Why did MFS and EIG bomb so bad?

[GonzoLeaper]

I liked both "Muppets From Space" and "The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland". But I will say "Follow That Bird" is still my favorite of the two Sesame Street movies- probably because I grew up with that one. But on the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised with "The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland" when I finally saw it because it wasn't nearly as bad or necessarily Elmo-centric as I thought it might have been. I loved Ernie and Bert's interjections and it was neat to see such an exploration of the inside of Oscar the Grouch's trash can and the world of Grouchland. It kind of makes you wonder why he chooses to live on Sesame Street rather than join the rest of the grouches in Grouchland. Is he an ambassador for them? Or does he just like to be grouchy and make everything miserable for the rest of the Sesame Street denizens? Or could it be- somewhere way deep down- Oscar really does like and love the Sesame Street gang- and they are his family, whether he admits it or not.
But "Muppets From Space" was great too- I saw that in theaters and loved it. I particularly enjoyed the musical numbers- "Brickhouse" and "Celebration"- two great funky songs from the late '70s and early '80s. It so happened that those two are some of my favorite songs and it was fun to see the Muppets singing them. It would have been nice to have some original songs (like I really would have loved to have Gonzo do his reprisal of "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" like was released on CD) but I really loved the Noah's Ark scene- that was very fitting. And I love that Gonzo found his alien family but even after finding them finally and realizing the thing he'd been longing for for so long- he came to realize that he had already found belonging and acceptance and a family- with the Muppets. That was a great lesson in itself- something that Sesame Street also teaches quite well. I like that.

 

[Muppet Master]

MFS flopped for a few reasons. First, it got mixed reviews, well let me clear that up, its R.T. rating currently is 63% which is a fresh rating (barely), but a lot of the fresh reviews come from 1/1/2000, so at the time the film was actually in theaters it had probably a rotten rating of 40-50%, not good, which drove audiences away. Next, the adverstising was low, all they had was Kermit and Gonzo on the wheel and Andie Macdowell on Late Night, not good. Finally, it faced Tarzan which was highly successful and better critical wise, I mean it also appealed to kids more, I mean I remember someone commenting on Youtube that when they saw Gonzo being struck by lightening in the theater as a kid they went to Tarzan instead, so ya MFS got pummeled, but continues to thrive on store shelves, considering that MFS along with MTM are usually the only muppet movies at Walmart or Target both in the $5 bin, so I could imagine a family buying it for a family movie night, and clearly enjoying it. EIG was a whole different story. That film first was plain bad. Then, it was basically a 17 min. longer episode of SS or an extended Elmo's World segment. Why would parents waste their hard earned money on a film when their child could watch it on their TV like three times a day, and considering the target audience of the film it would make no difference for your 3-year old to laugh when they see Elmo on TV for free than when they go to the big screen and watch it, I could almost imagine a parent wasting $20 worth of popcorn and tickets for their 3-year old to lose their patience before the traliers start, start crying and throwing popcorn everwhere, wow that parent just threw their $20 in the trash. Split issues, but at least both films made a decent profit on the home market, but I can see why after EIG why an SS movie was out of the question.

 

[Muppet Master]

MFS, where it had a big opening and everything turned into DTV quality after that...

That's what The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made was supposed to be somewhat like.

 

[WalterFan1234]

MFS bombed because it lacked feeling and musical numbers.

I liked EIG personally, but it isn't everyone's cup of tea so that may have messed it up. Also the fact that seeing Sesame Street in theaters is weird when you could watch it on tv. I would still see the movies in theaters though.

 

[Mr Sweetums]

I recently saw MFS again and the more I see it the more I realise I actually enjoy it very much. This movie did a very good job and reaching out to non-Muppet fans (my non-Muppet fan friends love this one (and MTI)) and to Muppet fans bringing us the Muppets playing themselves again and slowly reintroducing Rowlf, Scooter and many other "forgotten" Muppets.

Sadly what I think left everybody down was the fact that the Muppets did not go to space, I know it's called Muppets From Space but still you don't advertise a space movie and then only spend two minutes of the film in space having Gonzo talking with Cosmic Fish. I imagine that lots of people might have enjoyed the movie whist watching it the first time around but waiting for them to go to Space and never actually going there in the end probably ruined the experience for them.

As a Muppet Fan the lack of Musical Numbers was very disappointing, the fact that Gonzo was an Alien didn't really interest me but what I think disappointed most people (fans and non-fans) was the fact that the Muppets didn't go to Space.

on a personal note I hate that Clifford doesn't travel with the gang to save Gonzo, he was in so much of the movie, he deserved to be there.

