Who owns the rights to what?

[minor muppetz]

There's a few things I wanted to say about that blog post but forgot.

The various pages from the book are obviously taken pictures (as opposed to scans), and some pages are shown multiple times, at different sizes. One particular page that appears twice in that blog begins with something that's obviously a continuation of a previous page, talking about the "Jim Henson's Scary Monsters" books... Only I can't find the first part of that section, so I don't really know what that's about (man, I've never thought or cared about Scary Monsters so much in my life).

It mentions a number of Muppet productions that The Jim Henson Company didn't have a copyright on, listing the various movies owned by other companies and Rocky Mountain Holiday, but for some reason doesn't list A Christmas Together. I wonder if that was an oversight (I believe the henson.com page about what productions Disney got mentions A Christmas Together and the other productions where other companies own the copyright). I was also surprised that it listed the Muppet movies that Disney already owned the rights to (I guess to state that Disney now has whatever Henson had regarding rights). Considering it lists what Disney got and lists productions with "third party ownership", I'm surprised that Labyrinth was listed among what Henson had the rights to. I know Henson has the rights to the characters and story and such, but I would have thought Sony had the copyright there.

Also, the documents confirm that Henson retains the rights to the Muppets from SNL. There's a letter from Jane Henson on the subject of early Muppet characters, and I'm still a bit unclear on that... It says that before Muppets Inc. was founded in 1958 Jim Henson was the self-copyright holder for the characters, and had Jane be the co-copyright holder even though Jim was the sole author and creator of the characters. There's also a bit on the "pre-Muppet Show characters", but many "Pre-Muppet Show" characters appeared on The Muppet Show and have been made famous from that show.

 

[Mo Frackle]

Interesting read. Those unmade Muppet projects sound particularly interesting (I never knew there were plans for a CG Muppet Babies test, or a Muppets Robin Hood movie). Also interesting that some of the JHH segments are given different titles.

"Outer Space" (Science Fiction)
"Oceans" (Aquatic Life)
"Power" (Monster Telethon
"First Show" (The Ratings Game... was this really the first one produced?)
"Fitness" (Health and Fitness)
"Videotape" (Musicians)

 

[minor muppetz]

The various pages from the book are obviously taken pictures (as opposed to scans), and some pages are shown multiple times, at different sizes. One particular page that appears twice in that blog begins with something that's obviously a continuation of a previous page, talking about the "Jim Henson's Scary Monsters" books... Only I can't find the first part of that section, so I don't really know what that's about (man, I've never thought or cared about Scary Monsters so much in my life).

For the most part I've clicked on pictures and then clicked on the images shown below in the bottom of the pages. Turns out another page about Scary, Scary Monsters is included, but clicking on it doesn't present a larger image. And it's quite confusing... It seems that Disney got the rights to those books, yet is not allowed to make more, and The Jim Henson Company is not allowed to do anything with them. Actually there's a bit of "legal language" I see that I don't quite udnerstand but can get the gist of.

Also interesting how it mentions three Henson biographies but not any others. Were those three (The Works, Designs and Doodles, Meet Jim Henson) the only ones in print at the time or something?

Also interesting that some of the JHH segments are given different titles.

"Outer Space" (Science Fiction)
"Oceans" (Aquatic Life)
"Power" (Monster Telethon
"First Show" (The Ratings Game... was this really the first one produced?)
"Fitness" (Health and Fitness)
"Videotape" (Musicians)

Long ago on Muppet Wiki Danny Horn had admitted that he made up all the MuppeTelevision titles when making a guide for Muppetzine, and despite that changes weren't made to the article page titles because nobody at Muppet Wiki knew what to do about it. At least "Garbage" and "Food" ended up being correct titles. I feel "Videotape" is a more appropriate title than "Musicians" (I had initially thought it'd be themed around different Muppet musicians in addition to Solid Foam).

Was surprised about the "First Show" title "(just "Ratings" would have been appropriate enough). All this time I had wondered if "Food" was really the first episode (it's the only MuppeTelevision episode with no cold open, there's no MuppeTelevision scene before the first commercial, the usual theme music doesn't play when the performer credits are shown at the beginning, there's no guest star, and this is the only episode to depict Animal and Zoot as part of Solid Foam, which also occurred in the promotion in Muppet Magazine).

 

[KremlingWhatnot]

Ah Man, There Was Originally A Bear Movie In Devolpement, WHYYYYYYY
I Would've LOVED THAT

 

[minor muppetz]

I was surprised to see that The Muppets on Puppets is not listed at all. Considering that special was included in The Muppet Show: Season Three, I wonder if that was an oversight, if Disney made a mistake, if Disney obtained the rights to that special after 2004, or if Disney had to clear the rights for the video release.

Under the listing of properties retained by Henson, it incorrectly states that Inside the Labyrinth is an installment of The Jim Henson Hour.

