Your Thoughts: Emmet Otter DVD

[minor muppetz]

I thought that the Muppet name was copyrighted. On the Songs from The Street box set and Sesame Street DVDs, if the word Muppet is listed, there is usually a trademark (TM) symbal by the word Muppet or Muppets, with a copyright credit stating that Muppets are owned by The Jim Henson Company (or The Muppets Holding Company). Of course, some of the more recent sesame Street DVDs (like All-Star Alphabet) don't have the word muppet written anywhere in the packaging.

Another reason for thinking the word was copyrigthed is because in a lot of sesame Street videos from 1990 and 1991, the credits referred to the Muppets as sesame Street Puppet Characters, which I think might have been because Jim henson was planning on selling the company to Disney, but Sesame Street would have been the only production not sold to Disney, and Sesame Workshop could have chose to not use the muppet name in the credits before a sale was final.

For some reason, I don't think the word Muppet hasn't been used on the packaging for any Hit! DVD releases. maybe Hit! thought there were some legal problems originally, or maybe Hit! or Henson didn't want the word Muppets used because Henson doesn't own the Muppets anymore.

For the first few Fraggle Rock DVDs, maybe Hit! thought they couldn't use the Muppets name in the credits, or maybe Henson (if not Hit!) thought it would be weird to have the credits say "Starring Jim Henson's Muppets" because Fraggle Rock didn't actually have any Muppets from The Muppet Show. maybe henson didn't want to confuse people, but then for the first season release, figured that since it was made for the fans to have it be as uncut and unaltered as possible, and for some reason chose to have the original logo on the Doin' The Things That Doozer's Do DVD as well. The bonus epsiode on Dance Your Cares Away had the original logo, but the bonus episode on Live By The Rule of The Rock didn't.

Maybe one or more of us should e-mail Hit! to see if we can get some answers about why the first three Fraggle Rock DVD's had a different logo.

There was recently a thread about the SNL Muppet skits, where I was wondering if, since the characters are owned by henson, the makers of the show would need permission from both henson and Disney to make a DVD titled The Best of The Muppets (permission from henson to include the skits, and permission from disney to use the name in the title). I guess this probably answers my question (if not then somebody can clear that up).

 

[rumtar_10165]

Emmet Otter

I had just bought the DVD and watched it for the first time. I have the original episode with Kermit on VHS that I had recorded, the one by Sony, and the latest one.
The Newest releashed has something that makes the loss of Kermit most forgiveable. The Specail Features.

It is great to find out when the specail was taped.
It is also great to watched the Behid Froghollow.
It is even great to listen to the lost song.

But to watch the Muppet Bloopers... makes me laugh even harder.
The bits that I liked the most was the drum roll bloopers.
The scene is where Jerry and Frank Oz hamed it up a bit.

Emmet : spare change? for a bottle of ripple?

It is awsome.

 

[MrsPepper]

I finally got time to sit down and watch this, and I am SO glad I did! I got it for only $6 at Wal-mart, and it is easily worth $20! The interviews were spectacular. Really good and informative, and very interesting. Good special features all around. I like being able to see the modifications. Also the outtakes were amazing! The drumroll bits were so funny to watch (but it must have been painful to make!)

Not to mention the special itself. I'd never really seen it all in one go before, and I completely fell in love with it. Especially the music.

Everyone should pick up this DVD. Everyone who worked on it did an AMAZING job and it's a really great tribute to this special.

 

[DTWolf]

Late Review

I know it’s a bit late to be talking about a Christmas special, and maybe nobody looks at this thread anymore, but I finally got around to watching this DVD. HIT has done a marvelous job. This is an excellent, amazing, fantastic disk. It’s the best release of Emmet Otter yet, hands down. The program itself is sparklingly clear and vibrant, and they slipped in a little bit of material that’s been dropped from previous releases (like the giant dancing rabbits). The extras are phenomenal: a full-length (hour-long!) documentary; a side-splitting blooper reel; an extensive photo gallery of behind-the-scenes shots (not 8-10 cheap stills from the program like some companies will offer); a quick jump-to-a-song menu; all that exists of the lost song (which I find myself humming this morning).

