Happy 5th Birthday Muppet Central!

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CousinLuke

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Happy Birthday.

I first found Muppet Central in november. I like the profesional look of the site. And I hope to find a large number of important headlines coming out on the front page about multiple new muppet projects. Muppet central can keep being a great site.
 

electricmayhem

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I had the great luck of coming across Muppet Central on one of my internet Muppet searches. I was blown away by all the info and more importantly, by all the other fans I had found!! Now it hasnt been very long since I first registered but I just want to say that I love it here! Everyone is friendly and the best part of course is talking about muppets :big_grin: heehee! I just think this site is really well done and I hope it's around for another 500 years!! Happy Birthday Muppet Central!!

ps. I LOVE the menu on the front page! It's fantastic!
 

Joggy

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I always see Muppet Central as being a TV series. Like the Muppet Show. You have the first season, and there's Kermit and Fozzie and Rowlf and Piggy... Second season, Hilda and George leave, and Piggy steps up in the spotlight, as well as Gonzo... season 3, Beauregard and Lew Zealand join, et cetera.

It's kinda like that here. First season starts with guys like Phil, Chris, Quinn, Michael, followed by Mar, Warrick etc. Cindy became more of a core character during the second season. Mar and Mike went, Kevin joined.

I joined during the second half of Muppet Central's first season (1998) and even though I am not as active anymore as I was during that first year, it is still a very special place for me. Through Muppet Central I met the most wonderful people, some of whom still are good friends of mine. Muppet Central gave me the opportunity to talk to fans, share info (which almost got me a PhD in Creepy Muppet Trivia) and trade videos and other things. We shared good times and bad times but mostly tried to have fun together.

Here's best wishes to MC and everyone who makes it such a wonderful place!
 

Skeeter Muppet

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(1) Tell us how you found Muppet Central for the first time and what you remember about the experience.

Hmm. Well, I first stopped by the site in the summer of 2002, while at home from college. I thought it was one of the most well put-together sites I had ever seen, and in truth it rekindled my love of the Muppets (especially one go-fer in particular). It also gave me cause to start kicking myself when I found out that Richard Hunt was not just the Muppeteer for Statler.

I found the message board around that same time, but I didn't register as a member until I got back to school. Took me maybe five minutes to figure out my screen name around here...and it took me at least two or three days to get my avatar to work out :big_grin: Everyone I've met around here (with a couple exceptions, and they know who they are) has been so nice.

(2) What have you enjoyed most about the site over the years?

Well for me it's only been less than six months that I've been here, so I don't know if I'm qualified to answer this question! :stick_out_tongue: I've enjoyed browsing the "Classic Muppets" and "Henson People" forums the best. I've also enjoyed meeting a lot of the posters here on AIM, which led to the quasi-partnership Travelling Matt and I have in putting together his TMS outlines :smile:


-Kim
 

The Count

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Happy Birthday Muppet Central!

My first experience in logging onto muppetcentral.com was in the summer of 2002. While checking out the daily news over at filmforce.com, I took a peek at the weekly shopping guide. Lo and behhold, Ken Plume was singing the praises of the Series 1 figures from Palisades Toys, not to mention the site itself. After browsing a few sections, I decided to join up onto the forums in July. My experiences here at muppetcentral.com rekindled a deeply dormant love of the Muppets, those wonderful characters that I passionately cherished during my youth until I left them for my college days. Other members have been so helpful as to create my massive Muppet listing, to the point that now my help is needed to develop a newly-forming Sesame Street Encyclopedia. This site was also instrumental in finding kermitage.com which supplied me with a vast array of Muppet Show names, and other sites that helped as well. I've made some friends both here and over at Palisades' forum where the posters go rampantly crazy with their posting. Hopefully, there's more to explore and more friends to make in the future as Muppet Central celebrates its Fabulous 5 and thank you Phillip Chapman for creating a truly vonderful vebsite!
 

Luke

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HAPPY (BELATED) BIRTHDAY MUPPET CENTRAL !

Congratulations on being 5 years old, i think i've been here a bit over 4 years now. I'm not actually sure how i found Muppet Central - i think it may have been while searching for ALF sites on the net and came across a link to this one. Kooky !

