the From The Balcony web series a few years ago and the recent Muppets.com relaunch), but all these efforts may have missed the simple fact that the Muppets were just fine as they were, thank you very much.
The Globe and Mail ran a story on Friday about the "back to basics" approach the Muppets are taking on YouTube. First was Sam the Eagle leading a rendition of The Stars and Stripes Forever (see previous post). Since then several new videos have been added, including Animal, Beaker and the Swedish Chef singing Carmen, Gonzo conducting The Blue Danube Waltz (featuring Camilla and a chorus of chickens, naturally), Beaker's Ode To Joy and a series of - what else? - heckling videos from Statler and Waldorf.
The videos seem to be an undeniable hit. So far Beaker's Ode to Joy has been viewed 1.2 million times and views for the other videos are in the hundreds of thousands. This seems like a great strategy to reintroduce the Muppets to the general public; here's hoping that the folks at Disney who are in charge stick with it.
