Ask Ken at Palisades

[frogboy4]

The actual Muppet Theater is huge, (well the actual theater is a set broken into pieces but I won't get technical).

Why not make it close to scale - it's still going to be quite a bit smaller than that anyway? It's fantastic that the sets will fit in there! I average the entire height to be about 17 inches with the stage taking up about a foot. Now this is a complete guess, but it seems about right.

I really am pushing for a deluxe theater. That's the "it" product in the series as far as I am concerned. If I could only get one set, that would be the one. It will have real moving fabric and many other nice touches from the reports I have heard. I am sure many cool things are planned. None of these sets are intended for everybody. That's why they make more figures than sets.

Once again I feel like I am participating in an unnecessary discussion, but that's what forums are all about. I just trust that Palisades knows what they are doing. That's why they make the big bucks!

 

[ResidentLilly]

Oh and by the way...Squigiman I agree with you in spririt...but when you see the size of the Kitchen next to the Lab set you will see why I am not sure I can actually make an in scale Theater and not have it cost about 80 bucks or more.

Oh what the heck...I'll post a comparison shot over on the Palisades board. I'll call the thread. Squigiman, It's All You...

 

[Luke]

Mr Frogboy

If Ken builds a theatre thats basically an extension to my house i have a feeling that it's gonna cost a heck of a lot and unless the other playsets sell tremedously well be quite a risk for Palisades. Can you imagine how much this things going to cost people in the overseas markets ? Personally i just don't think the risk needs to be taken - a good compromise can be made with a mid-scale model with all the fabrics and nice touches making it the 'it' piece still included.

I also have faith in Palisades and whatever Ken does is fine - in fact fair play to them if they can acomplish all this and still bring it in at a decent price although i think $80 is a very high price for any Muppet item and they'll have problems even though it'd be well worth it. Of course they know what they're doing and i expect a lot of this hinges on the playset sales, but this is obviously a forum and they don't seem to have made up their mind yet. This thread has been slow lately so a bit of debate might spice it up and provoke opinions .... unless you'd rather i just brought on the penguin lapdancers ?

 

[MrTheFrog]

Hey,
Usually I consider myself pretty practical, but in this case I find it difficult. Unless the stage is of considerable size I don't see a point in it being made at all. And large playsets have sold well in the past if there is enough sentimentality for them. For example: the Millenium Falcon, the G.I. Joe Aircraft Carrier, the Batcave, the Harry Potter Lego Castle, and the new Simpsons Springfield. It's my belief that it would have enough recognizability (is that a word?), that it will sell, BUT it needs to be marketed correctly...

First off, wait until the line has a solid following. Make it big, and make it gorgeous. Then release it in early November, and only send out a few to each store...drive up demand..make parents and collectors go crazy looking for it,...get Kermit to go on Leno talking about how it's the hardest toy to find this christmas,...Have Mike Horn go on The Today Show and talk about how they're such a small company, and that he's not sure they can keep up with the demand..and then the week before Christmas flood the stores with them.

Trust me, it's worked for things that were far less desirable. With the rainchecks and pre-orders alone, they should sell a gazillion of them. Trust me this works.

The other plus is that I guarantee stores like Wal-mart, Target, and K-mart who miss out on the whole hullabaloo because they don't carry the line, will be making calls to Palisades requesting to carry the next wave.
Just my opinions, you guys at Palisades know more than I do obviously, but I'd bet the frog on this.
-Artie

 

[frogboy4]

Mr. Penguindudeman

I agree that it should be reasonably priced. but what the heck. No one is pointing a gun at anybody's head saying that they must buy it! LOL!

As an American who has been snubbed on so many cool UK only Muppet products, you Brits can just bite my bippy! LOL!

I just want the set to be able to house the other sets. I don't see how much interactivity there will be in it, but it definitely should be deluxe. Not ultra mega deluxe, but simply deluxe. Where did you get the $80s from? I personally see it as a $50-60 piece. Maybe $65 tops, but I would buy it anyway. I disagree that it would cut into the other playsets because the main market will likely be the core collector and should be made in limited numbers. No official word, just my take. It's really the crown jewel of the series.

I don't see it as being a really expensive piece though. I just want to see the goldleaf detailing! Woohoo! So what do you think the size should be? My thoughts are 17 inches high (12 inches for the stage) 24 inces wide (18 inches for the stage) 16 inches deep (10 inches for the stage).

I'm getting too stoked!

 

[ResidentLilly]

Those dimensions you mention Jamie would not fit all the playsets planned. Not to mention that it will require a lot of detailing or it really will just be a bug hunk a nuthin. That is why, after factoring in the size needed to fit all playset sizes and the detailing needed to make it consistent you are looking at an 80 or higher retail.