"Cheapest Muppet Movie" refers only to Jerry Juhl as writer, but not Jim Henson. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, since Henson wasn't credited as a writer for any of the Muppet movies. Around the time Muppets from Space was announced there were other films announced, including "The Muppets Leave Hollywood", which isn't listed by that title in the section on unfinished productions, but there is a script titled "Muppet Hollywood Intelligence". I wonder if that is the same script/idea.

Huh, no mention of "Made-for-TV Movie", a script (or treatment?) Jerry Juhl wrote in the 1970s which was intended to be broadcast on ABC. it was recently mentioned on the Jim Henson's Red Book site (in the historical section for one of the entries on "Out to Lunch") and would have starred Kermit.

Despite there being a seperate section on Muppet productions where outside companies hold the distribution rights/copyright, The Muppets at Walt Disney World and Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson were both listed under "Muppet Specials". I thought Disney always had the copyright on those.

It just now hit me that while the documents list most of the made-for-video productions, it doesn't mention "You're the Director", "Muppet Madness", the "Muppet Babies Video Storybook" series, or the Muppet Babies "Yes, I Can" intros.

What do ya know, it confirms that there are 40 episodes of Muppet Time. I wonder if this was sourced online.

 

[minor muppetz]

Thinking more about those in-development/abandoned scripts, I find it interesting how there were two scripts called "Next Muppet Movie" (well, one of them has a "The" in the title...). Also two different newer Muppet shows, I assume the one titled "Tom Martin Muppet Show" is the one that was going to air on Fox (I looked up Tom Martin on Muppet Wiki and saw that he contributed to It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie which came out when the new show was in development).

I kept looking but didn't notice Muppet Time Travel in that list until today, and knowing that the plot involved Animal going back in time and altering history so that everybody resembles him, I figured that one might have been the project listed as "Animal Origin Movie", then saw that Muppet Time Travel was listed. So there were two unfinished projects where Animal would have been the star (well, don't know if that would make him the star of the time traveling movie, but he affects the plot). Depending on when the scripts were written (I know that the time travel film was in development back in 2001) I wonder if the rest of the original five Electric Mayhem would have been heavily involved. I would like to think that Floyd would have at least had a main role.

 

[minor muppetz]

Here's some more documents from the "who owns what" book:
http://boyraisin2.blogspot.com/2013/01/more-who-owns-what.html

It shows regristrations of various copyrights, for both productions and characters. It's interesting, it doesn't seem to note the difference on whether something is a character or production. Most of the characters and productions listed are ones that Disney got or should have got, but for some reason it lists a number of characters created for the first Sesame Street Live show (without noting them as being from Sesame Street Live). I would have thought Sesame Workshop would have gotten those characters after purchasing the Sesame Street Muppets (though either way we probably won't see those characters used again). And almost every character from The Muppet Show has their date of copyright after the show began, with the exceptions of "Kermit the Muppet" (the original incarnation of Kermit, listed in addition to "Kermit the Frog") and "Harry the Muppet" (presumably Harry the Hipster), both given 1956 copyrights. Even other characters who were created before The Muppet Show (Rowlf, Baskerville, Thog, Big Java, Little Java, Mahna Mahna, and others) are copyrighted 1976 or later.

Some interesting differences in character names (or names I do't recognize):

• J.P. Grosse appears to be registered under the name J.P. Take (which seems a bit more appropriate).
• Mean Mama is listed as "Mean Mother Monster". There's also a charatcter (copyrighted 1977) listed as "offspring", whom I can only assume is Mean Mama's child from the Don Knotts episode.
• One of the listed characters is "constables", copyrighted 1980. Not sure who that is.
• Apparently, Link Hogthrob was originally to be called "Link Snout", and Beaker was originally "Booker".
• There's a "Hippy News Reporter" given the copyright date of 1977. That character must be Fleet Scribbler.
• Granny the Gougher is listed simply as "Lady Wrestler".
• There's a character labled "New Dog". I wonder which dog that is. My guess is Muppy.
• One name I don't recognize is "Miss Loui-Pop". I wonder if that's the jugband member Lou, though the files also list "Lady", which is what Lou was called in an original design sketch of the jugband (the files also list Gramps and Zeke, the only Jugband members whose names in the original design sketch matched what they would be called on-screen, but as far as I can tell (because many of the pages are hard to read) the files don't list any of the other jugband members, whether by their design sketch names or what has been said on-screen. Both "Lady" and "Miss Loui-Pop" are listed with 1977 copyrights, which would be when the jugband was introduced.

Many of the files are hard to read, due to how it is presented (the user took pictures of pages with a cell phone, and in some photos put two pages together). Too bad, I wonder if the documents reveal mysteries like the name of the Solid Foam Drummer or the Muppets Tonight Band members (or what the band's name is).

 

[Muppetboy09]

There were some...interesting domains listed in there...

 

[mupcollector1]

Very interesting. Though I'm curious, it's legal to post these documents right? Because they are sort of expired. Where did you get them? I'm guessing the copyright one is probably from the copyright.gov public database. Very interesting information, thanks for sharing.

 

[mupcollector1]

There were some...interesting domains listed in there...

Especially the internet domains. lol