Is All Hope Lost Since Lady Gaga Teamed with the Muppets on Thanksgiving Night?

Maybe you fell victim to yet another tryptophan-induced coma and missed it.

Or maybe you circled the date on your 2013 wall calendar with a big neon marker and wouldn't have skipped it for all the meat dresses in vegan land.

But wherever you fall on that continuum, Lady Gaga actually performed with the Muppets on Thanksgiving night, and the postmortem hasn't been terribly kind so far.

The preview for the ABC "Holiday Spectacular," shown below in a clip from The View, depicts one of the kiddie-fave creatures, appendages all over Gaga's bare leg, getting decidedly adult in conversation with the host:

But Gaga has her quickly fading new album "ARTPOP" to promote, so whatever works, some might say.

The Hollywood Reporter wasn't happy with the quality of dialogue: "But just as it's not easy being green, it's not easy being scriptless either. Without checking the historical record, I can't say for certain whether this script was literally borrowed from one of John Davidson's old '70s Christmas specials with the Muppets."

Then THR goes for the jugular: "I do know he didn't grope his own bosom during a musical number though, so at least Gaga established one new Thanksgiving tradition."

Come again? She couldn't have. But oh yes she did.

Gaga's performance of "MANiCURE" during the special included a not-so-subtle hand-to-body move as she sang "touch me in the dark, put your hands all over my body parts...":

Image source: ABC via YouTube

Gaga did remove her hand for the lines "throw me on the bed, squeeze, tease and please me–that's what I said," so there's always that.

Still not convinced? Okay, here's the clip.

(And check out the camera as it inches up her body during the aforementioned portion of the song, as well as those two curmudgeonly gents in the balcony who add more double-entendre flavor to what seems to have once been a family-friendly affair):

And a parting shot from THR: "If the 90 seemingly endless minutes of Lady Gaga and the Muppets Holiday Spectacular had a predecessor, it might be the long-suppressed Star Wars Christmas Special, though nothing here was so outrageously wrong (or right) that people will still be bootlegging this one in 35 years’ time."

This post has been updated.

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