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Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends BookRead that first part of the quote and immediately thought, oh, they're going to make it suuuuuuuck? But I'd hate to agree, but taking the action out of the nursery is the one thing that BLT has over Muppet Babies. It's strange that the Muppet Babies original series is both a series of bottle episodes, but not quite because they imagine new settings. And the concept of them meeting other characters by visiting them sounds solid. That would be a great way to expand the cast, yet not have to have them in every episode throwing off the ensemble cast ratio.
And I'll just take care of this because it's obvious it'll wind up coming to my thoughts on a show that I personally despise but some probably don't, regardless how baffling it is to me.
Ahem.
Muppet Babies is a series that had a soul. If anyone remembers what cartoons were like in the 80s, they were either toy commercials of the action or cutesy type or old cartoons characters with offspring or as babies (following MB's lead), or some other kind of ripoff. I like certain 80's cartoons, and that's another thread for another day. But Muppet Babies really felt like you're watching an animated version of the Muppets as Babies with some tiny alteration. It perfectly fit in with the vibe The Muppets were going through in the 80's without taking too much away from the characters. It was clearly meant as a platform for a preschool-first grader cartoon series that happened to be highly toyetic. The series was the good kind of edutainment that walked the line around actually being entertaining and having pro-social values that weren't preachy and clumsy.
Baby Looney Tunes, however, was meant as a cash in. And for years, it was only a merchandising thing, cashing in off nostalgia from LT characters to provide baby and toddler merchandise. Years later it was made into a TV show, ripping off Muppet Babies down to the Granny being Nanny (and one other tiny advantage BLT has over MB, June Foray...but she really seems unimpressed and bored in this series). Except they forgot that, unlike the Looney Tunes, the Muppets had more emotional range and were able to fit into pro-social values and quieter moments without too much alteration. And they also forgot the original Looney Tunes characters were funny. Also trying to constantly kill each other. Considering this was the era where they canned the actually good Duck Dodgers because Back in Action failed, and we also got Loonatics Unleashed out of it, it was a bad time for LT and the wrong time for a Baby spinoff, especially one far more cynical and inorganic as it was. MB came at a good enough time between projects and just after MTM.
Plus it isn't written nearly as good, almost forgetting how a cartoon is supposed to be entertaining. At least with Muppet Babies there was enough mild peril (even if it was in their heads) to keep the show entertaining and thrilling for the core audience. BLT was all about social messages and educational content that it forgot that edutainment has to have tainment in it as well. And veteran cartoon writers and producers worked on it, making me thing it was WB Executive meddling.
