What Muppet Fans Are Thinking About

[misspiggy5260]

If Piggy and Kermit are EVER getting married like seriously.

 

[Muppet Master]

If Piggy and Kermit are EVER getting married like seriously.

I think that will always be a running gag in the muppet franchise, I mean I doubt they'll ever make it happen, and it'd be kind of annoying to incorporate another wedding in a muppet movie.

 

[JimAndFrank]

I think that will always be a running gag in the muppet franchise, I mean I doubt they'll ever make it happen, and it'd be kind of annoying to incorporate another wedding in a muppet movie.

Trust me, it'll happen eventually and when it does, it will be a television special, not a part of another film. It is a running gag that has been running for too long and is getting tiresome quickly. Besides have you seen Kermit lately? He was acting like a love-sick puppy (for Kermit anyway) all through the MMW interview junket, willingly giving kisses and cuddling up to the pig

Anyway, in other Muppet Fan thoughts, I wonder if that Muppet broadway show is still going to go ahead? I haven't heard anything about them giving up on it.

 

[AlittleMayhem]

• (Whenever a new Muppet production comes out) Does the EM get any lines or a scene in this one?
• What will they do with Contantine since he has fulfilled his role as main villain of MMW?
• Dude, if I had money and more experience in film, I would totally finance and direct and EM movie!
• That would be sweeeeeeet!

 

[minor muppetz]

One thing I often think about is character/production ownership, and distribution rights over the years.

I think about how the credits for the first three Muppet movies don't have a note that the Muppets were owned by The Jim Henson Company. And is it just me or do those movies lack production credits for The Jim Henson Company? I know that TMM and GMC now have production logo sequences for Jim Henson Pictures (and back in the 1990s, they had production credits for Jim Henson Productions), but those movies didn't have such sequences (it seems a production sequence for Henson Associates or whatever didn't exist until Fraggle Rock or Muppet Babies). The Jim Henson Company did originally produce those, right?

And there's the fact that even with Disney owning the Muppets and the productions, the Jim Henson Productions/Pictures logo still appears in the movies. The 50th anniversary DVD releases added the "Muppet Studios" logo sequence while retaining old Henson production logos, but Netflix doesn't include the Muppet Studios logo (and ABC Family didn't include that logo either). And yet Zoot's ITC sequences had to be replaced (I asked about this back when The Muppet Newsflash had a forum, and I was told that it's okay for productions to retain their production logo sequences and credits when ownership changes).

And after watching the first five movies recently, it's interesting how the first three give copyright credits to the production companies, while the ones that Disney always produced give copyright to The Jim Henson Company.

And I often think about how, with the exception of the movies that Disney always distributed, the "presents" credit never goes to the distributor, but to an executive producer or the Henson company. This also applies to The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and the two Sesame Street movies (and I think The Witches and Buddy).

And on my mind often is Universal having the US distribution to ITC's films in the 1980s, which includes The Great Muppet Caper and The Dark Crystal. Jim Henson: The Biography mentions that when Jim Henson successfully purchased the distribution rights to TDC from ITC he still had to deal with Universal as the American distributor, but it seems like Henson must have been able to get those distribution rights. Was Universal's deal with ITC always temporary (meaning that ITC, and any company who bought the rights to its films, would eventually get back the American rights?)? Did the Universal logo appear on the original VHS releases of GMC and TDC? I know that even after Jim Henson got the distribution rights, The Great Muppet Caper continued to be broadcast with the Universal logo (and I remember one TV broadcast which had both the ITC and Universal logos).

