Smallville Reboot: The Muppet Show Edition (Fan Cast)
Promotional image. Smallville © Warner Bros.
Science fiction and fantasy geeks like me often daydream about various reboots, crossovers, and mashups of our favorite stories from books, film, and television. I’m a longtime fan of both CW’s Smallville and Disney’s The Muppet Show, so in true dork style, I started fantasizing about a reboot of Smallville, but with Muppets.
Promotional image. The Muppet Show © Disney
Also worth noting: on October 19, 2021, Smallville: The Complete Series will debut for the first time ever on Blu-ray in a 20th anniversary edition 2-disc boxed set. That’s 218 episodes from the iconic, Emmy®-winning series, folks! The Blu-ray set will also include a whopping 28 hours of bonus features.
That means now is the perfect time for me to take my fantasy to the next level. I hereby present my fan cast of a Smallville reboot that stars various characters from The Muppet Show. And yes, this is a perfectly justifiable use of my time.
Cue the Smallville theme song by Remy Zero: Somebody saaAAAAAve meeeeee….and, action!
Kermit the Frog as Clark Kent
Kermit’s superpower is that he runs The Muppet Show. He often does his job under harrowing circumstances, such as unexpected explosions (thanks, Gonzo!) and missing-in-action performers. He’s also a loveable dork and mild-mannered, so that’s why he’s the perfect choice to play mild-mannered Clark Kent. Bonus: Kermit is already green, which would cut down on the cost of special effects whenever someone threatens him with Kryptonite.
Miss Piggy as Lana Lang
Lana Lang is the crown jewel of Clark’s love interests on Smallville and Miss Piggy is the crown jewel of pigs. The angsty on-again, off-again nature of Clark and Lana’s relationship mirrors the same dynamic that happens between Miss Piggy and Kermit during The Muppet Show and the Muppet movies.
Even though Miss Piggy is more Beauty Pageant Queen than small-town high school teen, she and Lana share one important talent in common: both ladies can kick the shit out of any villain who crosses them.
Pops as Jonathan Kent
Hilda as Martha Kent
Honestly, my thought process for the Kents was this: who are the older adult Muppets on The Muppet Show who’d be suitable for Martha and Jonathan? Then I did some googling. That’s the extent of the effort I made for this casting choice.
In the Superman comics (hat tip to creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) as well as Superman: The Movie (1978), Ma and Pa Kent are a bit older than their counterparts in Smallville, so there’s that. I get an A for effort in this round.
Fozzi the Bear as Pete Ross
This casting choice is genius because Pete is Clark’s best friend and Fozzi is Kermit’s best friend. Even better, Fozzi gets angsty about his comedy act and Pete gets angsty about the pressure he feels to live up to Clark. Sounds like Pete and Fozzi have a lot in common. They should get together in a spin-off series to commiserate.
Janice as Chloe Sullivan
Chloe and Janice both have blond hair. Chloe is ambitious, driven, and solves the town’s meteor-strike-related mysteries while Janice is a laidback hippie who rocks out in the band Electric Mayhem. Also, they’re both blond.
Let’s face it, though, if anything belongs on the Wall of Weird, it’s Electric Mayhem. They could even be the subject of an entire episode! I bet Animal can (sort of) talk because he somehow ingested a piece of meteor rock. And Dr. Tooth—WHOSE SKIN IS GREEN!—looks like a meteor rock come to life.
Captain Link Hogthrob as Whitney Fordman
This casting choice is pretty obvious based on both the looks and personalities of Whitney (Lana’s boyfriend) and Captain Hogthrob. I’m guessing Hogthrob was also the quarterback on his high school football team and bullied a certain future superhero. At one point in the series, Whitney joins the military, which is kind of similar to Hogthrob being a spaceship captain.
Dr. Bunsen Honeydew as Lex Luthor
Both are bald, duh. Plus, Dr. Honeydew constantly uses Beaker as a guinea pig in his experiments, which is messed up. Well, guess who else conducts dark experiments using human subjects? That’s right—future supervillain Lex Luthor.
Dr. Honeydew is also a good choice because he takes science seriously in the same way Lex takes his relationship with Clark seriously. Lex loves Clark (like a brother, but you gotta admit it’s also a doomed bromance) the way Dr. Honeydew loves his work. So this casting is a win-win.
Waldorf & Statler as Lionel Luthor
Promotional image. The Muppet Show © Disney
Picture of actor John Glover as Lionel Luthor from the show Smallville. Smallville © Warner Bros.
Statler and Waldorf relentlessly heckle the performers on The Muppet Show. On Smallville, Lionel Luthor—the evilest, worst father ever and played to perfection by John Glover—mercilessly heckles his son, Lex. Poor Lex can’t do any of his evil schemes right and according to trash-talking supervillains Statler and Waldorf, the Muppets are talentless hacks who can’t entertain to save their lives.
The icing on the cake is that Lionel, Statler, and Waldorf always wear suits. They’re dapper villains. Talk about a no-brainer casting decision!
Miss Poogy as Lois Lane
If you’ve seen “Stiletto,” episode 19 of season eight of Smallville, during which Lois Lane dresses in a latex femme fatale outfit as well as the movie, The Muppets, you know why this is the perfect casting choice. Eh, that and there are perilously few female Muppet characters from which to choose.
Miss Poogy as Lois Lane also works because apparently, some Lana Lang fans weren’t too thrilled about Lois Lane appearing in the series when it first aired. So that makes Lois kind of a villain—and Miss Poogy is definitely a villain! What can I say, my logic is flawless.
Scooter as Jimmy Olsen
These two characters are both just so nice, so naturally, Scooter makes a nice casting choice for Jimmy. Another quality they have in common is that Scooter is always trying to get a gig on The Muppet Show and Jimmy is always trying to nab a dynamic shot of Superman—I mean, the Blur. In that sense, they’re like twins who were separated at birth. Scooter could have played Jimmy Olsen on Smallville and we wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference, like, at all.
Electric Mayhem as Remy Zero
Promotional image. The Muppet Show © Disney
Remy Zero
Remy Zero’s Save Me is a super catchy song and Electric Mayhem not only has a jazzy name, but it’s also the coolest band from The Muppet Show. Regarding why Janice-as-Chloe is moonlighting as a band member, I’m not taking questions at this time.
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Thanks for reading! In addition to writing dorky posts about geeky pop culture, I’m also a sci-fi romance author. If you want to discover how my love of Smallville and The Muppet Show influenced some of my books, I invite you to check out the following titles:
Covers for A Villainous Affair, Heather Massey’s steampunk romance saga
This steampunk romance quartet follows the adventures of two supervillains who fall in love while plotting to conquer Victorian England. It features ragtag mobs, stuff blowing up, and an epic romance in the vein of Kermit and Miss Piggy. The female MC is a brawler and the male MC is a gentleman inventor with a sunshine personality. Perfect for when you want to transition from feel-good family entertainment to mature, thematically intense adult fare. :D
The biggest Muppets-inspired payoff is in book 4. If you’re a fan of that one scene in The Muppet Movie featuring Animal doing a particular huge thing, then you’ll want to check out A Villainous Affair. The story also features an adorable mutt who provides a bit of comic relief, so he’s Rowlf the Dog adjacent.
This weird western steampunk romance features Arthur, an automaton gunslinger sidekick who steals every scene he’s in.
Happy reading!
