Your Thoughts: The Muppet Show Season 2

[CensoredAlso]

Well honestly I've seen that with many DVD sets, the first one's great, and then they relax a bit on the second. To be honest, I felt the same way about the Fraggle sets. The Extras for Season 1 were phenomenonal. Season 2 was also great, but not quite as extensive. But then Season 3 was awesome. So maybe there's hope.

 

[frogboy4]

Besides the way I understand the songs cut on season 1 were unable to be cleared. In other words they were un-negotiable at any price.

Really? That makes me want to write a letter. I'm not much for boycotts etc, but I put my foot down when it comes to hosing the Muppets - especially projects from the Jim era. However there could be an internal tug-of-war over song rights between the song writers and record companies. That wouldn't surprise me. Why do I think this wouldn't be an issue if Jim Henson were still around?

I don't think releases are diminished by a lack of extras or special features. I like the Muppet Show. Oooh, also for trivia, the 2008 day calendar has some. Don't know how much, but some.

 

[Bigmouth]

OK. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who was annoyed by the lack of subtitles during the songs.

I'm wondering if it´s leagal of Disney to print that the dvd has subtitles in "English for the hearing impaired" when a deaf person doesn't stand a chance to follow the plot in the numbers without the lyrics.

 

[David French]

I honestly can't understand why they would establish something within a collectable series if they were not all in agreement that it was to be part of each and every installment

Easy - different producers have different ideas. Besides, we don't know that it had been established that the Morsels would be on every set; we just took it for granted that they would be.

Really? That makes me want to write a letter. I'm not much for boycotts etc, but I put my foot down when it comes to hosing the Muppets - especially projects from the Jim era. However there could be an internal tug-of-war over song rights between the song writers and record companies. That wouldn't surprise me. Why do I think this wouldn't be an issue if Jim Henson were still around?

Even if he were still alive this would *still* be an issue. Music rights don't just change especially for someone famous like Henson.

 

[frogboy4]

Easy - different producers have different ideas. Besides, we don't know that it had been established that the Morsels would be on every set; we just took it for granted that they would be.



Even if he were still alive this would *still* be an issue. Music rights don't just change especially for someone famous like Henson.

I never said the rights would change. I just feel that companies or songwriters that hold them might have been more willing to negotiate with Jim Henson (and his representatives) than a corporate giant like Disney. No, Jim wasn't magic, but he did seem to have a light charismatic touch with people.

 

[Rowlfharris]

I am starting to think so! I'd be interested in the views of uk residents who have bought this ... wonder if it might be a bad batch?

EDIT- Even the Menus`look colour saturated and far from well defined, not at all crisp. Can't be right can it?

I just bought mine in Australia (Region 2/4 same PAL release as the UK) and I noticed that the episodes do vary in quality. The colour saturation varies in intensity, the sharpness/picture quality varies from episode to episode.

This is mentioned in the reviews page of muppetcentral, and would probably happened because Disney would have acquired several copies of each episode and chose the most complete uncut versions for the DVD master. I'm happy to tolerate varying picture quality rather than have pieces of these episodes missing or edited out.

Although I've got an up-scaling DVD player and a high definition plasma TV, I found that setting the DVD player to play these in 575i (PAL standard definition interlaced) actually results in a smoother, better picture because that would be the quality that the show was originally videotaped in. So I suggest experimenting with your player or television settings.

The very blurry short curtain opening at DVD start-up is a one-off because its created as a moving full screen title graphic and is not really normal 'playing' of the DVD.

Content-wise I've never been so happy to finally get to see complete unedited episodes I haven't seen since their original broadcast in the 70's.

 

[chequepoint]

Really? That makes me want to write a letter. I'm not much for boycotts etc, but I put my foot down when it comes to hosing the Muppets - especially projects from the Jim era. However there could be an internal tug-of-war over song rights between the song writers and record companies. That wouldn't surprise me. Why do I think this wouldn't be an issue if Jim Henson were still around?

I don't think releases are diminished by a lack of extras or special features. I like the Muppet Show. Oooh, also for trivia, the 2008 day calendar has some. Don't know how much, but some.

Music rights typically have nothing to do with the record companies unless you are licensing the original recordings. In the case of any song that might be famous enough to be included on the muppet show, it was most likely the decision of the publishing company that controlled the song. Most songwriters hand off control of such matters to larger publishing companies that manage massive catalogues.

In America, songwriters are amazingly well protected, and the one thing that you can not do without the songwriter/publisher's consent is sync their song to images. BUT that being said, money is money, and these songwriters all agreed to some kind of terms in the first place. I still can't imagine why anybody would hold out, as long as disney was negotiating what they call a "favored nations" type agreement, where all songwriters were paid the same on the project. It may have been that disney tried to negotiate each song one by one to get the "best" rate, which doesn't usually sit well within that community. If they alienated one publishing company in the process, that could explain the random missing musical numbers.

This was probably too much info for everyone... but fascinating to me...

 

[frogboy4]

This was probably too much info for everyone... but fascinating to me...

No, actually I find this fascinating too and answers some questions for me. Thank you! I was just thinking Carol King was greedy or something. With sarcasm: She does some Gilmore Girls and Gap songs and gets a big head. I guess that wasn't the case. I'm glad cause I kinda like some of her stuff (don't tell anyone that).

 

[David French]

I've got the R4 version as well and am half-way through it. The picture quality does vary but that may be more down to lighting than picture quality.

One thing - there are no foreign language tracks, despite the fact that both French and Italian are included as options. I plan to get in contact with Disney DVD in Australia and see what the deal is.

 

[Telly]

I've started watching the second season for the second time.