Your Thoughts: The Muppets Character Encyclopedia

[minor muppetz]

I would like to say that one of his responses regarding the "Tales from Muppetland" characters sounds a bit confusing, particularly in regards to who actually owns the rights to them.

At first I thought he confirmed it as being owned by Disney.

He said the line as "they are, and were - the king, Taminella, Featherstone - on the list I sent to Disney". I wonder if he meant to say the line as "they are, and were - the king, Taminella, Featherstone - on the list I sent to, Disney". If Henson does own them (and there's not much Henson would own with those characters), then I wonder how they could have been on the original list (especially since Shemin said that he looked at a list of characters Disney has the rights to). And he said that Disney only didn't allow them because they're from productions not currently in circulation (what about YouTube?) and didn't think they're relevent to the books audience.

 

[minor muppetz]

In the interview I thought Craig Shemin said that they didn't want to do character pages comprised only by screenshots if they didn't have to, but then I've been rereading, and he says they didn't want to include screenshots unless they had to (not just if that's all they could do). But almost every character page has at least one screen shot (unless I'm mistaking stills for specialty-shot photos of certain scenes, which they seemed to do for almost every Muppet Show scene). Even a lot of the main characters have at least one screenshot photo used. The Kermit page has an image from the "Rainbow Connection" performance in The Muppets (though I can't tell whether that's a screenshot or a specialty-shot photo... I'm guessing all screenshots from The Muppets and Muppets Most Wanted are of really high quality).

Craig Shemin mentioned that if there's an odd two-page spread, it's because they had to drop a character that was going to be included on that spread. I'm guessing he's referring to the almost-blank pages next to Emily Bear, Gonzo, Penguins, and Walter (they're not really empty, most are an image of the character or related character and a small text box.... though with some, especially Gonzo, they could have put in more pictures and info). I've been thinking about who could have been next to those, and I'm guessing those spreads were going to include '80s Robot (Shemin said that they did work on an '80s Robot pahe), The Gogolala Jubilee Jugband (though they should have been on the opposite side of where the Gonzo page was), and Waldo C. Graphic (ditto). But the spread with the penguins has a big, sort-of unrelated picture of Miss Piggy from the Muppets Most Wanted opening number... the character before Penguins is Paul Revere, the character after is Pepe... and alphabetically, I can't really figure out what character might have been dropped. I checked the "The Muppets Characters" category at Muppet Wiki, and the only characters there are characters who I wouldn't expect to be in this book (the pencils from Sex and Violence - this book doesn't have any characters exclusive to the pilots, and somebody else I can't currently remember).

 

[Duke Remington]

Craig Shemin mentioned that if there's an odd two-page spread, it's because they had to drop a character that was going to be included on that spread. I'm guessing he's referring to the almost-blank pages next to Emily Bear, Gonzo, Penguins, and Walter (they're not really empty, most are an image of the character or related character and a small text box.... though with some, especially Gonzo, they could have put in more pictures and info).

I don't think so. More likely, he's referring to the two-page spreads of Kermit saying "Time's fun when you're having flies" and Animal saying "Eat drums!". In place of those two spreads, they could've included characters such as:

-Droop (ToughPigs should've asked Shemin why they were okay with the book having both Muppy and Rufus, two similar-looking characters, but not okay with Droop and Nigel the Director both being in the book--a bit of a double standard)

-Big V (again, if they're okay with both Muppy and Rufus being in the book, why not, despite Big V bearing similarities to Gorgon Heap)

-Trumpet Girl

-King Goshposh (with Featherstone being on the same page, similar to how Carter was placed on Howard Tubman's page)

-Taminella Grinderfall

-All 4 of the the Travelling Musicians (Leroy, T.R., Rover Joe & Catgut) together on one page (maybe with a brief mention of Mordecai Sledge, Lardpork, Mean Floyd & Caleb Siles, again, in a manner similar to Carter on Howard Tubman's page). Plus, T.R., Rover Joe and Catgut made appearances on The Muppet Show anyway.

I know what Shemin said about the inclusion of the Tales from Muppetland characters, but I'm just saying...