 

[Mister Muppet]

Muppety things on my mind include:

• What will be the Muppets next project
• Will we get a new Muppet action figure Series or More Plush soon
• When will Seasons 4 and 5 of TMS be released on DVD
• Will they make a 60 years TV special next year
• Will Bret Mckenzie still write music for The Muppets (I hope so)
• Will they make any new Viral Videos e.g. Muppisodes

 

[WemblinFool18]

Basically I'm just wondering two things:

1. I wonder if Steve Whitmire ever got my fan mail???? I've got no way of knowing, and I had some questions I'd like him to answer.
2. WHEN IS JIM HENSON'S CREATURE SHOP CHALLENGE COMING BACK?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

 

[minor muppetz]

One thing that's on my mind is Thog's appearance in the number "I Feel the Earth Move". Besides being a giant in that appearance, I've always thought there was something different/odd about his appearance compared to his other appearances. In almost all his other appearances he has a rather "cuddly" look, but here not so much. I wondered if it was because he was supposed to look giant, but then they used miniature sets as opposed to video tricks to make him look bigger, so that wouldn't be the case. But then it hit me: This was the last appearance of the original Thog puppet, so it was probably a case of the puppet wearing out.

I've also always thought it was strange how in that one clip Thog's ears didn't go up, when they did in almost every other appearance (well, they didn't in the Muppet Movie finale). For some reason I thought it was a rule for his ears to go up in everything he appears in (and I wasn't accepting the technicality that they did go up in the opening, seen in every episode including that one). But I wonder if there were any reasons, or if the mechanics were broke, or if the performer just happened to not do that in that scene.

This also reminds me of something I thought about Thog (which should probably be noted in the Muppet mistakes thread). At first the primary source of me seeing Thog was in the "I Hear the Earth Move" clip in Rock Music with the Muppets, and I thought he was always giant (I had also seen him alongside Sweetums and a Mutation in the It's the Muppet Show book but didn't think a thing, and had not yet noticed Thog in The Muppet Movie finale). Then one time I rented Rock Music witht he Muppets, and noticed he was in the School's Out number as well, the same basic size as the other full-body characters, and mistakenly thought that he was a magical monster who could grow and shrink at command (which would be a cool character thing, especially since the current Thog puppet is noticeably larger).

 

[dwayne1115]

I've been thinking about the Muppet Show, and how when it first premiered both in the UK and in the US how it just became one of the most popular shows at that time. In the UK the first Muppet Show album beat the Beatles, and was number one on the charts. In fact people started calling it Muppetmania, and I'm just thinking what would it take for that to happen again? Or a better question is could that ever happen again with Jim Henson being gone?

 

[minor muppetz]

I tend to think about how England-based performers usually only perform in productions made in England, and Canandian-based performers are limited to Canandian productions, and yet there doesn't seem to be any problems getting American-based performers to perform in productions made outside of the states.

And I can't really decide which setting I prefer for the intros and outros on The Jim Henson Hour: The Muppet Workshop setting used in the pitch tape, or the computer animated room used for the series. Both are good and magical. The workshop setting would have been more of a mix of reality and magic... I feel with that setting, we could have gotten random appearances by characters in the workshop.

In Jim Henson: The Biography, it says that the Lion was used in the intros to give Jim somebody to talk to... But they could have had other characters popping up and interacting with Jim (even with the more magical set used). And it seems like in the Jim Henson Hour's main setting, aside from some Creature Shop characters (was Jojo made by the Creature Shop or the Muppet Workshop?), the only Muppets to appear with Jim in those scenes were presented as puppets being performed by Jim.

And lately I've been thinking about the rotating schedule Jim Henson intended for the show... And I've wondered what kind of show would air in months that have five days that the show is usually broadcast. Or would they have just aired something else in the shows time slot (maybe special airings of other NBC shows, or television specials, or movies, or maybe even repeats of existing Henson specials or movies).

I also wonder what the ratings were like for Sesame Street: 20 and Still Counting, which aired in The Jim Henson Hour's time slot one week before the premiere (and had two commercials for the show... in fact that and The Magical World of Disney were the only TV shows advertised during the commercial breaks). Ratings for JHH were usually disappointing, but was that the same for 20 and Still Counting? Maybe the fact that it was a Sesame Street special helped it (or was intended to help with the ratings), but then again, the fact that the Muppets were used on JHH should have helped the ratings as well but didn't.