Little Muppet Monsters Revelation...

[VP Weirdo]

All I know about the Marvel/Toei deal was that there were undefined plans for more projects, but all we got was that Tomb of Dracula anime (it's awful, especially when Harmony Gold dubbed it), the Spider-Man tokatsu series, and putting a very obscure character (Miss America) into Battle Fever J (a Power Rangers like Sentai show). I'm almost certain the animation outsourcing deal was part of that, if not sort of related. They used their own studio (which was DePatie Freleng) for some of their Spider-Man and Marvel shows, but had to outsource for the shows they produced later on.

It seems like Marvel Productions was using Toei for there animation outsourcing from the beginning of the company's renaming from DePatie-Freleng. DePatie had previously produced animated series Fantastic Four and Spider-Women before Fritz Freleng went back to work for Warner Bros. Aside from Battle Fever J Marvel may have worked on the next Sentai show called Denshi Sentai Denziman which also used a minor character (Hela a goddess enemy of Thor) as there model for the lead villain, who coincidently was the first major role for the actress better known to western audience as Rita from the first season of power rangers (or witch Bandora as she was known in the Sentai). Marvel got a copyright credit for one more Sentai, but that's probably just because they reused the character.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

Thanks for the info about the Tomb of Dracula movie. Interesting. I'm not a huge fan of that comic or character (or of anime, for that matter)- so I'm not really interested in seeing it. But as a comic book fan in general, I did find it interesting to know that Marvel's version of both Dracula and Frankenstein's monster had gotten animated movies at some point.

 

[Drtooth]

There was a follow up anime with Marvel's version of Frankenstein's Monster though I haven't seen it. The Tomb of Dracula anime I have seen and...yeah it's awful...but I'd count it as one things that's so bad it hilarious. The animations pretty decent and from what I can they seemed to follow the Marv Wolfman comic rather faithful. The problem is they try to cram several years worth of story lines in one two hour special. The result is about what you'd expect: character are introduced and than disappear for the longest time, Dracula keeps going back and forth about his motives (sometimes within a single scene), plot points come out of nowhere and are than barley mentioned again etc.

And the thing is long. Just...long. It's funny in short, selected idiocy...but trying to watch any more of it is incredibly painful. I LOVE the Hamburger scene(as you can tell). But it makes me glad that they didn't ruin any other Marvel characters... well... until they decided recently to turn them into Pokemon- or rather Yu-Gi-Oh type crap, but the quality of the show remains to be seen.

It seems like Marvel Productions was using Toei for there animation outsourcing from the beginning of the company's renaming from DePatie-Freleng. DePatie had previously produced animated series Fantastic Four and Spider-Women before Fritz Freleng went back to work for Warner Bros. Aside from Battle Fever J Marvel may have worked on the next Sentai show called Denshi Sentai Denziman which also used a minor character (Hela a goddess enemy of Thor) as there model for the lead villain, who coincidently was the first major role for the actress better known to western audience as Rita from the first season of power rangers (or witch Bandora as she was known in the Sentai). Marvel got a copyright credit for one more Sentai, but that's probably just because they reused the character.

Glad to know someone else has heard of Battle Fever J. I actually heard a funny story this weekend about Marvel actually trying to localize it here (probably trying to cast people of those cultural background this time), and they got shot down hard. I swear the quote was something to the extent of "How could you let that kind of garbage into the world? You, who gave us Muppet Babies." or something to that extent. The Muppet Babies thing was totally in there. And it totally would have predated MMPR's final acceptance to television by several years (not that Saban didn't try).

But anyway... Muppet Babies and Toei, right? I actually almost bought a Muppet Babies cel at a convention yesterday, but the good ones were more than I had (a bargain in terms of them being around 50 bucks vs. what Disney or Warners charges), and the only one that wasn't was this teeny Gonzo standing left of the frame's center. And if I'm going to fork over money for one of those good ones, I'd rather get something Toei did. It looked like something Akom did.

Plus, I don't have any frames for the 4 cels I have already...Adventures of Sonic/Real Ghostbusters/Saint Seyia/and Bravestarr if you're wondering... only Ghostbusters even had a background... they're cheaper if they don't have one for the most part.

 

[FunnyBear]

This is interesting.

According to the Toughpigs interview with Kathy Mullen it seems the whole bit about Jim Henson not liking the mix of puppetry and outsourced animation wasn't entirely the reason that they pulled LMM prematurely.



So something was wrong with Marvel's (and presumably Toei's) end. And that stalled production enough to just get rid of it. It would be amazing if these animations were found. They seem lost forever.

The Little Muppet Monsters? I have episodes 2 and 3, if you want them

 

[VP Weirdo]

And the thing is long. Just...long. It's funny in short, selected idiocy...but trying to watch any more of it is incredibly painful. I LOVE the Hamburger scene(as you can tell). But it makes me glad that they didn't ruin any other Marvel characters... well... until they decided recently to turn them into Pokemon- or rather Yu-Gi-Oh type crap, but the quality of the show remains to be seen.

I see what you mean. Like a lot of the movies featured on MST3K, it could be hard to sit through without some mocking commentary. There is youtube channel BTW which features riffing on some old cartoons including Tomb of Dracula. My favorite part is when the make it seem like Dracula can't stand the sight of the cross because it makes him hear constant Creed music!
That fan art is pretty awesome!

 

[VP Weirdo]

=Drtooth Glad to know someone else has heard of Battle Fever J. I actually heard a funny story this weekend about Marvel actually trying to localize it here (probably trying to cast people of those cultural background this time), and they got shot down hard. I swear the quote was something to the extent of "How could you let that kind of garbage into the world? You, who gave us Muppet Babies." or something to that extent. The Muppet Babies thing was totally in there. And it totally would have predated MMPR's final acceptance to television by several years (not that Saban didn't try).

YES! In fact I can provide the source of that quote. I've been leading up to creating a separate forum heading to explain why Power Ranger almost owes it's very existence to Muppet Babies, but now I wonder if maybe I should just save it for here.

 

[Drtooth]

YES! In fact I can provide the source of that quote. I've been leading up to creating a separate forum heading to explain why Power Ranger almost owes it's very existence to Muppet Babies, but now I wonder if maybe I should just save it for here.

That sounds like quite a read, actually. I'd say go for it and make it its own thread. Why waste it burying it at the bottom of this one?

I think I speak for everyone when I want to know how far the other cartoons went into production and how the heck we could get Disney to release them as viral videos or something. I really think there was potential for a Pigs in Space animated series.

 

[Peace]

YES! In fact I can provide the source of that quote. I've been leading up to creating a separate forum heading to explain why Power Ranger almost owes it's very existence to Muppet Babies, but now I wonder if maybe I should just save it for here.

As a fan of both Muppets, and PR, I'd definitely be interested in reading that as it's own thread. Looking forward to it!

 

[minor muppetz]

Somebody just added to the Muppet Wiki page on Little Muppet Monsters that a few of the incomplete unaired episodes are available among tape trading circles. If that's true, I hope they show up on YouTube soon (I already checked to see if they were online, and couldn't find them, though I only searched "Little Muppet Monsters Unaired" and only looked at the first page of search results).

 

[tygerbug]

Yes, I've been editing the Little Muppet Monsters Wiki page today after just having watched three partial unaired episodes of the series. I'll add some photos to make it official. I'd like to track down storyboards from the animated segments of these episodes though. I think we do have the scripts, but that may take awhile. I am working on a Youtube version of these eps for posting in the next few days. I'm doing some cleanup first. If you're on my email list you'll already have seen the episodes.