We ain't Hasbro...and look at the Millenium Falcon that you mentioned Artie...50 bucks. Queen's Starship...80 bucks. It's a volume business...and even at that volume that a Hasbro or Mattel has access to they sold their playsets at high dollar and if I recall most high dollar playsets end up in clearance. Who eats that clearance? The manufacturer...not the retailer. And that was STAR WARS. Keep an eye out at retail in the next month or so...I'll lay money own right now that I and a lot of other Star Wars collectors will be picking up extra Ep. 2 Arena Playsets at markdown costs.

Trust me when I tell you that no matter what we did Wal-Mart would not be calling us. Oh MAN do I wish it worked that way. But even still...you really can't produce a piece, with a company our size, with the HOPE that you can sell it. You need to know ahead of time what your numbers might be...not in every case, but certainly in a case where the tooling costs alone would exceed one hundred thousand dollars. Oh yes, you heard me...and that is a conservative estimate. If I told you what the Kitchen cost just to make the tools for...and we are not even talking cost of goods here...you would all be picking your collective mouths up off the floor.

Let me just close my part in this debate by saying this. You know the people in this company pretty well by now. We will do everything we can to do everything we can, and if we make a stage, whether balls-out deluxe or something a little tamer, you can expect that we will throw as much into it as humanly, or muppetly, possible. I guarantee that.

 

[frogboy4]

Eeeek! Really? Well I don't think $80 is unreasonable. I'll probably buy 2 if I have to sell organs on Ebay! I don't see it as the average, but these pieces are far from average anyway. I think most hardcore collectors figure such expenses into their budget. From the pics of the Kitchen set, I know that these are really worth a lot more than most any other product that has come before it.

Just how big is the set going to be? Wow! About 2 feet high?

 

[MrTheFrog]

Originally posted by ResidentLilly
We will do everything we can to do everything we can, and if we make a stage, whether balls-out deluxe or something a little tamer, you can expect that we will throw as much into it as humanly, or muppetly, possible. I guarantee that.

I have no doubt about that Ken. Whatever you guys do decide, I'm sure it will be top notch, and worth the money.
-Artie

 

[Zack the Dog]

it's neat to think about all the ideas that could be done, i would say, and this is just me saying, try and get at least one playset out of each movie for now, EM Bus TMM, which best choice in the whole world, Hispanola from MTI another award winning choice in my book you would aslo get statler and waldorf on the front.

TCMC has many great choices from HH, beau taxi, the HH Bus, and the air balloon, althought maybe the balloon could be packed with a card fig and the balloon could be made of colth and unfold.because it's not much of a playset.

TMTM seems kinda hard, i meanyou could do petes, it would be another kitchen and the sewdish chef will already be out with it, but many great dressed up figs could come out from TMTM and then you just would pass up a playset for TMTM.

i also think MCC is kinda hard for a playset, great figs could come out from the movie but we are not getting srooge so some playsets just don't seem as fun as the other movies or muppet show would be, so why not skip it and do another muppet show set insted or do another TGMC playset because there are many good ideas with it.

MTI i said already, i think the ship would be enough an island set, ahh, was the island as a whole really shown that much, i mean you could have something to hang kermit and piggy upside down, lots of haning skulls and stuff, but i think the ship is the best idea for that.

MFS hmm, i aslo think it's kinda hard, well you could do a dr phil lab that could have the brain sucker but also have a lab rat part of the playset too, the muppet house would be what fans would want most , but i could only see it as a ful size doll house for the muppets even bigger and taller then the stage would be.

so TMM, TGMC AND MTI have great playset/playsets, but MCC, TMTM AND MFS would take a little more thinking on what would be best.

Zack)Rowlf the, well there's also fozzie's studabaker, and a EM church? Nah, a kermit swamp set could be cool,Dog.

 

[Luke]

Hey Jamiekins,

**** - as a Muppet fan i'd be totally for it, and if i couldn't have it then i'd be glad (well, with a happy frown) that you guys in the states could have it but it just doesn't work like that for someone like Palisades on a line like the Muppets. Sure we'd pay $80 but stick it out on the high street and i bet a heck of a lot of people would leave it sitting there - however good and fantastic it was.
In fact Mike said that he hoped Europe would account for 20% of sales before long but it'd be like $140 here (not that ya care !) - tight fisted English people won't pay that so there's 20% of potential sales wiped out right there, really not good.

I hear what you are saying about limited numbers and Artie is right that the marketing needs to improve, but probably with Henson giving Palisades some visible support (either TV slots or an in store launch, or just a huge boost from the Muppets being on Fox weekly) rather than short supplying the product. From what Ken says i guess they'd need to sell so many of these because of the amount of money that they'd have to sink in and IMO if it was (god forbid) a huge loss for them it could threaten the longetivity of the playsets, if not the line. I just don't want that - i'd rather they worked on a level they were comfortable with and could fly creatively making that super cool Deluxe Theatre but without the worry that their jobs were riding on selling the thing and i have every faith in them to do that - WITH the gold leaf detailing !