Muppets Inc., Henson Associates and Jim Henson Productions

mupcollector1

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I'm not quite sure if this is the right place to have this thread but I figure I put it here mainly because it's related to Sesame Street. I noticed this for a long time. Usually Muppets Inc. was the name for the company until the mid 1970s when it became Henson Associates, and by 1989 it became Jim Henson Productions and then around the early 2000s (I think) the name finalized to The Jim Henson Company. But anything that was created to the Sesame Street Muppets copyright information, it was copyrighted Muppets Inc. until the 1990s. I was just curious how come.
 

D'Snowth

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Because Jim (and later JHC) owned the rights to the Sesame Street Muppets, it wasn't until 2000/2001 that CTW (now Sesame Workshop) was granted all legal rights and ownership of the Sesame Street Muppets.
 

Phillip

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Keep in mind The Jim Henson Company owned 50% of the Sesame Street Muppets and CTW the other 50%. So both companies worked together on merchandising, TV deals etc.

Here's the initial story when Sesame Workshop bought the Sesame character rights from EM.TV for $180 million, ironicly more than double what Disney paid four years later for the rights to the Muppet Show characters and Bear in the Big Blue House.
 

mupcollector1

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Oh yes, I knew that. Though my question was regarding how come on Sesame Street Merchandise, even in the 1980s it would say "Muppets Inc." Even though the company changed their name to Henson Associates since the 1970s.
 

D'Snowth

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Oh.

Who knows? It's kind of like when the Krofft brothers first started out in 1969, they were Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions up till like 1976, when they became Krofft Entertainment, but even then, some of their shows still said Sid & Marty Krofft Television Productions. Likewise, they changed to Sid & Marty Krofft Pictures in 1987 up to today, but even then, some shows still said Krofft Entertainment up into the early 1990s.
 

minor muppetz

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The "Muppets, Inc." thing is kinda confusing, though it seems Henson Associates also continued to be in credits after the company became Jim Henson Productions.

I've seen the back covers for some Sesame Street Atari games, which gave copyright credits for both Muppets, Inc. and Henson Associates. Confusing.

It's interesting about the pre-2000 ownership. I thought The Jim Henson Company owned the full rights to the Sesame Street Muppets, with Sesame Workshop getting 50% of merchandise profits and (according to Jerry Juhl in, I believe, his Muppet Central interview) having to approve of the use of any Sesame Street character appearing in additional Henson productions. Back then the copyright credits only listed Muppets Inc. or Jim Henson Productions as the owner of the characters, with the Muppet movies being the only ones to acknowledge Children's Television Workshop regarding the use of characters (and even then, in MTM the company only got a "special thanks" credit).

In the "Ask Jim Lewis" thread I once asked about why there hadn't been many post-1990 Sesame Street cameos in Henson productions, and he said something to the effect of it was easier to do so when Jim Henson was alive. But Kermit did make quite a few appearances on Sesame Street between 1990-2000. Maybe not too many, but considerably plenty compared to the amount of Sesame Street crossovers with other Henson properties in the 1990s. I wonder if there was any difficulty back then when it came to Kermit appearing on the show or in Sesame Street specials.

You know, I think I once saw a 1990 article about the proposed sale of The Jim Henson Company to Disney, and recall Joan Ganz Cooney saying that after the sale CTW would no longer be allowed to call them Muppets. And yet they are still allowed to call them Muppets, but back in 1990-1991 the credits referred to them as "Sesame Street Puppet Characters", even though that sale was never finalized. And I recently noticed that the credits to The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson give separate copyright credits regarding the Muppets and "Sesame Street Puppet Characters", despite them both belonging to Henson. Though it seems that now whenever Kermit appears in something Sesame Street-related there are usually separate copyright/trademark credits for "Muppet" and "Kermit the Frog" (as opposed to saying "Kermit the Frog, Muppets, and Muppet are trademarks of Muppets Studio").

It's also interesting how Jim Henson intended on selling his company but not the rights to the Sesame Street characters. How could a company own another company but not every property owned by the company it owns? Would Henson have had to form a subsidary allowing Jim Henson to own the Sesame Street Muppets while Disney owned the rest of The Jim Henson Company or what...?
 
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