I also think that ToughPigs should've asked Shemin why Jacques Roach and Anthony & Fern made it into the book, even though they were mostly trying to steer clear of the Jim Henson Hour characters. Though you could argue that Jacques appeared in Muppet Treasure Island, but Anthony & Fern made no further appearances outside JHH.

Let's really hope that they'll get to do a second edition of the book in the very near future to include some of these missing characters (though I can still see them excluding most of the characters that originated in The Jim Henson Hour, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Muppets From Space, Kermit's Swamp Years and It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, as well as characters based on real people like The Country Trio, Spamela Hamderson, David Hogselhoff and the Elvises).

 

[Duke Remington]

He said the line as "they are, and were - the king, Taminella, Featherstone - on the list I sent to Disney". I wonder if he meant to say the line as "they are, and were - the king, Taminella, Featherstone - on the list I sent to, Disney". If Henson does own them (and there's not much Henson would own with those characters), then I wonder how they could have been on the original list (especially since Shemin said that he looked at a list of characters Disney has the rights to). And he said that Disney only didn't allow them because they're from productions not currently in circulation (what about YouTube?) and didn't think they're relevent to the books audience.

Maybe ToughPigs should've mentioned the specials being in circulation on YouTube when asking Shemin.

 

[minor muppetz]

I also think that ToughPigs should've asked Shemin why Jacques Roach and Anthony & Fern made it into the book, even though they were mostly trying to steer clear of the Jim Henson Hour characters. Though you could argue that Jacques appeared in Muppet Treasure Island, but Anthony & Fern made no further appearances outside JHH.

The Jacques Roach page does have an image from Muppet Treasure Island. It's interesting that he's the only pirate who wasn't featured in the "roll call" sequence to get a page (yeah, what's up with that? There's a lot more crew members than the ones mentioned by name during roll call, some with dialogue even). I'd be surprised if it's because he was a major character (albeit with a different name) on The Animal Show, since that's owned by Henson (and in fact he's the one character from MuppeTelevision I would have expected to see not included for that very reason).

 

[DutchMuppet]

Let's really hope that they'll get to do a second edition of the book in the very near future to include some of these missing characters (though I can still see them excluding most of the characters that originated in The Jim Henson Hour, The Muppets Take Manhattan, Muppets From Space, Kermit's Swamp Years and It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, as well as characters based on real people like The Country Trio, Spamela Hamderson, David Hogselhoff and the Elvises).

I really hope there won't be a second character encyclopedia. I think the remaining characters aren't important enough to keep me interesting in reading the book. Shemin said that the key point of the book is that it's an encyclopedia but you can read it from front to back. A book full of rare Muppets isn't so interesting.
What I do hope is that Shemin's idea for a second book will take off. If this book is a succes, there's a chance they will do a book about the making of The Muppets. Although I allready got Of Muppets and Men, The Art of the Muppets, Jim Henson: The Works and Imagination Illustrated, another book would be really awesome. Also because those books are hard to find and are a little outdated. I think Shemin called it Muppets: The Ultimate Guide. I hope they will put the money in that project, what would be awesome. And maybe you can have a segment with rare Muppets (allthough he said that a lot of characters they couldn't get the rights for) and on the last page you can read (For more muppets characters look at the other book.) A little promoting isn't that bad

 

[Duke Remington]

DutchMuppet, please stop it.

 

[galagr]

DutchMuppet, please stop it.

What on earth is he doing wrong? He's just expressing his opinion. Heck, if anything, he's right! I would love to see an Ultimate Guide to the Muppets.

Not to mention, despite the fact that I would like to see a second edition of the encyclopedia, that it would be pretty unnecessary. I really don't think they'll make an entire new encyclopedia just to include the eight or so extremely minor characters they didn't include.

 

[Oscarfan]

DutchMuppet, please stop it.

I agree, stop being realistic and focus on complaining about a book that included obscure characters, but the not the ones we obviously wanted.

 

[minor muppetz]

If that "Ultimate Guide" ends up getting made, I doubt it would have many character sections, but I could see it having bigger sections on the main characters, including behind-the-scenes stuff.