Interesting article on the current state of the Muppets

[dwayne1115]

well if anything i hope kermits apperence on exterme home makeover changes peoples vewis about the muppets kermit was his old self again the people of the town loved him and also loved and sang with him Rainbow Conecction. so the muppets or at least kermit are far from being dead and are also far from being what you think they are. there is light at the end of the dark tunnle the muppets have been through.

 

[Sgt Floyd]

maybe this will be a wake up call for disney, making them work harder to preserve the muppets

 

[Drtooth]

All I can say is I'm siding with the pessimists except for 2 things... WHile the (theatrically released) newer muppet films are no comparison for the classic 70's and 80's films. MCC was the weakest of the three... mainl;y (as I've said 20000000062 times) it seemed more like the Michael Cain Christmas Carol featuring the Muppets. MFS, I enjoyed even when I found out it could have been waaaaay so much better. MTI... it's a book movie, and I don't like the idea, but this was a good one. I dunno... maybe necause it had Pirates and Tim Curry and my judgement has been affected by that. I hated that effeminant kid that played Jim.... wish it was Robin the Frog.

KSY, I didn't see yet, but I intend to. VMX I feel was pretty good, considering you don't call it a movie. A weird 2 hour special yes, a movie no. The Moulin Scrooge parody seemed well deserved.... I got a brain hemmorage trying to watch the real one... though John Leguizamo was good in it... But MWOZ was bull.... it seems like if they did several things different it could have been mildly enjoyable on some level. The Batman-esque off kilter camera angles, the horrible acting of Ashanti, the tie in to American Idol, and the fact they even did another source movie (of a source they used before much much better BTW) it all sucked. I mean, there were a few good tidbits (Jeffery Tambor and Quentin Tarrentino's cameos were kinda fun), but over all it looks like several rewrites short of something decent.

Which brings us to the Muppet condundrum.... either A) we have a series of horrible crap like ABC show apperances but they're still in the public eye, or B) the lousy projects stop, and we have nothing but nostalgic stuff and the site talks about how great that episode that had Dinana Ross in it was, and Listing the refferences to the Muppets in the Family Guy and Simpsons 400000 more times. It's a no-win situation. Our best stuff is the Movies.com reviews and DVD releases of the old series. and that's if they continue.

I miss the 2000-2005 muppety days of greatness. I mean, the merchandise was great, Palisades action figures, Sababa Plush toys... even the Muppet valentine Lolipops were great...... Now we're praying that a lousy Kermit shirt will find a place in the Disney store amongst the Unsellable "The Wild" merchandise.

 

[OverUnderAround]

Two things concern me about the Muppets.

1- The writing, which seems to be Jim Lewis. Sure he's been around for a long time, but it's just not the same without Jerry Juhl. Perhaps a new head writer would bring back the writing soul of the Muppets.

2. The Muppet Holding Company's plan to re-create the Muppets in the public eye is nothing more then having the Muppets (mainly Kermit) appear on OTHER people's TV shows. That's the current goal. Make the Muppets popular again appearing on other people's show and hopefully that will lead someday to creating a TV show.

If you have followed where Kermit has appeared the last number of months, you will see that this corporate plan is true.

Personally, I miss the days when humans came into the Muppet world and not what I see now which is the opposite,the Muppets going into the human's world.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

The lack of variety shows as The Muppets used to appear on (Sonny and Cher, for example, or Flip Wilson's show) is another problem. They showed up on Nick and Jessica's Variety Show - FLOP! - but, programming that was so funny and cool in the good ole days have whithered away to make room for stupid reality shows.

When will Hollywood learn: Life is reality, give me some fantasy junk shows!! I want variety programming to come back. Where's Carol Burnette when you need her to produce something fun??

 

[mikebennidict]

I've always wondered what happened to those. from TV's early days through the 70s there were plenty of them and they hardly exist today and it's very rare to find them in reruns.