The Muppet Show Season 1 Uncut only in Germany?

[mupcollector1]

I was reading on the regular wiki Muppet Show article (wikipedia, not Muppet Wiki) and it said that the German release of The Muppet Show Season 1 is uncut and includes the English audio option except for the opening theme.

I never heard of that. Makes me want to buy it next month.

"The only uncut release of Season 1 on DVD so far is the German DVD release by Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment division from 2010 (which also contains English audio). However, the intro and end credit sequences on this release are in German."

Plus like all of you, I'm still waiting for The Muppet Show Seasons 4 & 5. I'm shocked they didn't release it due to the new Muppet Movie's success at the box office. Did it really beat the The Muppet Movie box office record? I've heard rumors about it.

 

[Pinkflower7783]

It's true I'm pretty sure you could find it on Ebay. As for the rest of the seasons last I heard Disney is still working on getting seasons 4 and 5 out. A lot of the reason their not out yet is copyright reasons to the songs performed.

And yes The Muppets was the highest grossing of The Muppet movies.

 

[mupcollector1]

Yeah I figured that it had something to do with the copyrighted songs.

Strange that the New Muppet movie had a higher gross then the other Muppet Movies. Because the late 70s and early 80s were The Muppets at the top of their popularity. How many viewers? 30 Million a week or something like that?

I wondered how the movie got so much box office now and they didn't during the 90s? I wonder if a new Muppet show were to air now, would it succed like The Muppet Show? I remember reading that Muppets Tonight got canceled due to low ratings which shocks me even today because I thought the show was awesome and probably the top best of The Muppets after Jim's passing. The show was so true to the humor and they even pushed it further which I loved. Even some parodies of celebrities, Spamula Hamerson. lol

 

[Mo Frackle]

Yeah I figured that it had something to do with the copyrighted songs.

Strange that the New Muppet movie had a higher gross then the other Muppet Movies. Because the late 70s and early 80s were The Muppets at the top of their popularity. How many viewers? 30 Million a week or something like that?

I wondered how the movie got so much box office now and they didn't during the 90s? I wonder if a new Muppet show were to air now, would it succed like The Muppet Show? I remember reading that Muppets Tonight got canceled due to low ratings which shocks me even today because I thought the show was awesome and probably the top best of The Muppets after Jim's passing. The show was so true to the humor and they even pushed it further which I loved. Even some parodies of celebrities, Spamula Hamerson. lol

The fact the most recent movie grossed so much might have to do with the economy change. For all we know, the amount the first Muppet Movie made back in 1979 could be about how much "The Muppets" made today. After all, almost everything cost less back in the day.

Muppets Tonight getting low ratings had to do with Disney's (specifically ABC) lack of understanding of how to make TV shows popular. Part of what made the original Muppet Show so big is that CBS (and whatever channels outside of the US that did first-run airings of the show) put it in a decent timeslot. In addition, the show was widely syndicated, even while it was still in production.

The Jim Henson Hour suffered from not being placed in a suitable timeslot, and not being syndicated. After Jim's passing, Disney kept trying to pursade Brian Henson into making a new Muppet Show for ABC. Brian saw what had happened with JHH, and was therefore reluctant to give in. Eventually he did, and that's how we got Muppets Tonight. As to be expected, MT wasn't show in a suitable time slot, and was also not syndicated.

In short, the lack of ratings had nothing to do with people not being interested in the show, but rather from people not knowing that the show was even on.

 

[panmanthe2nd]

I was reading on the regular wiki Muppet Show article (wikipedia, not Muppet Wiki) and it said that the German release of The Muppet Show Season 1 is uncut and includes the English audio option except for the opening theme.

I never heard of that. Makes me want to buy it next month.

I've wanted to buy the German release for a long time because of this reason, but haven't yet because never having enough money and when I do have enough wanting another Muppets (or Sesame Street) item more.

I'll have to get it soon.

 

[mupcollector1]

The fact the most recent movie grossed so much might have to do with the economy change. For all we know, the amount the first Muppet Movie made back in 1979 could be about how much "The Muppets" made today. After all, almost everything cost less back in the day.

