The Great Muppet Caper and Muppet Treasure Island coming to Blu-ray December 10

[minor muppetz]

Could you link me to this? Thank you

Here's a blog with many of the scans, including the lists of what Disney has the rights to and what Henson does:
http://boyraisin2.blogspot.com/2013/01/disney-henson-who-owns-what.html

 

[panmanthe2nd]

Here's a blog with many of the scans, including the lists of what Disney has the rights to and what Henson does:
http://boyraisin2.blogspot.com/2013/01/disney-henson-who-owns-what.html

Thank you!

 

[dwayne1115]

Here's a blog with many of the scans, including the lists of what Disney has the rights to and what Henson does:
http://boyraisin2.blogspot.com/2013/01/disney-henson-who-owns-what.html

Wow that sure is a lot to go through but man, am I glad I did. Yes Disney did pay a lot for the Muppets but man alive they did get a lot of rights to a lot of things when they did. Looking at the money that they paid and then looking at now what they own, why have they not done more? I'm not a lawyer so can someone explain to me two things. from all the papers I read it seems like Disney now owns all the Muppets from Sam and Friends, but dose not own Rocky Mountain Holiday. Is that what I'm understanding or is that wrong?

Back to the new releases there are things that could have been used as bonus features for GMC.

 

[minor muppetz]

Wow that sure is a lot to go through but man, am I glad I did.

Yeah, there is a lot in there that's a bit confusing for me to comprehend. Like a section that says that the seller (Henson) acknowledged that some Muppet productions feature characters retained by the company as well as references to the company and that buyer (Disney) does not object to those being included (shouldn't it be the seller who doesn't object???). And the first time I read that I thought it meant that both companies were okay with their trademarks and characters being in productions the other company had the rights to (aside from some Fraggle Rock releases Henson has rarely edited out instances where the word "Muppet" or "Muppets" appeared in the credits) outside of what's mentioned in the "restricted retained entertainment properties". And I don't quite understand what it says about ownership of "Jim Henson's Scary Scary Monsters" books. And why does it have a section on Henson's involvement with Sesame Street but not acknowledge Sesame Workshop's rights to continue using the "Muppet" trademark and existing Kermit footage?

I'm not a lawyer so can someone explain to me two things. from all the papers I read it seems like Disney now owns all the Muppets from Sam and Friends, but dose not own Rocky Mountain Holiday. Is that what I'm understanding or is that wrong?

I kept reading the parts about "early Muppets" and it's confusing as to whether it says Henson still owns them or Disney does (Henson has recently rebuilt Yorrick for Puppet Up). So even reading that it's confusing as to which company owns the pre-Muppet Show characters who didn't appear (at least not primarily) in any production Disney got the rights to.

And I'm sure the distribution rights to Rocky Mountain Holiday (and A Christmas Together) are owned by John Denver's production company, I think it's called John Derr Productions (for some reason A Christmas Together was never acknowledged in those documents). I don't know how Sony was able to release Rocky Mountain Holiday on DVD under the Jim Henson Home Entertainment line (it's the only Henson production distributed by an outside company other than Sony to be released by Jim Henson Home Entertainment). And there's one part that talks about ownership of that special and Muppet Magazine, and I can't quite figure out what that's saying (that outside rights are temporary, or Henson had temporary rights to both, or something else?).

 

[dwayne1115]

As a Muppet fan looking at all that could be used as bonus features, and even sold as separate DVD's. I almost feel like Disney had no clue what they where buying. Even though it is a clear as black and white, and almost plain as day. Disney is sitting on this stuff and could have and still could make a lot of money by slowly diving into the Muppet library.


The papers also talk about Kermit not being in Emit Otter, but I wonder if Disney and Henson realize that Emit and the gang are in the Muppet Movie?

 

[minor muppetz]

The papers also talk about Kermit not being in Emit Otter, but I wonder if Disney and Henson realize that Emit and the gang are in the Muppet Movie?

Not to mention the fact that a song from Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas was covered on the recent "Green Album", a song that wasn't featured in any other Muppet productions. And the fact that Paul Williams' liner notes for the recent Muppet Movie soundtrack rerelease mentions Kermit being in it (at least Disney didn't censor the information to avoid drawing attention to Kermit not being in current releases).

