A reader sends in the Guardian‘s review of ABC’s new Muppets show. The newspaper hates it. Says ABC has debauched the Muppets by making them all reality-TV-ish. Excerpt:

What were previously sly winks to a grownup audience are now grotesque full-body grimaces, delivered with depressing sledgehammer brutality. In one scene, Animal laments his consequence-free promiscuity. In another, Zoot from The Electric Mayhem is outed as an alcoholic. And then, most heartbreakingly of all, there’s Kermit.

This version of Kermit is absolutely unrecognisable from anything that’s ever come before. This Kermit badmouths fellow celebrities, openly discusses his sex life and, at one point, describes his life as “a living hell”. That’s not who Kermit is. Kermit is the perennial wide-eyed optimist, the figure who grounds the chaos around him in sincerity. Kermit is the dreamer who believes in the power of people. He’s the one who sings The Rainbow Connection. He is most definitely not the stress-eating, coffee-drinking executive that The Muppets paints him as. It physically hurts to see what ABC have done to him.

That’s ABC Disney for you, folks. When I was growing up, Disney was the first name in quality family entertainment. Now, whenever I see the Disney name tagged to any programming, I assume until proven otherwise that it’s going to be depressing and sleazy, and definitely not something for the kids. When we had cable TV, one channel we absolutely wouldn’t let our kids watch was the ABC Family Channel, which was more like the Addams Family Channel.

They’ve Miley Cyrus’d everything.