EdgeXplore

What's Coming to Disney+ in September 2020

Disney no doubt wants me to use this free advertising space to promote the digital premiere of Mulan, that spring blockbuster that wasn’t—and sure, if you want to spend $30 on top of your existing monthly Disney+ subscription to “own” (if only in the 2020 “no one actually owns media anymore” sense) this promising-looking animated feature-turned-action epic, be my guest—but I’d like to use my time at the clickbait pulpit to take them to task for something else entirely.

How to Watch Disney+ Movies in Chronological Order Read More

Further down the list you may note that Disney is touting the addition of Muppet Babies: Season 2 to its streaming service. As someone who grew up getting a media studies education from Jim Henson, Nanny, Kermie, Piggy and the crew in the 1980s animated series, I was extremely excited to see this, and immediately logged into Disney+ to rectify the fact that I hadn’t already binged the first season—nor even been aware it was available..

It was then that I realized that the Muppet Babies available on Disney+ is not the Muppet Babies I grew up with. It’s a circa-2018 CGI reboot. And maybe this show is perfectly delightful (it’s still the Muppets, after all). But I guarantee it isn’t on the same level of inspired lunacy as the original, and I am not ok with Disney’s efforts at cultural erasure. Sure, there may be perfectly valid (if annoying) legal reasons the old show can’t stream, but it might also be a result of Disney trying not to dilute the value of its post-Henson-acquisition in-house IP by reminding us that the Muppets used to be way better (the genius of The Muppets Again Muppets Most Wanted notwithstanding). And to give the new show the same name—as if the other one never existed!—is almost enough to make my monthly subscription go bye-bye. (Or, as an enraged Kermie might say, sheesh.)