Your Thoughts: Studio DC Hosted by Dylan and Cole Sprouse

[Beauregard]

I am going to state, for the record, that I have seen the show...And I am reserving judgement for now.

~Beau

 

[RedPiggy]

Disney sells fluff? Right. And Tickle Me Elmo isn't fluff at all.

Get a grip ... I was only half-serious.

Disney Channel has shows that feature clean-cut kids (Miley's dippy offscreen photo blunders notwithstanding) that espouse positive values, and parents appreciate that, and kids love the shows.

You don't need to be goth or emo to have some DEPTH. Touched By an Angel wasn't emo ... but it didn't have paper-thin characterization, either. I can appreciate "wholesomeness" ... how "Hey, look, we smiled" equals "wholesomeness" ... I just don't know.

What is so wrong with that? Honestly, the anti-Disney mania here is pretty weird, especially coming from people who are desperate to get the Muppets on TV again.

And where HAVE the Muppets been (heck, where's Mickey been? ... Disney is racist [this is SARCASM for those who don't understand the concept] against its own fictional characters!). The proof in the pudding is the fact that tweens and kids went ga-ga over "Look I sang a song" superstars and dismissed/griped about "puppets" ... yes, Disney did such a wonderful job keeping the Muppets in the public eye.

And what did mean ol' Disney do? Why, it provided the Muppets with a plum timeslot,

For less than 30 minutes ... TO INTRODUCE WELL-ROUNDED CHARACTERS WITH HISTORY. And this isn't just a gripe about the treatment of the Muppets. I don't like/know much about Disney tweens. I would have appreciated knowing THEIR history. But that's how Disney works: put someone in front of a screen ... forget about plot and characterization ... call it a show.

co-stars that guaranteed viewership even from those viewers who think Kermit is a just dumb old sock puppet their parents used to watch, and still you guys rail against the company that rescued your fixation. Amazing. Simply amazing.

And from what I've been hearing, they STILL thought Kermit ... KERMIT ... is some "dumb old sock puppet".

You know what I honestly enjoyed watching? House of Mouse. True, it was The Muppet Show with Disney characters ... but even obscure characters got even basic lives outside of their initial appearance decades ago. If a company (Henson, Disney, whatever) forgets that their characters are real, they never will be. And it making those characters real that give them sticking power. When you take away Mickey/Donald/Goofy's lives and just stick them on t-shirts, you make them irrelevant. We are "fixated" on CHARACTERS, CHARACTERS that were lovingly crafted and developed (more or less) and spent decades influencing children and adults everywhere. Now, if you want me to feel the same way about Disney's Barbie-sing-alongs ... then you need to make them CHARACTERS. Little kids might be satisfied with "Hey she sings". I am not. Teens shouldn't even be satisfied with that silliness. It's insulting. At least Zack/Cody LOOK like their supposed target age group. PLEASE don't tell me that Hannah Montana is supposed to be geared to teens. A lot of these "teen comedies" seem to be geared to 10-year-olds ... if that.

What passes for entertainment now, not just on Disney channel but on many channels, feels more like 30-minute sketches, not shows. Bumper stickers have more depth.

 

[ngreen522]

I am going to state, for the record, that I have seen the show...And I am reserving judgement for now.

~Beau

I second that!
... but I will say, when it was all said and done, I walk away feeling somehow ... empty

 

[Beauregard]

Can I add that I didn't have an empty feeling, I felt as if I'd been bumped by a dozen elbows.

That doesn't mean I didn't like it...I'm still formulating a reply, don't take that out of context...But I felt as if I had struggled to breath during the show due to the tight editing and weird cuts.

 

[Was Once Ernie]

That doesn't mean I didn't like it...I'm still formulating a reply, don't take that out of context...But I felt as if I had struggled to breath during the show due to the tight editing and weird cuts.

Ah, I was wondering if anyone was going to bring this up. That was my first reaction. The direction on this show was terrible. Obviously by someone who had never directed a puppet show. The cuts were so quick, you couldn't even see the puppets. (Well, what can you expect from a director named "Krash". I'll bet you anything this guy came from music videos.) I don't even know how the puppeteers performed, unless there was a camera always aimed at them and they watched that instead of the quick cutting. Just horrible.

I thought the writing was lame and the jokes lukewarm at best. The original Muppet Show did corny jokes, but at least they could sell them. These Disney Channel kids overacting couldn't sell a joke to anyone over 5.

And what age group was this aimed for? If it's the typical Disney Channel audience, then that's the wrong audience. As someone else pointed out, the average age is 6 - 10 years old, not even the tweens that are depicted in every show.

Overall, I was very disappointed. This just felt like the Muppets guest starring on someone else's show... a show that was nothing more than ANOTHER 30 minute commercial for the other Disney Channel shows (which had at least 10 more minutes of actual commercials for their shows crammed into it.)

I don't think the Disney people have any idea what the Muppets are about or how to handle them.

 

[frogboy4]

Ah, I was wondering if anyone was going to bring this up. That was my first reaction. The direction on this show was terrible. Obviously by someone who had never directed a puppet show. The cuts were so quick, you couldn't even see the puppets. (Well, what can you expect from a director named "Krash". I'll bet you anything this guy came from music videos.) I don't even know how the puppeteers performed, unless there was a camera always aimed at them and they watched that instead of the quick cutting. Just horrible...

I thought the writing was lame and the jokes lukewarm at best. The original Muppet Show did corny jokes, but at least they could sell them...

