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

[Dominicboo1]

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.

GOSH NOT MUPPETVISION PLEASE NO! .

 

[Duke Remington]

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.

I disagree.

 

[beaker]

GOSH NOT MUPPETVISION PLEASE NO! .

Well word is muppet vision 3d has been replaced by (ughhh) Frozen. Maybe a petition can get started. Maybe it's just for the holidays?

 

[beaker]

I think the best thing the Muppets could do at the moment is take over the internet with viral videos, lots and lots of viral videos. Pigs in Space, Swedish Chef Kitchen, Muppet Labs, Fozzie's jokes, Gonzo's stunts, vet's hospital, Electric Mayhem songs basically they need to bring TMS online. Also and this is probably the fan in me talking but a Muppet 60 Year Celebration TV special would be incredible, along the same lines as the TV special celebrating 30 years... actually I'm going to watch this now, it's been a very long time since I have.

Hopefully then they can have their own TV show once they've built up a bigger fanbase with their viral videos and figure out what works and what doesn't. Once they have a tv show then you give them another movie with a lot of merchandise, i want to walk into the Disney Store and purchase Sam the Eagle, Sweetums and Lew Zealand merchandise.

I agree, we need more 2008/2009 muppet period viral youtubes

 

[beaker]

Like I always say. Disney doesn't just release big name films every year. There's always a quiet family film or two somewhere in the shuffle that costs little, makes little, and doesn't interfere with Pixar or Marvel films. The Muppets would be a great spot for that. It shouldn't be treated as a Lone Ranger/John Carter level of loss since even MMW made 20 mil back internationally and just almost back its budget domestic. Bad timing screwed the movie, sure, but Disney has lost larger amounts of money before. Even some of those got second chances on DVD.

I'll admit I'm very disappointed in the merchandising, but we actually got some. I still fail to see why they didn't make smaller, cheaper bean bags of characters instead of large dolls, but that seems to be everything they're doing now. Not even with big Hero 6. You'd think small Baymax plushes would be obvious, but... Meanwhile, let's look at it this way. Considering how FR is marketed under Henson we'd probably only see high scale merchandise no one could afford that never comes out. Sucks we're not in the 2002 merchandising blitz where we were actually complaining about how much stuff was coming out and how cheap everything that wasn't Palisades was. Now if we see a crappy dollar magnet set at target, it's huge news.

Dude, let's be honest. There was hardly any merchandise. I should have known better but I was hoping/expecting merchandise THIS time around as we were promised. "well well uh if The Muppets 2011 is successful then next movie we'll get tons of merch!" uh yeah freaking right.

I've seen tonnns of Big Hero 6 merch, which im ok with as i like the designs.

2002-2005 was the BEST time to be a muppet merch collecting fan since the late 70s and 80s, bar none.

yeah hensons dropped the ball on FR so many times I wonder if maybe they should just stop trying.

 

[beaker]

For the record I loved Letters to Santa, all the 2008 Muppets.com skits and the recent Muppets Disney Drive so I don't get why they can't do a new tv series.

 

[dwayne1115]

Well I think these little insertts that they will be doing for Disney will be a start.

 

[Muppet Master]

I saw a Kermit plush at Walmart the other day, but seriously, just get the muppets streaming, since that is the only way people watch stuff anymore.

 

[WalterLinz]

Guys...let's just all be grateful that Disney didn't give up on The Muppets all thanks to those recently announced shorts.

I'm so happy that those will have the same hilarious, crazy, heart-warming persona of the characters. Also you can never go wrong with Bill Barretta directing these!

 

[Mr Sweetums]

in my opinion Mr Barretta should be directing a lot more than just Disney Junior Muppet Inserts, those Toyota commercials were amazing