 

[WalterFan1234]

I recently saw MFS again and the more I see it the more I realise I actually enjoy it very much. This movie did a very good job and reaching out to non-Muppet fans (my non-Muppet fan friends love this one (and MTI)) and to Muppet fans bringing us the Muppets playing themselves again and slowly reintroducing Rowlf, Scooter and many other "forgotten" Muppets.

Sadly what I think left everybody down was the fact that the Muppets did not go to space, I know it's called Muppets From Space but still you don't advertise a space movie and then only spend two minutes of the film in space having Gonzo talking with Cosmic Fish. I imagine that lots of people might have enjoyed the movie whist watching it the first time around but waiting for them to go to Space and never actually going there in the end probably ruined the experience for them.

As a Muppet Fan the lack of Musical Numbers was very disappointing, the fact that Gonzo was an Alien didn't really interest me but what I think disappointed most people (fans and non-fans) was the fact that the Muppets didn't go to Space.

on a personal note I hate that Clifford doesn't travel with the gang to save Gonzo, he was in so much of the movie, he deserved to be there.

I agree with the fact that the muppets not going to space makes it disappointing. They could've done so many cool things with the movie, but they just decided to make gonzo an alien.

The lack of musical numbers is absolutely terrible, because of a lot of the best muppet moments are them singing.

I always thought gonzo was a turkey because of his chicken obsession, but the fact that he is an alien was disappointing.

 

[Muppet Master]

Sadly what I think left everybody down was the fact that the Muppets did not go to space, I know it's called Muppets From Space but still you don't advertise a space movie and then only spend two minutes of the film in space having Gonzo talking with Cosmic Fish. I imagine that lots of people might have enjoyed the movie whist watching it the first time around but waiting for them to go to Space and never actually going there in the end probably ruined the experience for them.

After watching the film for the first time May 2013, yes that did let me down, I mean I was really looking forward to some space action scenes. After I watched it more times it didn't bother me at all, but that one first time I saw it, I was crestfallen. I don't know why more people don't bring this up, all I hear is how there was no music, but what about going into space? When the VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray cover of a film has the characters IN SPACE IN A SPACESHIP and the START MENU HAS THE MAIN CHARACTER BEING SUCKED BY A SPACESHIP then I think the characters should at least go to space, besides as part of the opening credits or a hallucination sequence, it's very misleading, but it just goes to show you, you can't judge the film by the VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray cover. For the record, when I watched the trailer a billion times in anticipation of watching the film, I thought when the aliens sang celebration that they were in space!

 

[LouisTheOtter]

Mrs. Otter and I saw Elmo in Grouchland for the first time last night so I figured I'd chip in with a few thoughts.

While the script and overall production were clearly mining the Elmo's World vibe and aiming for a much younger audience (which, as has been mentioned before, isn't going to sit still for a 90-minute theatrical movie), we actually enjoyed a lot of the film as adults.

Ernie and Bert's interruptions were hilarious (especially the "movie audiences don't like sad endings" bit near the end), Mandy Patinkin made a great villain (that "Mine" song at the midway point is one of my new favourite examples of a Muppet guest star knowing exactly what he signed up to do and relishing every second of it), and it was fun seeing a lot of our favourite characters mixed in with new faces. Did anything ever happen to those Muppet bugs that were Huxley's henchmen? They could have worked well in future appearances on Sesame Street IMO.

I'll echo previous comments about Elmo being rather grating in large doses, and overall EIG just felt like an underdeveloped project. So many SS characters - humans and Muppets - seemed thrown into the mix with little real purpose (Cookie Monster's role in the search party seemed overly altruistic for his character) and many times I felt the script could have used a little punching up.

Not a bad effort, though. I get what they were trying to do. But it would probably have worked better as a direct-to-video production.

 

[Oscarfan]

Did anything ever happen to those Muppet bugs that were Huxley's henchmen? They could have worked well in future appearances on Sesame Street IMO./QUOTE]

They did appear in the sing-along video released with the film's debut, the Sesame 4D show and an episode of the show in season 42.

 

[Drtooth]

Preschool character based movies never tend to do well, for obvious reasons... kids the film appeals to would be too young for a proper movie going experience, and the fact that the parents probably wouldn't want to sit for 90 minutes watching said characters or keeping their kids in check. Like I said, I've had miserable times at theaters when under 5 year olds are taken. FTB didn't exactly do much business until it hit home video, either.

I'll agree. The film seems like it was almost done and of home video quality (saw it on home video though). It really should have had more. We got some great Elmo character development (something absent from EW, and a good deal of appearances on the show proper), some nice sly humor... but they tried to make it the same faux interactivity that EW has, Elmo spends too much of the movie alone with no one to talk much too, and the B story with the other Sesame Street characters ends too fast and gets no development. But then again, if quality equaled Box Office draw, Scott Pilgrim would have been a smash hit, and there wouldn't be 4 Transformer movies.