Why Disney? Or Episode One: The Phantom Mouse

[Janice & Mokey's Man]

Originally posted by Smig
While the company banks on the public's recognition of "Cinderella" and "Peter Pan," its sequels have weaker characters and story lines and are made with lower quality animation and with budgets at a fraction of the cost of the original films, animators say.

No comment.

Except that is 100% correct.

 

[frogboy4]

The fact that they made a Little Mermaid 2 still upsets me.

 

[Luke]

The fact they made a Little Mermaid still upsets me.

 

[frogboy4]

Oh, I loved The Little Mermaid. It is my favorite Disney animated film and it revamped Disney's image and animation division. A very important film.

 

[danielromens]

Hey luke,

i've not yet seen the dvd and have not seen the new stuff what is it. and is it really all that great. Yeah they work together these days, which weirds me out, but even still. Different or not they were Jim Henson's Muppets not Disneys, they didn't create them. And he DIED, regardless we didn't see these things until after he passed. He died and they put them out anyway. the thought of that p*sses me right out the friggin door. I'm actually a little bitter about it. What a total lack of respect.


I once read in an article that came out while things were going sour that there was a puppet of Micheal Eisner being eaten by a monster in the New York Workshop.

Back to the thread....I also don't feel like Disney has the backing of it's product that people think. Granted their shows are still on air in Toon Disney. but that's because it's an entire channel devoted to THEIR WORK. I don't see any new darkwing duck merch around. but he's still syndicated on their channel. It fills a time slot for a channel of their cartoons. Go figure. For every project that they've backed and supposedly supported, there are a ton of others that they've thrown to the wayside.

 

[frogboy4]

I'm still a little bitter about Disney's behavior after Jim Henson died as well. However, I don't think many other companies of their stature would have handled things much differently. I could be wrong.

The difference between Darkwing Duck and the Muppets is that Darkwing's fame lasted a few years as the Muppets have spanned decades. I doubt they would ever shelve Kermit. The only real cause for conern is that they'll release too much - or that we'll get The Greatest Muppet Caper, The Muppets Take Manhattan Again or Return to Muppet Treasure Island. I cringe at the thought, but I still feel the "big fish" should win out over the other large companies.

 

[danielromens]

I of course understand your respect for the larger company, but with so many characters already are they really the best. I walked into a Disney Story lately and their was so much Pooh stuff it almost made me wet my own pants. They had monochrome pink pooh dolls, book of pooh dolls, pooh dolls in various costumes, classic pooh, disney pooh. It was total over kill and the products weren't even that great. Sad really.

Personally I think the Muppets would benefit more with a company that has a lot of money but not as many brandname characters to worry about. This would grant for a lot more care and emphasis on them, without as much contention from characters within the same company.

 

[frogboy4]

Daniel

I can understand what you are saying but I still think that the Muppets will likely go to a big company with a large stock of characters if not Disney. They really are the biggest candidate even if many fans don't.

It is incredibly unlikely that some sort of company as you have mentioned would pick up the Muppets as they will come at an expensive price. The only serous contenders I see are Fox, Dreamworks, AOL/Time Warner and Disney. It would be nice if a smaller family run type of company, but I just don't see it happening and I think there would be much less product in that case.

I don't understand what you are saying about Pooh merchandise. I live near a Disney store and I think Pook is well represented. Yes there's a lot of stuff, but he is incredibly popular - more so than Mickey these days. If that happened to Kermit, Gonzo and the gang I would be in heaven! I especially like the classic Pooh products. It shows that the company has some idea of an extended market for Pooh products. I just don't see what you mean in that arguement, but maybe I just disagree. That case could be made for other Disney characters though. The Monsters Inc Disney plushes were a little lack-luster.

 

[Luke]

Daniel :-

Yeah the new DVD stuff is great - a commentary with Brian and Dave, but Rizzo and Gonzo interupt it to show extra clips, then a featurette where Rizzo and Gonzo present from the actual Henson screening room. The menus are apparently very cool too. I think this is all worthy stuff and the two companies seem to be working well - though Hensons themselves likely produced most of it and just passed it to Disney but still, it shows communication.

As for Jim, yeah the Disney's "Muppets" thing as soon as he died was in bad taste, i'm just thinking that these things take a lot of planning so likely he knew about it and it was too late to stop from happening in certain cases once he died. I could be wrong though - there are others who might know for sure what was going on there.

I'm always seeing many mentions of Dreamworks as a possible bidder for JHC - in actual fact it was just a theory someone here had years ago, i don't think Dreamworks have ever been interested or are involved in the sale process. It's more Disney, Time Warner, Viacom, Rivkin, News Corp, Hit Entertainment, Cosgrove and a few others.

 

[frogboy4]

I stand corrected on Dreamworks. I guess it just got bounced around so much it started to have a ring to it.

The Muppet Treasure Island DVD is definitely worth buying IMHO. The addition of the extra bits was really a shock. Could this be Disney playing nice? That is something that is a topic for debate. My opinion on the lack of widescreen has been noted and has lost many points with me. I feel the film transfer should come first, but it is an otherwise good DVD. I'm surprised the Disney bean counters spent the extra pennies on this release (even though actual material was obviously Henson produced).

I just have to own the complete set and wait in years to come for the re-issue for the widescreen. It really is important with this film. Heck - I'm a widescreen guy through and through. Even my computer monitor is widescreen.