It's Official: Disney completes Muppet acquisition

[Mark Filton]

These are only my opinions. Don't take me too serious

Benefits? Yeah, I guess there would be "benefits" if you sold them to drug dealers, too. The benefits are tiny. The bad is big. We lose the Muppet Magic.

I am SICKENED that NONE of the Henson kids want to make the Muppets their life's work. Those kids make me PUKE

So, crummy Disney has them now.

The Muppets will "turn out alright?"

Yeah, just look at Mickey
(a crying mouse for you!)

 

[Beebers]

Few people follow their parents into the parents' lines of work. The Henson kids have the right to own their own lives and choose their own work just as we do.

 

[doozertime]

*cry*

 

[Lone Wolf]

All right, Mark...enough already!!

WE GET THE MESSAGE.

*YOU* don't like Disney

*YOU* don't like the Henson kids for handing the Muppets over to Disney

*YOU* don't think anything good will come out of this deal and that the Muppets will be ruined.

This is all YOUR opinion and it's an opinion that's shared by a lot of people, but it's also NOT shared by a lot of people. Then many others -- myself included -- prefer to reserve judgement and would rather wait and see what Disney does with the Muppets first before jumping to any conclusions.

 

[Super Scooter]

I am SICKENED that NONE of the Henson kids want to make the Muppets their life's work. Those kids make me PUKE

You forget, Brian Henson has at least one major character currently (two if you include Phil Van Neuter), John has one of the most popular characters (Sweetums), and Cheryl is very active in the Muppet Workshop. If I remember correctly, Lisa helps run Columbia/Tri-star which used to be the distributer for Muppet videos. I'm not entirely sure where Heather gets involved, but all the kids are active members with the Muppets.

 

[RightHandMan]

Muppets Mess

What a mess.
You've all discussed Muppet merchandise, Eisner, company politics, etc. But the really important thing here how this affects the people at Henson. This being a fan site, I think you would be concerned about the people who have invented, designed & created the Muppets over all of these 30+ years.

The Muppet Workshop in NYC has but all disappeared (5 people service Sesame Street) from the Jim Henson Company. The LA Creature Shop (who is now in charge of the Muppet characters) is a shadow of it's former self. Henson Product & Publishing people are all gone. They even fired their Production & Development teams. There is no Muppet creative left at Henson & Disney knows nothing about puppetry & puppet design. And all of the very talented 50+ former Henson employess who helped build this empire are floating around looking for work.

If you are looking for a certain continuity of characters at Disney you may be disappointed. I doubt that they will preserve the true nature of the Muppets.
The Muppet humor & behaviour will be watered down. The Muppet edge will be lost. We will most likely lose some of the performers that give them that special edge because Disney doesn't care about that stuff. For them, it's only about graphic images & merchandise.

The Muppet characters may be sucessful at DIsney, but they will change. They will not be the friends we have all grown to know & love. It will be like all TV characters when they are reborn. Take "Lamb Chop" for example.
Shari Lewis introduced Lamb Chop in the early 60's. This critter was edgy & Shari was too. They disappeared for a while & then came back in the late 80's. They were awful - like Barny. That's what will happen to the Muppet characters.

Very sad!
Very sad, indeed.

 

[mb22]

Has anyone seen the article at jimhillmedia.com ? If accurate, it's not too positive.

 

[MuppetNewsFlash]

Jim Hill says, "Tell you what? As soon as I get some good news that relates to the Muppets, I'll post another article here at the site."

Does anyone really remember when he has put a positive spin on anything of late?

If you want to listen to Jim Hill Media you just as may walk into any city across the country and take the Apocalypse Evangelists at their word as well. Either way according to both the world is basically over.

I think everyone needs to look at this purchase in a very Muppet way, think of the Muppets as Robin and I guess that makes me start as Bernadette Peters because if just one person believes in you, deep enough and strong enough believes in you, hard enough and long enough, before you knew it someone else would think, if he can do it, I can do it. Making it.......

 

[BoyRaisin2]

>>And -- speaking of cutting -- wait 'til you hear about the deal that Henson had to cut with Disney in order to keep Kermit's image as part of their company logo. Because the Frog is now the Mouse's property, lawyers for the Jim Henson Company allegedly had to get a special clause added to the acquisition contract. Which stated that -- while Kermit the Frog was still to become the property of the Walt Disney Company -- the Jim Henson Company would still have the right to include Kermit's likeness as part of that company's logo for a set number of years.<<

Well, that's news to me.

 

[Luke]

Jim Hill says, "Tell you what? As soon as I get some good news that relates to the Muppets, I'll post another article here at the site."

How about when he has ANY news that is either new or true? All i ever see from him are rehashes of things that have been posted on forums elsewhere or just things that have happened that are completely obvious (ie:- the website change). That Muppet Babies CGI story has been mentioned on both this and the Palisades forum many times. I don't believe his quotes either, they are all written in his own style.

Anyway i thought he was reporting that neither Henson or Disney were going to go through with the aquisition and it was more than likely to crash and burn? He said that about a month or so ago didn't he? I haven't yet noticed him explain or acknowledge how assumed them having a couple of problems meant that. Everything seems to get conveniently forgotten. Exactly the same as when he said Brian and Lisa were forming a pact with Roy Disney to get Eisner out and then weeks later Eisner announced he had signed the deal to aquire the Muppets after months of talks.

Personally i blame popping candy. It can be very addictive if you chew too much of it and lead to burst eardrums.