The old saying “when pigs fly” commonly refers to something that’s very unlikely to happen. But whoever coined that phrase never took into account the Muppets and their penchant for sending swine into orbit. A staple of The Muppet Show for a number of years, Pigs in Space (correctly read as “Pigs…in…SPAAAAAAAAAAACE!”) offers a profoundly ridiculous riff on a Star Trek-esque crew of porcine pioneers into that great beyond. There hasn’t been a new installment of the series for 20 years, but now the USS Swinetrek will fly once more with a new series of Pigs in Space sketches on the official Muppets YouTube channel.
The crew of Captain Link Hogthrob, First Mate Miss Piggy, and Dr. Julius Strangepork are back for more parodies of famous science fiction stories, beginning with “Alien: Look Who’s Coming to Dinner,” which will be a send up of, you guessed it, Ridley Scott’s 1979 film, Alien. This time, though, the familiar scene of gut-busting terror is replaced by that of oddball one-liners when the extraterrestrial star-beast turns out to be none other than a special Muppet guest star. (No spoilers, but it’s exactly who you’d think it would be, given size and general appearance.)
“Millions of fans around the world have been clamoring for moi to return as First Mate Piggy in Pigs In Space,” said Miss Piggy in the show’s press release. “And now their dreams have finally come true! Along with Captain Link Hogthrob and Dr. Strangepork, the Swinetrek crew will soar through space on our endless quest for adventure and the joys of weightlessness.”
You’ll get one more episode before the end of the year, next week in “The Gravity of the Situation,” which will parody the Sandra Bullock and George Clooney joint Gravity, complete with another very famous Muppet guest appearance. Surely, as Miss Piggy said, the idea of weightlessness would be pretty comforting to pigs in space.
Let us know your thoughts on the new series, and tell us what famous sci-fi movies you’d like to see the crew parody in future episodes, in the comments below!
Image: The Muppets/Disney
Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!