I don't think the Disney people have any idea what the Muppets are about or how to handle them.

I think the quick cutting was a poorly executed effort to make the Muppets appear more "matter of fact" than puppet to an audience unimpressed by the art form. That is a common mistake made these days with the Muppets and puppetry in general. The characters sustain credibility just fine if given some breathing room.

Breathing room - that's something the Disney Channel doesn't provide in any area. The channel is like one big cluttered glossy pull-out ad found in the middle of the Sunday paper - a whole lot of color and "look at me" without anything really of note.

Still, I wouldn't say that Disney doesn't know how to handle the property these days. I think they learned something recently:

The Muppets have been sitting on the Mouse's shelf, making only minor appearances until fan Segel noticed and pitched a film. Disney brass was impressed, decided to allow him to further the property in ways they haven't understood. Disney is not good with blind-faith efforts. The recent YouTube uploads and Muppets.com clips can only take the characters so far. This Studio DC Almost Live project is target marketing intended to merge the Muppets with properties geared toward their key demographic. It wasn't meant for much more than that. I just wish it had been.

In a nutshell - I see Disney as laying the groundwork they can so that people better equipped to make actual product will receive an adequate audience of old fans and newcomers. It’s kind of a non-handling-handling of them.

 

[RedPiggy]

I think the quick cutting was a poorly executed effort to make the Muppets appear more "matter of fact" than puppet to an audience unimpressed by the art form. That is a common mistake made these days with the Muppets and puppetry in general. The characters sustain credibility just fine if given some breathing room.

And the weird thing is, someone said that kids "didn't get it" ... which actually provides me with both joy and irritation. Irritation that no one seems to appreciate the Muppets, but JOY that kids found it hard to figure out ... HELLO ... it was hard to figure out because it was a poorly written plot! The fact that kids picked up on that tells me that, had the special made sense, they would have liked the characters more.

Breathing room - that's something the Disney Channel doesn't provide in any area. The channel is like one big cluttered glossy pull-out ad found in the middle of the Sunday paper - a whole lot of color and "look at me" without anything really of note.

Exactly ... though it's hardly a Disney problem. I pray the Hensons have better luck with the Fraggles and such.

The Muppets have been sitting on the Mouse's shelf, making only minor appearances until fan Segel noticed and pitched a film. Disney brass was impressed, decided to allow him to further the property in ways they haven't understood. Disney is not good with blind-faith efforts. The recent YouTube uploads and Muppets.com clips can only take the characters so far. This Studio DC Almost Live project is target marketing intended to merge the Muppets with properties geared toward their key demographic. It wasn't meant for much more than that. I just wish it had been.

And, if you want to prove that the Muppets aren't "just for kids" ... introducing them to a bunch of elementary school-aged kids seems a weird choice.

 

[a_Mickey_Muppet]

It used to be the practice under Jim Henson and the Creature Shop that there usually wouldn't be multiple puppets for any given character. When one puppet would wear out a new one would be built using parts from the older one. This does not appear to be the case anymore - especially with Miss Piggy.

I remember it being said that a poser of Piggy was problematic because the company now in charge of Muppet building, Puppet Heap I think, wouldn't release the head mold due to contractual or trade secret matters. I do believe that but also think they realize that they don't have a handle on just how to build the pig yet. She keeps changing and it's not just converted posers to puppets. There were at least three Piggy heads in that special (if not four or even five). It wasn't just different wig attachments; she was an entirely different headed pig. She didn't look too bad, but she could have looked better like in my recent comp. The other puppets seem to look pretty good this time out except Kermit looked kind of portly in his blue outfit.

I don't think Disney is the type of company that would be comfortable with having only one puppet of each character. This may come from them.

Yeah Jamie, I to did notice that about Piggy's head looked like it kept changing! I knew I WASNT losing it haha! In the "Bop to the Top" number Piggys head and ears looked alight (maybe the Piggy puppet from IAVMMCM) and then after she said "I'll show her how to shake some booty!" her eyes and ears looked off to me. But last years Piggy head (from Americas Got Talent) her eyes and head looked bad to me...I got it taped, so I popped it in this afternoon and she looked off again to me...maybe her eyes...thay looked BIG or something?


EDIT: btw, isn't some of the Puppet Heap people old Henson puppet/muppet builders? hmmm...

 

[Luke]

Whatever has been said about the content or reception of this special, just have to say massive respect to Steve Whitmire - he must have put so much effort into this learning Bop To The Top and all the exact choreography. I think it looked like Asheley Tisdale put a lot of effort into being able to work with the Muppet as well and really had some chemistry going. Mileys performance just seemed a bit over-reacted, like they put her in a studio, told her to stand next to "this puppet" and do whatever moves or facial expressions, lol.

It does pain me a bit to see kids commenting on Youtube saying things like "and when the Jonas brothers said to the puppet" when they are referring to the Miss Piggy. Didn't really realise how much time has moved on, even since the Muppets last did a special or movie that had a decent audience. *sigh*

 

[Super Scooter]

Mileys performance just seemed a bit over-reacted, like they put her in a studio, told her to stand next to "this puppet" and do whatever moves or facial expressions, lol.

That's actually kinda the way she acts in her show, too. I watched enough of it over the last month looking for "Studio DC" commercials.

Whitmire's performance in Studio DC was fantastic! Just brilliant. Definitely a highlight of the show.