The thing i really enjoyed most has been the people. I remember the main thing that kept me coming back to the site at the start was the forum and the nightly chats in the chat room. Those really were the glory days, and were the people who really made Muppet Central what it is today - the whole community feel was a lot stronger and people interacted a lot more closely, especially concerning the site. It was more of a joint effort, a collaboration between ALL the fans (not just a small minority) - some people would be working on Trivias, Someone on an interview, some people sending in news. It's still all there forming the bulk of the main site and is a testimony to what can be achieved. The main thing that pulled it all together was the nightly chats and everyone made an effort to get there - Phil, Cindy, Mar, Michael, Danny, Joggy, Emma, Martha, Smig, Quinn and the list goes on. As much as Muppet Central is a great site now, it was back then that Muppet Central really was CENTRAL in the fan community, it was a small geocities site and didn't depend on making money to support itself, competing with other sites, getting a scoop, having the best graphics. It was all about the people, the content and most of all the Muppets. I think the focus over the last few years has become a bit blurred and going .com and taking a more corporate stance, with less dependance on the fans for content was a bit mishandled. The site can look professional with great graphics without needing to act like a dummy official site. I know the need is there because Henson have failed to provide a decent one but MC's strongest point will always be it's community and i think what the fans appreciate the most is being able to be a part of it all and while everything else is great, developing that is always going to be the key to making the site stronger and stronger and will ultimately keep people coming back for more.

I'd also like to say i've enjoyed MC Radio thoroughly and i think thats pretty much a 'stand out' feature of the main site along with the new graphics and the collectables section.

What do i think we should do in 2003 ? Well i think pretty much the answers lie in Muppet Centrals past. So many people here have mentioned the chats from the early days and we have so many people simultaneously online now that i think getting a chat room going and some organised chats (Ken, Mike Horn, Karen Prell, Karen Falk, Terry, maybe even Phil getting input for the site) is definitely a must. Even if a professional room is going to break the bank bandwidth wise i think even a remotely hosted temporary solution would be a good idea. Also i think increasing the sites content this year is a must - 2002 was all about the graphics but i think to an extent the emphasis should move to the meat and potatoes now. Theres a lot more that could be done content wise (especially having comprehensive sections on all shows and characters) and many sections have been pretty stagnant for a long time. I think the key to this, as the community is starting to get stronger again is to get people involved - for instance having different people watch specific places for news items, have those interested in contributing get together to work on new features etc etc. Making them feel more involved and also letting them have a voice will only make the site more popular and the sites stronger. I also think the site needs to take advantage of the strong community within and work hard to get our voice heard - there is the perfect opportunity here to be the bridge between the fan community and the Henson company, we have some great ideas and getting them heard will only help us enjoy the Muppets more and help JHC provide what the fans want. 'Ask Ken' seems to have been popular, i'd actually like to see 'Ask Henson' with maybe a list of the most popular fan questions being compiled on the forum bi-monthly and then the answers being made into a series of Q&A articles on the main site. Overall though i think the most important things are keeping it all together day to day and providing a stable site for people to have a smooth, exciting and informative Muppet surfing experience.
 

beaker

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To Luke:

I think I would have to echo some of those sentiments Luke. Indeed, the early era of Muppet Central was indeed a special one. My greatest wish for MC at this point, besides going back to the magic of big scoops and great exclusives(like interviews, etc)
is for MC to become a close tight knit community again like the old days. Believe me, I am active on a lot of entertainment forums(anime, figure, video game, movie, music related) and none of em...from the 100 member forums to the 100,000 member forums have the kind of warm fuzzy feeling I genuinely get form being on MC. Its what keeps me coming back. I definately would like to see some sort of chat available on here...I really think that would totally be something everyone could enjoy.

Other than that Im seeing a lot of improvement in MC as of late...heck that very cool(in my book at least) 'Mirror Mask' scoop was definately exclusive to MC(and believe me, I scour all the entertainment news sites for stuff)

But yes, there definately are a few things that could happen to bring MC up a notch or two. Other than that I think Phil has done an astonishing job as of late with running things on here.
 

Thijs

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Happy Birthday Muppet Central. I hope you will exist as long as I live and longer!
 

Phillip

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Just wanted to thank everybody for all the wonderful memories you have shared the past few days. It has been very touching.

We have always tried to continually add new elements to the site and take things in new directions. From a Muppet forum five years ago when none existed to an on-line Henson radio station, we will continue to offer new avenues and features that will be a benefit to everyone here. All of the suggestions are being taken to heart. Some of the things you mentioned have already been in the works. I have always felt that the forum is at the heart of the site, because it is where we interact with one another.

If you ever have any feedback on the site, you can always submit it here...

http://www.muppetcentral.com/help/feedback/index.shtml

We are looking forward to what 2003 has in store, and are looking forward to the blessings of knowing each of you in the years to come.
 
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