Yet again, Muppet Merch is MIA this Holiday Season:(

[beaker]

We were told "don't worry about the lack of Muppet merchandise for the movie, Disney is just waiting to see if the public was interested in the movie. So dont worry, wait til next year"

Well, the public loved it. It was a big success. And whelp, here we are a year later.
Let's see, nothing at the Disney store. Target has a couple of Muppet dinner wear items.

The only new Muppet merch really, seems to be at Toys R Us where strangely they have what I personally consider some of the best Muppet plushes ever(the 7" ones)

So yeah...let me guess, "Oh well uh, next year! With the new movie!". Right.

Let's face it, we had it good 2002-2005 even when JHC was doing very poorly and there wasnt much hope for the Muppets. Its like, what has to happen for Disney to warrant merchandise???

 

[Drtooth]

I don't see why there shouldn't be more more stuff. I mean, the plush toys kept selling out last year, not continuing that item was foolish. I'm glad there are little dumb nickle and dime things and those POP figures, but they really need much more market penetration than that. I have yet to see the Muppet Children's books (the ones that aren't easy readers based on the movie) in any store.

Of course, you're probably going to be right about the merchandise being withheld for the second film. I've seen that happen quite a bit recently. Despicable Me was supposedly a hit, but I haven't seen anything but crane machine plush toys of the Minions and T-shirts that came out well after the DVD.

And let's not forget Emperor's New Groove. It's good enough for a DTV sequel and a TV series, but other than a set of Bean Bag toys that came out a year later and a Happy Meal, there's squat. And the movie made money and has a huge cult following. There wasn't so much as a t-Shirt for the 10th anniversary. Even that crappy Home on the Range got a decent spread and NO ONE bought any of it.

Still... they keep pushing Cars. And that's the thing I constantly see at deep clearance.

 

[galagr]

They're too busy keeping there 3- 10 year old boys happy with Cars and Toy Story.( sarcastic) So who needs to acknowledge other movies and franchises when you can drag the merchandise out for movies that have been beaten to death with a stick for merchandise? On the brighter side, there is a confirmed Muppets Vinylmation series 3 in late spring. Fingers crossed for a Lips vinylmation!

 

[robodog]

They do have that Kermit Pillow Pet but that's the only thing I've seen.

They need to lay off the Cars crap. I actually caught Cars 2 on TV the other day. It wasn't terrible but there's no way it deserves more merchandise than the muppets. Some of it actually bugged me. Why do the cars eat food? Why does Mater talk about eating ice cream? That hit a pet peeve of mine as a robot fan. Personifying a machine is great I love stuff like that. Robots, artificial intelligence, living machines, things like that. But I hate it when they make them too much like humans. There's a fine line you need to walk. A machine wouldn't need to eat. They require fuel, sure, but they certainly wouldn't consume the same things a human would. And here I am overanalyzing a Disney movie. I'll shut up now.

 

[Drtooth]

They need to lay off the Cars crap. I actually caught Cars 2 on TV the other day. It wasn't terrible but there's no way it deserves more merchandise than the muppets. Some of it actually bugged me.

I say this all the time, but the first film was such a surprise Toyetic hit that it took weeks for Target and other retailers to get the small die cast cars back in stock. They sold like hot cakes that first time. The second film was done pretty much for the merchandising, and they over ordered everything and most stores have rounds of clearing them out. They are the one thing I find consistently on clearance at The Disney Store. Maybe because the second film wasn't the same hit as the first and they turned Cars into an established toy making franchise even before the sequel.

But the thing is, Cars does have a built in die cast car market. THAT I get, and I'd almost collect. But it's that other stuff that's annoying. There's far too much of it, and it's basically for the 5-7 year old boys.

I will say they did make that one thing I wanted to see last year, a Muppet PVC set. Too bad it wasn't a deluxe one with more than 6 characters. I'm just kinda annoyed there wasn't any smaller bean bag sized Muppet plush with more obscure characters. At LEAST a Chef and Scooter. Meanwhile, no love for the rolly faced henchman of Lotso. Or the bug head guy... no one touches that stuff.

 

[robodog]

Muppet toys are one of the few things that tempt me to break my "No buying toys that aren't electronic pets" rule. I broke it for the new TMNT stuff and if I was to come across a beanie of the Swedish Chef I'd almost certainly break it for that as well. Even that Kermit pillow pet has me tempted and I usually HATE Pillow Pets.

 

[Mister Muppet]

I was also dissapointed with the lack of muppet merch I was really hoping for another muppet advent calendar this christmas and I was hoping for a couple of new plushies from disney like scooter, rowlf, dr teeth or sam the eagle even if they just released one but thats just a dream

 

[Mark Johns]

Personally, I think there is a fair amount of Muppet merchandise out this year. Ornaments, plates and glasses at Target. Kermit beanie, sleigh ride kermeit, sleigh ride Animal, singing Kermeit, singing Piggy and kermit and piggy suckers, all at Walgreens. Walmart has a bunch of differant stuff too. Actually, most stores seem to have something and considering the lack of merchandise last year, I think we have a lot to choose from this year. It seems like every weekend I am trying to choose if I wat to spend yet more of my disposable income on new Muppet items. No, It's not like 10 years ago when all those Muppet Show figure lines were coming out, but it's still pretty good. Just my opinion.

 

[SwedishTech]

Personally, I think there is a fair amount of Muppet merchandise out this year. Ornaments, plates and glasses at Target. Kermit beanie, sleigh ride kermeit, sleigh ride Animal, singing Kermeit, singing Piggy and kermit and piggy suckers, all at Walgreens. Walmart has a bunch of differant stuff too. Actually, most stores seem to have something and considering the lack of merchandise last year, I think we have a lot to choose from this year. It seems like every weekend I am trying to choose if I wat to spend yet more of my disposable income on new Muppet items. No, It's not like 10 years ago when all those Muppet Show figure lines were coming out, but it's still pretty good. Just my opinion.

What does Wal-Mart have?

 

[KermieBaby47]

It's like you guys are completely ignoring the HUGE market saturation of... Muppet Band-Aids.