2020 has been a heck of a year for Groundhog Day. The kinda-sorta holiday, typically celebrated on February 2, not only shared calendar real estate with the Super Bowl this year, but legendary comedian Bill Murray returned to the role of Phil Connors from the beloved 1993 comedy film Groundhog Day for a Jeep advertisement. On top of it all, Punxatawney Phil, the world’s most famous groundhog meteorologist, predicted that there would be an early spring this year. And that’s great. Juuuuuust great. but Joe the Legal Weasel, one of Disney’s Muppets, wants to point out that you can’t hold them to that.
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Speaking on behalf of groundhogs, Joe appeared in a short video released this week on The Muppets’s YouTube channel, reminding fans that the shadow is not actually legally binding. “While I am not technically a groundhog, I am a weasel. And an attorney. Same thing,” Joe added.
You can check it out below.
“Our appearance with or without a shadow in no way guarantees the length of winter,” the statement reads. “Henceforth, in perpetuity throughout the universe and is therefore not legally actionable. In layman’s terms, happy groundhog day.”
The Muppets have been absent from screens since the failure of their 2015/2016 sitcom The Muppets., a workplace comedy using a documentary style a la The Office. In spite of similarities to The Office and appearances by NBC standouts Ed Helms and Mindy Kaling, the show aired on ABC and never really found its audience. Josh Gad was set to co-write a six-part The Muppets Live Again miniseries for Disney+. The project, which was an ’80s-set sequel to The Muppets Take Manhattan, would was cancelled by Disney after creative differences drove Gad and his co-writers away.
Their next project, Muppets Now, is described as a short-form, improvisational comedy series produced for Disney+.
The Muppets, created by legendary filmmaker Jim Henson in 1955, were massively successful during his lifetime, with The Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock being watched by huge numbers of people in their first runs as well as in syndication. Henson approached Disney to purchase his assets in 1989, and they came to an agreement in principle, but Henson passed away in 1990 before the deal could be completed. Without Henson there to anchor it, the deal fell apart, and Disney didn’t get the Muppets until 2003, when they bought a much smaller batch of rights (this time excluding a number of projects, which Henson’s company now retains the rights to) but did get they key Muppet characters.
