Ok well, I'm really glad I got to see LMM finally! But...I have to say I agree with Jim on this one. The animation was bringing it all down. It wasn't bad in itself, but the puppetry came off better. And then there wasn't even enough of the puppets, at least in this first episode. The monster siblings seemed really likeable!
Muppet Babies had more wit behind it, as an animated series.
Well, I have to say the cartoons weren't too good. they were pretty good, but not great. The one thing that confused me was they clearly had Richard Hunt narrating the Animal Segment, while Animal was performed by someone else than the original puppeteer. I did like Hearing Frank Welker's voice opposite Frank Oz's, though. Huge Frank Welker fan, here.
Personally, I wish there was some way they just edited down the cartoon segments and used them as Muppet babies wrap-arounds or something. They do have a Muppet Babies quality of writing- case in point, Fozzie's riddle that wound up solving the mystery. he even had dialogue similar to his Baby Counter Part (the "Give up?" betwixt the punchline and set up... mmmmmm Twix..).
Another thing... I wonder why Jim didn't edit down most of the live action muppet segments for some sort of Video release, or wrap around segments for VHS releases. I have to admit, I think I liked those best (but mainly, I loved Fozzie and Gonzo's different segments).
Come to think of it, I looked up on Muppet Wiki, and found
this unfinished pilot for an animated muppet series. I have to say this... those designs are cool and all, but I like how the muppets looked here much better. I mean, not so much the style of animation (I loved Miss Piggy's Anime style facial expressions- nothing extreme thoug... and I loved the subtlety of Animals's moving hair when he was flipping over the bar).
I swear, a Pigs in Space animated series did have potential. Imagine if they did it similar in fashion to the Star Trek series, using the original actors for voice artists.