Your Thoughts: Ed Sullivan Muppets Magic DVD

[MelissaY1]

Curses!
I knew I should've ordered through Amazon! I just got my Storyteller and Rocky Mountain Holiday yesterday in the mail from them. I could be watching my Muppets Magic right now....

Ah well, I'll go place my order now. Thanks again Melissa!

You're welcome, Cathy. Enjoy the DVD when you get it. I also recently got Rocky Mountain but haven't watched it yet....believe it or not have never seen it!! !
Melissa

 

[anymuppet]

I haven't seen it in a LONG time. Plus, I was just out at lunch and found Muppets Magic at Virgin Megastore!!!

I'm planning to watch them all (Muppets Magic first, of course!) tonight when I get home. I'm so excited that I actually found a copy in the store! Ican'twaitIcan'twaitIcan'twait!!!!!

 

[BiggNate]

Great!!

We just received it today in the mail from Amazon and it was very entertaining. I liked the skits that were precursors to others on the Muppet Show. I especially like "Octopus's Garden" and "The Rock and Roll Monster." "The Monster Family" was also very funny. Though Ed talking down to Big Bird, shame on you Eddie! All in all, very cool. I hope this sells because I really want to see more older Muppet stuff!

Nate

 

[prickle747]

looks like the dvd is delayed again went to a 'media play' store

informed that it will be now towards the end of sept.

i believe they said Sept. 23/03

can anybody verify this ??

 

[HerryGrail]

Okay!! Finally found it at Suncoast today. I've been calling regularly but they had never heard of it. So I just went by today, and there it was. I guess because it could be in the TV section, or the Music section, or the Kids section, and it could be either under "M" or with the other Sullivan DVDs under "S," it's not easy to get a complete answer over the phone from a clerk. (This one was in the Kids section.)

Haven't played it yet...just about to. But...that cover!! Good Times usually does crummy packaging, and I wonder if it's so people will perceive their products as low-end (and lower priced). But there's a fine line between value and junk, and that's what this DVD looks like. The little thumbnails have looked bad enough, but in full size the cover is frightening. That typeface and background...eccchhhh! All the video images have been blown up way beyond their tolerance, oversaturated with color, and the Muppets' pupils have been retouched to look sharp. I can't imagine anything worse...maybe I can: on the back cover, the headline has a hyphenated word!

It's also the first DVD I've ever seen with NO insert. This is too historic a compilation to be so thoughtlessly packaged. Well...I certainly won't hold it against the contents of the disc. But there's that letdown you get like when your favorite performer's box set comes out and the booklet is riddled with typos. You've gone to all this trouble, why not take just a little more time so it shows!!

 

[Super Scooter]

All in all, very cool. I hope this sells because I really want to see more older Muppet stuff!

Nate

Yeah, the fifties and sixites Muppet stuff is all my favorites. The timing, I don't know. They worked very differently in a shorter time frame. NBot necessarily better, but differently. They had less time, so the jokes were all strung together and quick-paced.

 

[Chilly Down]

Hi, HerryGrail! Yes, I'm familiar with GoodTimes' VHS releases, and they seem to take a kind of perverse pride in doing the sloppiest job possible. It's just a weird irony in this case, as the content that they're distributing is something much sought-after by collectors. If they were just releasing a Muppet special from the 80's that we'd all seen a hundred times, there wouldn't be such a clamor for it. But these are one of the "Holy Grails" of Muppet collecting, and Goodtimes doesn't seem to know what it has. It's like, "Look! We've just unearthed a Mark Twain novel that everyone thought had been lost to time. But we're going to release it with as ugly a cover as possible so that literature lovers everywhere quickly pass it by!"

At $10, this disc is a bargain, and if it were more attractively packaged, I think the casual buyer might actually pick it up. There's definitely more of a loose, free-wheeling sense of humor to Jim's early stuff. There's a lot of cartoonish violence (in a good way) that was missing from the later works; lots of explosions and characters getting eaten (including Kermit). I think that would appeal to a modern audience looking for more edginess from the Muppets (and would work distinctly better than their attempts at "edge" in the Christmas TV-movie). And these little "bite-size" sketches would be quite satisfying to an audience member on the outside who wouldn't be willing to commit to a full-blown Muppet production. And to have no liner notes on such a historic set? GoodTimes really kind of dropped the ball here.

But hey, I never thought I'd get a chance to see these, and now they're on DVD. So overall I'm happy. I'm also glad to hear more people are finding these on shelves now.

BTW, for a good laugh, head over to toughpigs.com and take a look at the fake DVD covers some people made up (including an entry by yours truly). A couple are serious, but most are tongue-in-cheek awful covers. I don't think it's up on the main page of the site anymore, but you can probably find it by using the search engine. Try "Denver DVD cover" or something.

BTW, like the pic by your screenname! I originally asked where you got it from, but then I noticed you already answered someone else about it, so never mind. I hadn't realized they had made a Herry puppet. Was this from the same people who made the plastic-head Ernie and Bert puppets, or the ones who made the large Grover puppet (my favorite) or the Cookie Monster puppet? I thought those were all Fisher-Price, but maybe I'm wrong.

 

[HerryGrail]

BTW, like the pic by your screenname! I originally asked where you got it from, but then I noticed you already answered someone else about it, so never mind. I hadn't realized they had made a Herry puppet. Was this from the same people who made the plastic-head Ernie and Bert puppets, or the ones who made the large Grover puppet (my favorite) or the Cookie Monster puppet? I thought those were all Fisher-Price, but maybe I'm wrong.

Thanks Chilly Down! I'm sorry I missed your question, but I'm glad you found the answer. These puppets were all made in the 70's by the same company, variations of Child Guidance (though I've been corrected that the very, very first Ernie, Bert, Cookie, Oscar, and Big Bird ones were by made by Topper, and Child Guidance quickly took over and expanded the line). If you're interested in more, please check my posts for a thread I started (and ended!) about the history of these puppets. I'm always looking to fill in the details!

 

[Buck-Beaver]

So I've discovered the secret to getting a blank stare from a video store clerk...just walk in and ask about "Muppet Magic". A small sampling of responses I've gotten so far while looking for this DVD:

- "Huh?"

- "Never heard of it."

- "Sorry dude, you got me."

- "The Muppets were on the Ed Sullivan Show?"

- "Who's Ed Sullivan?" (I am NOT making this up)

The scary thing is I was looking in all the cult DVD/video stores that specialize in exactly this sort of thing. One clerk searched all of his store's current catalogues and couldn't find it - he said whoever is distributing this disc has done a horrible job of promoting it (to retailers) if his store hasn't heard of it since they carry just about everything, including tons of imported DVDs that no one has ever heard of.

Has anyone else had luck finding this in a store yet?

 

[Super Scooter]

Has anyone else had luck finding this in a store yet?

Nope. Nowhere! I'm thinking of giving up the search and just ordering it online.