I understand that frustration of the thread but I also disagree with it.
For starters, the Muppets problems are not because of Disney. They all started in 1990 when Jim Henson died. The team lost its leader and frankly its greatest and most creative member. From there problems were magnified:
The Henson kids, with all due respect, didn't have the vision of their father.
Frank Oz was effectivly done from that moment on.
There simply wasn't enough product to keep a generation interested.
In short, the people running the muppets REALLY dropped the ball.
Now we can sit here and blame Disney all we want but let's take a cold, hard and painful look at the facts.
90% of the fans of the muppets and members here are adults. The reason for this lays in the fact that most people younger than maybe about 20 simply didn't grow up with the muppets. That's great for nostalgia and collectible purposes, but that's a nightmare scenario from a marketing and relaunching standpoint.
Disney is caught in a catch-22. In a sense they have to relaunch and somewhat rebrand the muppets but at the same time they have to keep the old-timers happy. That is easier said than done. Let's also be realistic here, what exactly do they have to build on from the last decade? Muppets from Space? A Very Muppet Christmas? Muppet Wizard of Oz? Cmon now, let's be fair about those products.
When was the last time someone went to California adventure? When was the last time you saw anything close to a line at the muppets attraction? How about at the gift stand? As business people would any of you sink a ton of money into that? It's going to take time and a lot of planning. Keep in mind it was often a lack of direction and planning that got the muppets to this point to begin with.
Now for all the criticisms leveled at Disney, has anyone noticed actually how good of a time this is to be a muppet fan? Muppet Show Season Sets, commercials again, master replica's, statues, etc.
Look Disney isn't perfect and they have a laundry list of mistakes under them, but we can't blame them for this situation. The problem is people made up their mind about Disney before anything even happened. People either viewed them unfairly as a savior that was going to come in and turn things around overnight or they viewed them as the spawn of all that is evil.
While I'd love to see some of the ideas that have been thrown around, we have to be realistic here. First of all nothing was in concrete. Secondly it's pretty obvious to me Disney cares about the Muppet Franchise. Not only did they pay a lot of money for it, but they've built a pretty nice website, put out a ton of merchandise for it (take one look at the Disney catalogues from the past year and tell me you had better options before Disney), done an excellent and time consuming job on the muppet show and are slowly trying to rebuild a franchise that was pretty much run into the ground. Take one look at widescreen DVD releases, the attention paid to TMS and tell me you had better options before.
We can complain all we want about new casting, but let's be honest: the older cast just wasn't working anymore and new blood is sadly exactly what the franchise needs. We can wonder about realty shows and the like, but what if it wasn't Disney? Could it be that network execs looked at the numbers the muppets have pulled down and realized it just wasn't going to work right off the bat?
Go into an elementary school and see how many kids know the muppets like our generation did. Prepare yourself for a MAJOR letdown, and I know because my wife is a teacher.
Look as fans we tend to overstate the popularity of things. We assume because we like, that we are a reflection of the general population. This is especially true of people who frequent the internet. But the harsh truth is that relaunching the muppets is going to take time. Considering Disney is in the process of relaunching themselves, I highly doubt The Muppets are the first priority on their list. But Disney is a prime example of how time and smart people can relaunch a brand.
It's very easy to forget that for nearly 20 years after Walt's death, the company was in a serious downfall. While we envision them as being a giant corporation forever, we forget that the re-birth really didn't start till the mid 80's. The muppets aren't as big of a property as disney was, so it's going to take even more work and time to built them back up. Ultimately what will decide the muppets fate isn't Disney at all, it's the public. The Muppets will either find their place in our culture (and other cultures) or they will fade into the background like many other once famous characters. While we don't like to admit it, the odds highly favor this outcome. It's just the way the world works and the way society and culture works. It's not written in stone, but it could be said that The Muppets greatest challange is not Disney but rather convincing your neighbors to actually care what happens to them. No corporation in the world can change the fate of a product that no one cares about over the long haul. People either want it or they don't.
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