Muppets at Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

[Drtooth]

Hey- someone else who remembers Samurai Pizza Cats! Ha ha- that was a great cartoon. I used to watch that as a kid- and if it's considered anime- it's one of the few anime cartoons I like.

There's an insane rights tangle with Disney's ownership... That's for sure. Or rather their ownership of Saban's dub. Disney's ownership of Saban's dub of Hakushon Daimaō (which never even aired in the US) kept the character out of the American release of Tatsunoko Vs Capcom for one thing. It's disappointing, and I wish international dubs of anime, no matter who gets it would be owned by the company that created it FIRST, and having the distributor be just that. The distributor. Now, I'm sure even if somehow we got a Japanese box set of Kyatto Ninden Teyandee (that's Samurai Pizza Cats's REAL name, and on a technicality, it's more of a satire of Power Rangers like shows) Disney would have to be contacted, even if they don't realize that they own it.

Saban managed to buy back the license to Power Rangers, but I'm sure that's the only thing he has control over now. It would have been great for him to have bought back the entire back catalog of his studio's stuff (which includes a large portion of Fox Kids shows) as well, but I don't know what Disney would have negotiated with them. They should have just kept the rights to Saban's Marvel cartoons from the 90's (as they own Marvel now) and just sold stuff like Eek back to Saban.

As for the float (or lack thereof), I'm starting to wonder... Was this a last minute backout? After all, the movie IS currently filming on the other side of the country, and it would have probably been heck to get them over to New York in time.

 

[beaker]

I don't know if it's because of Sesame Workshop's financial problems or what, but I noticed that this year Herry, Alice, and Barkely were all absent from the float. I don't know if they were also missing last year, but it is sad that these characters didn't appear, even though any of them are hardly ever on the show anymore.

Indeed. And I also agree with everyone that it seems like NBC intentionally(least for us on the West coast viewing) didnt show much of any of the Sesame float/song or Kermit balloon. In fact this is the first year in ages that I saw so little screen time given. What gives?

 

[Drtooth]

I'm also wondering if there indeed was a Muppet Float. Seems like the likely possibilities are it got bumped off the broadcast or they couldn't fly over the characters in time for shooting, but it was too late to take them out of the credits.

But it was rather slap dash, and the further the thing went on, the more rushed it became, till it was like "Holy COW! We've got 20 floats to get to in 10 minutes! And if we don't clearly label what company sponsored them and the odd connections between them, they'll sue us blue! CRAP! And a country musician is on EACH and every one of them!"

Still, Nick really HAD to use this thing to promote it's tween pop shows, didn't it?

 

[minor muppetz]

But it was rather slap dash, and the further the thing went on, the more rushed it became, till it was like "Holy COW! We've got 20 floats to get to in 10 minutes! And if we don't clearly label what company sponsored them and the odd connections between them, they'll sue us blue! CRAP! And a country musician is on EACH and every one of them!"

I don't see why all the character copyrights couldn't have just been listed in the credits.

 

[ivanova]

It definitely seemed like one of the worst presentations of the parade in a long time, everything seemed rushed.