 

[dwayne1115]

Well that is one thing that the papers do not talk about m the song rights. but I think the reason for that is because it has to be in agreement with the ageists.
Bringing things back on topic here, I don't understand for the life of me why they would not put Muppets Go to Hollywood with this Blu-ray. They own it they should use it.
In another thread we have been talking about JHC becoming less and less of what it use to be, but look at the list of specials that Disney would not own. Almost all of them including Henson Place and Sesame Street a celebration of 20 years have been released through Lions Gate. What has Disney done? They are the ones with the bigger library, Where is all this stuff?

 

[minor muppetz]

Bringing things back on topic here, I don't understand for the life of me why they would not put Muppets Go to Hollywood with this Blu-ray. They own it they should use it.

Did you mean The Muppets Go Hollywood should have been on The Muppet Movie Blu-Ray (I agree with that) or that The Muppets Go to the Movies should be on this one (I feel this special is more an hour-long Muppet Show episode than promotion for GMC, but it should have a commercial release)?

The only things I can really think of keeping those from being released are music rights (and maybe the heavy use of celebrities in Muppets Go Hollywood... some celebrities only appear for a few seconds and don't really do anything, but I'm not sure whether Disney has to worry about celebrity appearances for Muppet DVDs).

 

[dwayne1115]

Did you mean The Muppets Go Hollywood should have been on The Muppet Movie Blu-Ray (I agree with that) or that The Muppets Go to the Movies should be on this one (I feel this special is more an hour-long Muppet Show episode than promotion for GMC, but it should have a commercial release)?

The only things I can really think of keeping those from being released are music rights (and maybe the heavy use of celebrities in Muppets Go Hollywood... some celebrities only appear for a few seconds and don't really do anything, but I'm not sure whether Disney has to worry about celebrity appearances for Muppet DVDs).

That's what I meant, the titles for both of those are to much a like.

I know I must have known about all of these productions being owned by Disney, but in the back of my mind and on here I have tried to support Disney and there handling of the Muppets. That is one reason why I have had a hard time with people complain about cover art. I have thought that fans should be focusing there attention on just getting The Muppet Show Season 4-5 released, but now my goodness there is so much us Muppet fans could have. I just hope that Disney will wise up one day and start releasing these things.

 

[minor muppetz]

I know I must have known about all of these productions being owned by Disney, but in the back of my mind and on here I have tried to support Disney and there handling of the Muppets. That is one reason why I have had a hard time with people complain about cover art. I have thought that fans should be focusing there attention on just getting The Muppet Show Season 4-5 released, but now my goodness there is so much us Muppet fans could have.

Well, I think the fans have only been complaining about cover art for the movies. I don't recall many complaints about the covers of any of the TMS season sets.

And the movies have been among the most widely available stuff for fans to watch. The oldest ones have all been released on VHS, beta, laserdisc, DVD, and now Blu-Ray. Whenever any of the movies went out-of-print, it didn't stay out of print for too long (maybe just a few years at most). And even when they were out-of-print, it was quite common (at least for me) to find copies of most of the Muppet movies at various video stores (though there aren't many video stores these days) as well as most libraries that have a video rental section. And I think all of the movies are available for download on iTunes and Amazon and so on. The movies might not be broadcast as much anymore (these days it seems they're only broadcast on channels that a lot of cable companies don't carry).

But will fans complain about a horrible cover for something rare? Well, fans did complain about the Muppets Magic from the Ed Sullivan Show cover (which led to the first design-a-better/worse-cover contest for Tough Pigs), and I think a number of fans complained about the first cover for that Julei Andrews: One Step Into Spring special (which has been delayed). But will fans complain if, say, The Muppets Go to the Movies gets a DVD release and Animal is heavily on the cover despite not being in much besides the opening number and the finale? Will fans complain if A Muppet Family Christmas got an uncut DVD release but the cover had a big image of Elmo, who doesn't talk in that special (of course that's depending on whether the Sesame Street Muppets appear on the cover. I wouldn't have expected that before 2009, but since 2009 Kermit has appeared on the covers of most Sesame Street videos he's appeared in, and those Henson releases from 2010 that feature Disney-owned Muppets featured them on the covers)? Will we complain if The Muppets At Walt Disney World gets a DVD release and the cover shows some theme park attractions that came after 1990?

Those will all need to get DVD releases first before we can know.