Neil Patrick Harris may have the most bulletproof brand in the entertainment business: square-jawed but winsome, smart but dopey, cuddly but dirty, cynical but sincere. Plus he sings and dances.
That well-honed persona will only be bolstered by Mr. Harris's new Web series, “Neil's Puppet Dreams,†which started Tuesday on the Nerdist YouTube channel. Produced in association with the Jim Henson Company, the show demonstrates something that we could have figured out on our own: Mr. Harris and the Muppets, who share most of the qualities listed above, are a perfect match.
The simple premise is that when Mr. Harris dreams, his dreams are populated by puppets. The first video, four minutes long, covers a nighttime classic, the dream of falling, as Mr. Harris (playing himself) floats downward accompanied by a trio of winged Muppets who sing an increasingly macabre ditty about his immediate future:
Your limbs will fall off
and your organs will burst.
You'll look like an artpiece
by Damien Hirst.
(Mr. Harris's response: “Who?â€)
It's all good, inconsequential fun. Mr. Harris has been an online-video trailblazer, with his starring role in Joss Whedon's 2008 mini-musical “Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.†There's nothing revolutionary about the first installment of “Puppet Dreams,†unless you count the short lead-in to Mr. Harris's dream, in which he appears as half of a male couple (with children) alongside his real-life partner, David Burtka, who is a writer and producer of the series.
Even in the season of “The New Normal†and other mainstream shows depicting gay relationships, it feels, in its comic ordinariness and its s emi-reality, like a small act of bravery.