Muppets Tonight getting low ratings had to do with Disney's (specifically ABC) lack of understanding of how to make TV shows popular. Part of what made the original Muppet Show so big is that CBS (and whatever channels outside of the US that did first-run airings of the show) put it in a decent timeslot. In addition, the show was widely syndicated, even while it was still in production.

The Jim Henson Hour suffered from not being placed in a suitable timeslot, and not being syndicated. After Jim's passing, Disney kept trying to pursade Brian Henson into making a new Muppet Show for ABC. Brian saw what had happened with JHH, and was therefore reluctant to give in. Eventually he did, and that's how we got Muppets Tonight. As to be expected, MT wasn't show in a suitable time slot, and was also not syndicated.

In short, the lack of ratings had nothing to do with people not being interested in the show, but rather from people not knowing that the show was even on.

So the timeslots being moved around would cause less viewers because the viewers would be confused not knowing what time to tune in right? So the network would look at this as, low ratings oh well time to cancel. That's what happened right? I'm just trying to make sure I got how the whole system works.

I wished that Muppets Tonight continued for a couple more seasons. That was show was so awesome. If a new Muppet Show would come out, I just hope it's as edgy and as true to the Muppet humor as Muppets Tonight and the other shows before it.

 

[Pinkflower7783]

Yep that's pretty much it. You got it. Lol!

 

[Mo Frackle]

So the timeslots being moved around would cause less viewers because the viewers would be confused not knowing what time to tune in right? So the network would look at this as, low ratings oh well time to cancel. That's what happened right? I'm just trying to make sure I got how the whole system works.

Sometimes. Other times, it has to do with the show remaining in one timeslot. Specifically the infamous "death-slot". For those unfamiliar with the term, a death-slot is basically a certain time of the day or night when less and less people are watching TV. It's pretty common on Fridays and Saturdays in the evening, as most people are out of their house during that time. It's also pretty common in the wee hours of the morning, when practically everybody is in bed. JHH and MT were at different times both in death-slots. The fact that ABC decided to include MT in its "TGIF" lineup (a lineup a family-friendly shows geared mainly at the pre-teens) didn't help the situation much.

 

[Pinkflower7783]

Jim Henson said he blamed the failure of his show on NBC because they kept jerking it around. Which he was right that was a lot of the reason why it was cancelled. Mo pretty much summed it up though.

 

[Vinnie Rattolle]

So the timeslots being moved around would cause less viewers because the viewers would be confused not knowing what time to tune in right? So the network would look at this as, low ratings oh well time to cancel. That's what happened right? I'm just trying to make sure I got how the whole system works.

I wished that Muppets Tonight continued for a couple more seasons. That was show was so awesome. If a new Muppet Show would come out, I just hope it's as edgy and as true to the Muppet humor as Muppets Tonight and the other shows before it.

This has strayed off topic, but just to clarify, "The Jim Henson Hour" got bounced around on and off the schedule, but "Muppets Tonight" was played a bit more consistently. The show premiered mid-season paired with the forgotten "Dinosaurs"-meets-"The Brady Bunch" Henson sitcom "Aliens in the Family," which was canceled after two weeks. Left without a suitable companion show, "Muppets Tonight" stayed on, did okay for Friday nights (where ratings are always low but they had the advantage of getting a lot of younger viewers) and was renewed for a second season... at which point they moved it to Sunday nights, where it completely tanked in the ratings. Then "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" came along and was an instant hit, getting higher ratings than "Muppets Tonight" had in the same timeslot a season earlier, so ABC dumped plans for a midseason return and the show moved to The Disney Channel where they played reruns for a while and burned off all of the second season's unaired episodes.

The biggest problem was that The Muppets' popularity had waned after Jim's death, so instead of promoting it as a new Muppet Show (like they did during its more successful run on The Disney Channel), ABC's promotion was almost exclusively limited to brief 10-second bumper-commercials plugging that week's guest. Garth Brooks would yell, "Let's mambo," they'd show a rapid succession of clips of him and the announcer would state, "Catch Garth Brooks on Muppets Tonight, Friday on ABC!" If you weren't a big fan of Garth, Whoopi or whoever, those little commercials would slip by mostly unnoticed. ABC's promotional department just didn't understand that the Muppets themselves were the REAL stars of the show, not the guest-of-the-week.