With Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery set to debut on Netflix next week, fans are already speculating about where Benoit Blanc’s next case might take him. One potential idea that fans have latched onto is a crossover with The Muppets, and while Knives Out writer/director Rian Johnson has unfortunately nixed that dream, Sesame Street has made it happen. This is… Forks Out.
Forks Out: A Benoit Blanc Sesame Street Mystery
Benoit Blanc — make that Beignet Blanc — enters the world of Sesame Street to solve a mystery involving Cookie Monster’s stolen pie. “I have arrived to this street of Sesame, on a sunny day turned cloudy,” says Beignet Blanc (voiced by Sesame Street puppeteer Matt Vogel). “We have a culinary culprit in our oven mitts, and to solve this confectionery conundrum, we must look right in front of our googly eyes.” With nods to The Murder on the Orient Express and other mystery stories, it’s a fun little crossover between the two Netflix properties.
In case you forgot, Netflix picked up the streaming rights to Sesame Street earlier this year, but don’t worry, episodes of the long-running children’s show will continue to air on PBS stations as well.
Johnson did seriously consider a potential Knives Out/Muppets crossover, at least for a moment. “It’s a joke that I thought was pretty brilliant, and I ended up really giving [it] some serious thought,” Johnson said. “As much as I take the murder mystery genre seriously, I take the genre of a Muppet movie seriously. I think those two things have very different rules. You can either have a Benoit Blanc mystery that has Muppets in it, but they’ll feel out of place. Or you can have a Muppet movie that Benoit Blanc is in, but it’ll feel like a Muppet movie.“
What Did We Think of Wake Up Dead Man?
Our own Chris Bumbray reviewed the sequel last month and had a lot of fun with it. The film takes a more gothic turn this time around, with the works of Edgar Allan Poe serving as a strong influence. “Wake Up Dead Man is another wildly entertaining entry in Johnson’s Benoit Blanc mystery series, and [Josh] O’Connor might be the most compelling central character we’ve followed thus far,” Bumbray wrote. “It will no doubt please fans of the series and would certainly benefit from a robust theatrical run, as these are the kinds of films that are especially fun to watch with an audience.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.
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