Muppet Baby plush/DVD sets premiere at Target

[beaker]

The bigger dolls are on sale too... I'll think I'll wait until they're REALLy cheap and buy Gonzo and Fozzie, if nothing else for the DVD's...

same here, I want those dvds! ^__^

 

[Drtooth]

*whimpers* When are they going to come out with new stuff?

Sorry to break it to you, but... uh... considering they're trying to get rid of them, I do not think we'll see them any time soon....

>>same here, I want those dvds! ^__^<<

Yeah... I mean, it's a shame this emmy award winning classic doesn't get a proper DVD release, but they have boxed sets of "Punky Brewster" and "what's Happenin'"!

 

[Baby Rowlf]

I wonder why Muppet Babies flunked so terribly this time around?

We never even got to Baby Rowlf with the DVD..

 

[MustangRockstar]

Personally I think it failed for several reasons.

First off, fans of the show would have to {as a whole} be into their 20's at this point. People in their 20's would want the show....not stuffed dolls.

In addition to that, only diehards will go out and spend 60 bucks for four dolls and 4 episodes. When you see season sets being released with 25 episodes going for 30 dollars, spending $60 for 4 episodes doesn't give many people an incentive.

Secondly, I don't know what they were really thinking from a marketing perspective. {This coming from a marketing major}. They didn't reintroduce a product so what exactly where they building their ad campaigns on?

They put a product out that frankly didn't really fit a niche. The dolls were designed for kids, but kids who are about 10 years too young to even remember the LAST of the muppet babies amazing 8 year run.

On top of that, they didn't put in a spot that many of their older target audience would frequent.

Then you have the idiots like me who spent 60 bucks on the darn things only to see them go on sale for a whopping 15 bucks. I wanna shoot myself for that, had i waited all of 3 weeks i could have saved 45 dollars!

The real problem here is that Henson {for the better part of a decade now} has been horrible at self promotion and in doing their market research.

They haven't really expanded the product, and the creative talent that made the muppets great is well.....gone.

The Henson website for years wasn't anything special and the only thing keeping the muppets alive at this point is the dire devotion of it's fans which are slowly dwindling down to an almost cult like following at this point.

If you're gonna launch the muppet babies brand you need several things that they lacked.

You need a buzz about the product. You can't take a show that was for kids and has been off the air for years and put out toys to appease the audience.

DVD sets are what is selling {see Garfield and friends as an example} and it was successful for a reason. They got the product out there, they gave the people what they wanted {the show} they didn't try to bundle what the people wanted with a product they really didnt {dolls} and most importantly they marketed the heck out of it.

The muppets haven't been seen in theatres since the 1990's. They haven't really gone out and asked what they people wanted and frankly without a good website, they aren't drawing people in to keep them connected.

I mean what does it say that Muppet Central is 100 times better than any official muppet site. It says that somewhere along the way, the company lost its leader when Henson died.

That's why Disney {love them or hate them} was so successful at one time. They expanded into new things, but they didn't let the old things die. Though you could argue they too have forgotten that approach, there certainly is a lesson to be learned there. The Henson company has pretty much let the muppets die for the better part of 10 years now.

 

[a_Mickey_Muppet]

Now im NOT trying to start any thing here, and as much as i love the Muppets... and this is my 2 cents......just about every thing you sayed is kinda ture!

 

[baby sinclair]

Yes disney is a better more efficient family entertainment empire.But the money sucking coporation must realise that it cant just give muppets a total new make over they need to just pick it up off their feet and bring the characters back into people hearts again.

 

[erniebert1234ss]

Well said. I think Monseiur Eisner needs to go before they relaunch the brand. His quality has suffered greatly since Mermaid 1, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Prince & the Pauper, and most definitely Mulan was THE last disney movie that was ever any good. **** these people who go to Brother Bear and Pixar films thinking they were any **** good, just because they're Disney, for chrissakes. I for one do not understand that logic and I never will. Kick Eisner out TODAY!

 

[MustangRockstar]

Yes disney is a better more efficient family entertainment empire.But the money sucking coporation must realise that it cant just give muppets a total new make over they need to just pick it up off their feet and bring the characters back into people hearts again.

Problem is that at this point, i dont know if that is as easy as it seems. The muppets have taken a lot of damage for the better part of a decade now. That's 10 years of some less than spectacular scripts, product lines, etc.

Muppet's Tonight was supposed to reintroduce the muppets to a new generation.

The problem is that a lot of crative people have departed this world and they havent been replaced by as high a quality of creativness.

The problem is that in order for a product to survive it needs a place with a younger generation. Right now you're seeing a lot of people in their 30's and 20's who love the muppets but a whole generation has been lost now. Teenagers simply dont know the product anymore because the last consistent and high quality exposure to it would have taken place about 15 years ago at this point.

I think we have to look at the sad reality of the situation that Fraggle Rock is already over 15 years ago. Muppet Babies is 12 years ago and the last of the big three muppet movies is 20 years old already {1984}.

Henson company has lost the generation of kids born in the late 80's and early 90's and they've got little going in the generation that followed them thus far.

At this point it's gonna take a little big of a reintroduction and reinvention to get things rolling. A 10 year old today doesn't remember the hippies or have hippie parents, which when you look at was what the muppets kind of where.

It all triggles down from the main product which is the muppets. Everything below it{including the muppet babies} cannot survive without knowledge of the former. That is going to be the challange for the product now. Hopefully it works, but trying to reintroduce characters that few people under the age of 20 identify with is going to be tricky.

 

[Fragglemuppet]

I don't suppose these products are still out?

 

[muppetsforlife]

I don't suppose these products are still out?

Thats what I'm wondering too. I'm confused cause most of the posts are from a couple of years ago. But now someone posted a new one today so I'm not sure if that means they are still out or not.