Back To Square One?(The Muppets' 60th Anniversary)

[beaker]

Earlier in the year I penned a thread called "Disney is Doing everything Right".

Well...as we head into the SIXTY year anniversary of the Muppets, it now feels like
we're back to square one.

- As we head into the holiday retail season, despite two newer Muppet films there will
be virtually no Muppet merchandise in stores.

- No new Muppet projects have even been hinted at(no planned specials, movies, certainly not the tv show)

- Rumors persist of Muppet Vision 3d closing for good soon to make way for Frozen 3D
(the dream of Muppet expansion in a Disney park seems dead)

- Disappointing Muppets Most Wanted box office seems to have scared off Disney from
pushing forward with any major Muppet plans for now

Then again, the blockbuster box office and critic review response for 2011's The Muppets didn't exactly bring us much new merchandise or any closer to a new tv series, tv specials or new Muppet tv show home releases.

So my questions to you:

1. What now? What can we expect from Disney?
2. What would you like to see for the 60th anniversary of the Muppets?

Given it's the 60th annv. of Disneyland, I'm guessing most the celebration
marketing will be going toward that.

 

[Drtooth]

- Disappointing Muppets Most Wanted box office seems to have scared off Disney from
pushing forward with any major Muppet plans for now

The thing that bugs me about it is this.

The movie had poor timing, let's face it. But they fluffed the international campaign completely. Most movies that flop in the US manage to make back their budget or become minor hits on the global scale. Look at The Edge of Tomorrow, which did well everywhere but here because it wasn't an emotionally manipulative cancer flick based on yet another crappy YA novel. Planes 2 also flopped in the US, but because they released it on a global scale it managed to double its low budget. Even then, barely.

I get that Frozen was a hit, it spoke to people, and it was Disney's most profitable film in years that wasn't Marvel related. Planes wasn't. NO ONE likes Planes, I never see kids flocking over to Planes merchandise, no one talks about Planes except to say how much it sucks. Cars made legit money both times and its toyetic nature makes sure it continues to be a money making venture on the merchandise alone. But NO ONE likes Planes. They have to merge Planes and Cars to sell the Planes stuff. And guess what Disney keeps shoving down our throats? Planes!

I don't expect Disney to do much with the Muppets after a disappointing actually made back it's budget and change and is probably continuing to make money on home video. What needs to be understood is that any family film not Frozen or Lego (or Squirrel Nut Heist garbage) has underperformed this year, and quite a bit of these films, ones with bigger budgets, failed to crack the 17 million opening mark. More families are waiting for Netflix and Redbox. The entire box office take for the year is significantly down, and it took until August for a film to crack 300 million domestically (Iron Man 4 finished over 400 mil).

 

[CensoredAlso]

2. What would you like to see for the 60th anniversary of the Muppets?

What they have done with every older franchise in history. Market and feature the projects that are considered their best work. Nickelodeon had the right idea rerunning Muppet Show. That is main reason why kids of my generation were familiar with the show at all.

Or, you go the Looney Tunes route, by introducing new characters that had the same spirit (Tiny Toon and Animaniacs). Both proved very successful with audiences. The Muppets essentially already did this with Bear in the Big Blue House.

What has rarely worked are attempts at modernizing old characters. Those attempts are typically the butt of punchlines for any franchise.

The Muppets (2011) worked because it tapped into audience nostalgia, and their frustration at the current state of entertainment.

 

[Drtooth]

Or, you go the Looney Tunes route, by introducing new characters that had the same spirit (Tiny Toon and Animaniacs). Both proved very successful with audiences. The Muppets essentially already did this with Bear in the Big Blue House.

Time has been very kind to Tiny Toons. You realize that it was met with a LOT of vitriol and venom from classic LT fans. I'm glad it found an older audience when it did, though. But some LT fans won't accept anything past the fifties (and with the stuff they made in the 60's, you just can't blame them).

But anyway, the BIGGEST problem was that they spent all this time marketing the Muppets to older audiences that they forgot to do anything more kid friendly. Slapping them on Go-gurt wasn't getting the kids excited for them (though those ones did manage to sell briskly). And I agree, they should have released the rest of the series on DVD by now, and if they still don't want to, there's always Netflix. Dinosaurs is on Netflix right now, but those are all ones released on DVD.

 

[Rugratskid]

Honestly... I've never liked Disney owning the Muppets permanently; I would have been fine with Disney owning the rights for a few years, and then The Muppets go back to the Jim Henson company; that way, Disney made them popular, but they are still with their original owners. I don't have a problem with Sesame Workshop, because Sesame Street was something totally different from The Muppets. For some reason, having The Muppets and Fraggle Rock owned by different people really bothers me. Maybe it's just the fact that the Fraggles get very little attention, but hey, that's just me.


If I'm gonna be fully truthful, I'm kinda sick of The Muppets...

