A fan of both The Muppets and Hamilton has combined their two passions to create a truly engaging recreation of the musical. This video was appropriately released around the same time a filmed version of the original Hamilton show was released on Disney+, bringing new attention to the hit musical and receiving rave reviews.
The idea of a Muppet cover of a popular musical actually makes a lot of sense, considering that the official Muppets have parodied everything from “Bohemian Rhapsody” to “Ode to Joy.” However, it’s been a while since fans of the Muppets have gotten to enjoy any of these musical antics since the most recent Muppets content was a failed mockumentary series on ABC back in 2015. A new Disney+ Muppets series titled Muppets Now is reportedly in the works, but that has yet to be released. Without any official Muppet music coming out, fans have taken matters into their own hands.
The Muppet cover video in question, titled “Hamilton Act 1 but it’s Muppets”, was posted to YouTube by a creator named Ricky Downes III. As can be assumed from the title, the video is a collection of covers of original Hamilton songs performed by the Muppets - or, at least, Downes giving some spot-on muppet impersonations. The work is incredibly thorough, containing a complete cover of every song from Act 1 of the original Broadway cast album. Kermit is cast as the titular Hamilton, Miss Piggy is Eliza Schulyer, and various other Muppets fill in the rest of the cast. Even Statler and Waldorf get in on the action, jeering and booing at the end of several songs.
The video itself has already received over 400 thousand views and gained significant attention on Tik Tok, Twitter, and Reddit. Fans were quick to praise Downes in the video’s comments and on Twitter, with several of them tagging Lin-Manuel Miranda in hopes of gaining the Hamilton creator’s attention. In response to one of his Twitter replies, Downes also teased an Act 2, saying, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
The success of the “Hamilton but Muppets” just serves as proof that Muppet musical parodies are engaging content. Since Disney+ has a new Muppets show in the works, Muppets Now, show creators could take this fan content as an example of what sort of content to include in the series. Whether Muppets Now will be a success or fail like ABC’s The Muppets is still uncertain, but if the writers take inspiration from this Hamilton fan parody, fans are sure to be delighted.
Source: Ricky Downes III