This is very nearly the absolutely perfect, definitive edition of Emmet Otter.
My one and only complaint about the entire disk (no, it’s not the missing Kermit scenes) is the handling of the alternate/deleted scenes. I’ve heard about most of these snippets but never seen them, and I’m enormously grateful that HIT included them in the extras--I just wish they’d been integrated into the main feature. Emmet and Ma Otter’s lines about passing the hat to fish and how the fish couldn’t be any poorer than them just struck a chord with me in particular. A previous post in this thread says that this material wasn’t of the same high quality as the rest. Well, if HIT wants to take the time over the coming year to restore it and add it back in to the program and release that version (with everything else unchanged) next Christmas, I will happily buy it without one complaint about multiple releases and companies scheming for money--because that would be the absolute best Emmet Otter possible, the definitive perfect edition.

As for Kermit--I know it’s heresy around here, but I say Emmet Otter is better without the Kermit framing scenes. I am 100% fine with them being gone.

 

[wes]

I got it for Christmas and it was Wonderful I made everyone Watch the behined the scene stuff (their not a fan, it drove them Crazy)but they put up with it because of me.
There's More stuff i like than didn't, I like the Behined the Scene Extras, that stuff is great for all muppet fans, the new interviews with JerryNelson, Michael frith, Carol Wilcox, the ladie who did ma otters voice, it was great.

The big thing I didn't like was (Of course) Kermit being Cut out due to new ownership of the muppets, Oh well. Can't have evrything we want!

 

[minor muppetz]

I rented this DVD recently, and I give it four stars.

It has been mentioend that the main feature was edited due to the edited version being a better master than the original master. owever, watching the deleted/ altered scenes, the video quality doesn't really look too different from the main program's video quality. There are a few glithces (I think that's the word) in some oif the deleted scenes, but otherwise the quality doesn't look too different to me.

The outtakes are funny, and the documentary is good. I also liked the lost song.

 

[superboober]

I'm curious, if anyone here's had expeirence burning DVDs in the past, would it be possible if you possessed an earlier VHS copy of this to burn it over the version presented here if you were dissatisfied with it without messing up the rest of the special features on the disc, (or by extension, to position it if so so that only the "fluff" features like the singalongs would be lost? Or is this impossible?).

 

[Lu775]

I know it’s a bit late to be talking about a Christmas special, and maybe nobody looks at this thread anymore, but I finally got around to watching this DVD. HIT has done a marvelous job. This is an excellent, amazing, fantastic disk. It’s the best release of Emmet Otter yet, hands down. The program itself is sparklingly clear and vibrant, and they slipped in a little bit of material that’s been dropped from previous releases (like the giant dancing rabbits). The extras are phenomenal: a full-length (hour-long!) documentary; a side-splitting blooper reel; an extensive photo gallery of behind-the-scenes shots (not 8-10 cheap stills from the program like some companies will offer); a quick jump-to-a-song menu; all that exists of the lost song (which I find myself humming this morning).

Ok, if January was late then July is even later, but I just finally got some time to watch the documentary, which was fantastic. In the credits of the documentary there was a "Special Thanks to" section and I noticed Warrick Brownlow's name listed there.
Not sure if Warrick still hangs here (I haven't checked in for a while), but just wanted him to know it was cool to see his name there. And I was kind of curious as to what his special thanks was for.

 

[muppetsforlife]

Don't sweat the fact its a Christmas special and your talking about it in July. I watch Muppet Family Christmas, Elmo saves Christmas, Muppet Christmas Carol, and Its a very muppet Christmas year round. I can't get enough of them. Anyway I thought the special was very well done. I agree that without Kermit in it, something is kind of missing. But other than that, I liked it a lot.

 

[Kiki]

My thoughts: Emmet Otter DVD

Well, I bought Emmet Otter's Jug-band christmas on DVD because i hadn't seen it for yonks and i *did* have the video but it was the rully old version and was looking a bit 'how's your father' and i could not clean it- it was sooo fuzzy, lol .
SO, i bought the DVD. It was a bit of a shame they cut Kirmit's bits out but i didn't make a big deal of it. I loved it . I forgot how good the songs were! The special features were fabby, too. it had a picture gallery and heaps of interviews... RULLY GOOD BUY!