Before someone starts yelling at me, let me explain. The Muppets always take the spotlight; I know they were the biggest of Jim's creations (with Sesame Street not far behind), but we need to give his other things a chance to shine. It shouldn't ALWAYS be The Muppets; I could rant more about it, but I won't.

 

[minor muppetz]

Or, you go the Looney Tunes route, by introducing new characters that had the same spirit (Tiny Toon and Animaniacs). Both proved very successful with audiences. The Muppets essentially already did this with Bear in the Big Blue House.

Little Muppet Monsters was sort of like that, with the stars being new monster characters, and the Muppets playing supporting roles (and primarily featured in animated segments). The Jim Henson Hour and Muppets Tonight also had a lot more focus on the new characters than on established characters, and those shows didn't last long.

Time has been very kind to Tiny Toons. You realize that it was met with a LOT of vitriol and venom from classic LT fans. I'm glad it found an older audience when it did, though. But some LT fans won't accept anything past the fifties (and with the stuff they made in the 60's, you just can't blame them).

I didn't realize that Tiny Toons had so much dislike. I liked the show, but preferred the classic Looney Tunes (and Animaniacs) over it. And I am a big fan of the late-1960s Looney Tunes.

For some reason, having The Muppets and Fraggle Rock owned by different people really bothers me. Maybe it's just the fact that the Fraggles get very little attention, but hey, that's just me.

Well, Fraggle Rock has gotten a lot more attention from Henson since selling the Muppets. At least every episode of Fraggle Rock is on DVD by now. Of course Fraggle Rock has the advantage of only using original songs as opposed to covers that would need to be cleared.

 

[Muppet fan 123]

Everybody needs to relax. I'm bummed that's it taking so darn long for Disney to finally come out an say something about the future of the Muppets, but I'm sure this isn't the end.

I was pretty concerned about it as well, but to be honest, the Muppets are still something that Disney is invested in. They're interested in making the Muppets great again, and I think they would be interested in new Muppety things. I think it's safe to say that there's no new movie on the horizon for the next 2-3 years, but this is also coming off the fact that Disney's future is much more large scale and a much more profitable one (Star Wars, Marvel, Frozen etc).

There were rumors of a Muppet TV show in the works *as reported by Collider.com in an interview with Nick Stroller). I wouldn't be surprised if Disney actually does this. I think they'll want more Muppet stuff, but as far as theatrical films, they're more interested in Marvel Phase Three and the new Star Wars films.

 

[Drtooth]

Honestly... I've never liked Disney owning the Muppets permanently; I would have been fine with Disney owning the rights for a few years, and then The Muppets go back to the Jim Henson company; that way, Disney made them popular, but they are still with their original owners. I don't have a problem with Sesame Workshop, because Sesame Street was something totally different from The Muppets. For some reason, having The Muppets and Fraggle Rock owned by different people really bothers me. Maybe it's just the fact that the Fraggles get very little attention, but hey, that's just me.

Here's what Henson would have done with the Muppets. Years and years of looking for scripts followed by years and years of saying one of them is in production followed by years and years of waiting for nothing to happen. At the very least, we would have seen one not that great TV special that we couldn't get excited about. Worst case scenario, they would have made the movie under Weinstine. And again, follow the Fraggle Rock movie story for reasons that was a bad idea.

I'm grateful Disney actually tried and am hugely disappointed that it freaked the crap out that it only made 20 million over the budget internationally (poor babies) that it's all but tossing the franchise aside. I agree a movie in the future may be a stretch (but raucous family comedy crap like Alexander and the etc etc Day will continue to get made), but there's still venues for the characters. The internet and comics worked great for them before TM's release, they can surely do that again.

Then again, we're talking about the same company that's just tossed Phineas and Ferb aside, considering how much money that thing has made in merchandising over the years. It was the show that brought back Disney TV Animation after years of crap identical tweenybopper shows (that it still has, but no longer floods the market). And Gravity Falls and Wander over Yonder are cult hits that would see better ratings if they weren't on the channel no one gets.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Little Muppet Monsters was sort of like that, with the stars being new monster characters, and the Muppets playing supporting roles (and primarily featured in animated segments). The Jim Henson Hour and Muppets Tonight also had a lot more focus on the new characters than on established characters, and those shows didn't last long.

That doesn't mean the idea isn't sound.

 

[muppetperson]

Honestly... I've never liked Disney owning the Muppets permanently; I would have been fine with Disney owning the rights for a few years, and then The Muppets go back to the Jim Henson company; that way, Disney made them popular, but they are still with their original owners. I don't have a problem with Sesame Workshop, because Sesame Street was something totally different from The Muppets. For some reason, having The Muppets and Fraggle Rock owned by different people really bothers me. Maybe it's just the fact that the Fraggles get very little attention, but hey, that's just me.

What you have just said proves ownership doesn't necessarily alter anything. You mentioned that Fraggle Rock isn't getting much attention under the Jim Henson Company, so the same can happen with The Muppets.
I guess Disney are just giving the Muppets a breather so people don't get sick of them.