My point was, given the Muppets recent exploits(Muppets.com sketches, Muppets Take Over Today, Bohemian Rhapsody, All the other Youtube videos, LTS, etc) how can people say the Muppets should be put in an archive wherehouse and Disney should just focus on The Muppet Show/classic shows?
We've been seeing since last year time and time again that the old Muppet magic chemistry/timing/timelyness is back as ever...and Bohemian Rhapsody I feel sealed the deal.
Now ok...if there's a dedicated fan community to say, the 1980's cartoon Gummi Bears...and Disney made a short lived really horrible "updated" hip new version, ok...I can see people saying "they should stick to the old reruns".
But Jim Henson intended the Muppets to be around forever. I don't see this obsession people have with the 1970's Muppet Show era as the be all end all. I celebrate the 1950's, 60's, 80's, 90's, 2000's and soon the 2010's as much as I love the Muppet Show/Muppet Movie/Land of Gorch 70's era.
I've been saying this time and again for years on this board, and quite a bit recently. The only "magic" I've seen gone is the magic of strong leadership and good projects. The puppetry is as good as ever, there's a lot of passion a lot of the puppeteers share, especially the newer crew... But when it comes down to it, they've been struggling to get a foothold on the franchise since Jim died, and they've been trying so many projects to try to grasp at what could have been. The first 2 muppet movies after weren't even original stories, and the Muppets basically played second to human actors or new characters, specifically for those movies. Muppets Tonight.. again, the writers didn't know what to do with it until the show was canceled... and given the format, they didn't know if it was a talk show or a variety show with a 90's slant.
I for onr hate turning classic characters like this into old nostalgic stuff, leading everyone to say... "Oh! I loved those guys! I want to buy a t-shirt I'm gonna wear at age 20-30 something that I would have beat up a kid for wearing when I was 15." It's like those kids who blew up all their once beloved TMNT figures with cheap fireworks and now just buy the overpriced re-releases, or pay scalpers on Ebay for dented, scratched, accessory-less stuff they could find at a garage sale. I always said the Magic of the muppets never left... they just haven't had a chance to put it to good use.
And I agree on the Gummi Bears comment as well. If they managed to want to bring back something cheaply, without thought... say the Underdog movie... then by all means, keep it as reruns we've seen too many times and can recite. But if you do something constructive, creative and well thought out, say the TMNT rebirth of 03, then it deserves a shot. Sure, Charles Schulz didn't want anyone else writing his stripe or doing the specials. He may have left us with a lack of closure, but I respect the choice he made for his comic... specials, on the other hand... there has to be someone who can write a special and not just take 2 weeks worth of strips and clumsily warp them into a half hour special.