Muppets Revisited

[theprawncracker]

So, I'm lost.
Is this album still happening, or is it all just a pipe-dream at this point?

Yes, it is still happening, but like with a lot of merchandise already announced it probably won't be coming out until much closer to the release of the new movie, which is next Christmas.

 

[Drtooth]

That's not really a good thing to over hold everything for over a year. Strategically holding a few things, toys for example is a good way to go, but Season 4 and this CD... if something goes down, we may not see either for longer than that. And again, in the case of the TV series, we have an entire OTHER season and another series after that on top of "complete Series set" options that can easily serve those roles.

Now, we ALL know the movie is happening. But does anyone remember what happened with the Blind Box Fraggle set that was strategically supposed to come out closer to the movie? We had no movie AND no figurine set. Something to think about.

 

[Nick22]

i think maybe they should release things gradually leading up to the movie, not everything at once. i mean honestly. it's september, and the original release date was february. but the time the thing actually comes out, people will have already lost interest.

 

[Frogpuppeteer]

well i wouldn't say lose interest Disney knows well and good that Muppet fans will always buy the merch no matter what...from the way i see it, the reason most stuff is being pushed back to the movie's release is so the general audience outside the Muppet fandom will know about it and in Disney's eyes that way they can sell more of said products...i know either way the wait sucks but from the selling point of view it makes sense

 

[frogboy4]

My thinking is that this music could easily make it onto the Muppet film soundtrack so maybe they're waiting for that.

 

[Drtooth]

i think maybe they should release things gradually leading up to the movie, not everything at once. i mean honestly. it's september, and the original release date was february. but the time the thing actually comes out, people will have already lost interest.

Exactly. We shouldn't have everything released at once BEFORE, DURING, or AFTER the movie. I'd hate to see everything lumped in as "movie merchandise" which is vastly becoming a dirty word, by the way... any Disney Store plush or figurines, the Koosh things... those are fine. But to have to wait for both a DVD and CD that were supposed to come out this year? Some of us will lose interest, and some of us will be too annoyed to want it any more.

Releasing things slowly as a pre-hype IS the way too go. Not too soon, not too late. Toy merchandise closest to the movie. Goodness knows, we've got a lot of Smurf stuff before they even wound up writing a script (which they clearly threw together last minute). We even had some Marvin the Martian shirts before the movie was put on permanent hiatus. A CD and a DVD aren't going to lose any purchases if they're released before this Christmas season... they might thrive.

And I doubt they're anything to do with the soundtrack. In fact, I'd hate to have the movie made up of other musicians covering old Muppet songs. I'd much rather see them perform their OWN songs and new ones at that.

 

[frogboy4]

Exactly. We shouldn't have everything released at once BEFORE, DURING, or AFTER the movie. I'd hate to see everything lumped in as "movie merchandise" which is vastly becoming a dirty word, by the way... any Disney Store plush or figurines, the Koosh things... those are fine. But to have to wait for both a DVD and CD that were supposed to come out this year? Some of us will lose interest, and some of us will be too annoyed to want it any more.

Releasing things slowly as a pre-hype IS the way too go. Not too soon, not too late. Toy merchandise closest to the movie. Goodness knows, we've got a lot of Smurf stuff before they even wound up writing a script (which they clearly threw together last minute). We even had some Marvin the Martian shirts before the movie was put on permanent hiatus. A CD and a DVD aren't going to lose any purchases if they're released before this Christmas season... they might thrive.

And I doubt they're anything to do with the soundtrack. In fact, I'd hate to have the movie made up of other musicians covering old Muppet songs. I'd much rather see them perform their OWN songs and new ones at that.

It needs to be focused. Disney's actually very good at this sort of promotion. They want to give this a solid steady push rather than the sporadic, diluted efforts of the past. That just leaves people unimpressed or feeling they've already seen enough Muppeting for a while. I know, perish the thought, but the average person's attention span isn't what it used to be. Heck, these days CNN and TMZ are practically the same thing! I'm glad that Disney's trying to build a solid structure for the Muppets instead of cheap direct-to-vid movies or pimpin' them out to Pizza Hut.

 

[Drtooth]

Ah, I see. Though, I really think a regular release schedule wouldn't interrupt either. If they do indeed plan to dump everything before the movie, it's gonna backfire just as well. Plus, if they planned this all along, they shouldn't have announced anything so solid as saying it's coming out such and such a month or such and such a year... while the general public casual buyers might not mind (they probably only find out about it when it hits stores anyway) it sends a mixed message that they're not confident enough for the stuff to speak for itself without a movie or major project to back it up. That could in turn spell disaster for the film as well.

 

[BobThePizzaBoy]

I have no problem with a wait. A huge promotional push would only benefit a movie like this.

Think about Toy Story 3. We got a teaser a year before the movie but that's all we heard from that movie for a while. The 3D re-release of the first two movies was obviously a huge ad for Toy Story 3 but came and went before the end of the month. Disney has still been consistently pushing the Toy Story franchise for 15 years but the really big push for Toy Story 3 didn't really start until the Blu-ray releases of the first movie where the marketing went into mainstream full power and that was three months before the movie came out.

Despite not as being potent as Toy Story yet, Disney has been pushing the Muppet franchise ever so slightly probably so that it can explode in September-October 2011. I'm sure we'll get a teaser this year but I think having a bigger push once the movie comes closer and putting out all the new stuff in one big blow with minor things leading to that is the better approach.

 

[Drtooth]

It works for some things, not others. There are people who basically still don't know about Disney's ownership of the franchise. Plus, they managed to keep a steady stream of TS merchandise even before it was announced Pixar would take on the script. TS has never really left the public eye and it's only a movie franchise. Sure, the third movie and rerelease to theaters in 3-D of the first too had a hand in a lot of main store merchandising.

And I really agree that toys, books, games, stuff like that need that kind of release just before the movie. The DVD set and this recording don't sound like they need it, nor should they be subjected to that sort of wait. The DVD especially, because it really turns off collectors to have big long breaks in between seasons. Be they strategic, or based on some idiotic legal mumbo jumbo.... Look at how long it took Bullwinkle's fourth season, without any fan fare, to be released, thanks in part to the demise of Sony Wonder. And again, the DVD... we have another full season to get to. Even without Muppets Tonight, TMS complete series and single disk casual collections, and re-re-releases of the movies, they still have one season that would work perfectly.

I get strategy and I get waiting (chances are I wasn't going to get the CD anyway... I'd rather the ORIGINAL music, thank you), but 2 1/2-3+ years for a DVD release is ridiculous no matter what's going down.