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’80s Muppet Show Erased From Existence By Disney, Jim Henson’s Legacy Needs To Be Preserved

Posted by Jonathan Klotz | Published

The Muppets faced a difficult decade following their cancellation I office-inspired show, I The Muppetsby ABC in 2015. There are no new Muppet movies on the horizon, and their last two games, The Muppets Now again Electric Mayhemthey were buried in Disney+ with the limited marketing budget of two cans tied together with string.

Making the current state of the Muppets franchise even worse is the fact that Disney is removing MuppetVision 3D from Hollywood Studios, which is notable as it was the last project Jim Henson worked on before his death. That shouldn’t be too surprising, since Disney hasn’t released either The Jim Henson Hourleaving it stuck in a nearby vault Song of the South again Ernest Goes to Camp.

MuppeTelevision

MuppeTelevision

The Jim Henson Hour it was hosted by Henson himself, introducing each episode before entering MuppeTelevisiona modern classic drama series about a gang that runs a television studio. Each episode featured a different celebrity guest, such as Louie Anderson and Ted Danson, with sketches ranging from Fozzie becoming a weather forecaster to a fictional nature documentary that turns into a battle between butterflies and moths. As a lifelong fan of the Muppets, even I will admit that this part of the show was uneven, and the new CGI muppet, Waldo, did not participate, but this gave us Bean Bunny, and it was only part of the episode.

The back part of each piece of The Jim Henson Hour or it was an episode of Narratoradapted from old folk tales, or a new fairy tale for the show. These stories were darker and more serious than MuppeTelevision as they tried to keep the feel and tone of the source material, which made for a unique experience for kids who want to see Kermit.

Narrator premiered in 1987 and won an Emmy for Best Children’s Programming for the episode “Hans the Hedgehog.” Today, you can stream the series to check it out for yourself.

Small Movies

Monster Maker

Not all episodes of The Jim Henson Hour included Narratorfollowing Miss Piggy as she tries to interview celebrities in a segment that has been revived in the Covid era. The Muppets Nowand three were hour-long movies: Dog City, Living with Dinosaursagain Monster Maker. Dog City was a film noir narrated by Rowlf, featuring Muppets involved in mob and security forces, which would go on to become a Saturday morning cartoon in the 90s, while. Living with Dinosaurs it was a straight-forward tale of a stuffed dinosaur brought to life to help a child navigate his broken home life. Although both of those are fun in their own ways, of course Monster Maker that left an impression on me the first time I watched it, I have never been able to shake it off.

In what I consider to be the second best episode The Jim Henson HourHarry Dean Stanton plays a special effects master who takes on a young student, but one of his latest projects, the Ultragorgon, which looks like a mechanical dragon, lives on. It does not move chaotically; instead, he becomes a mentor to the boy, giving life advice to finish school and face his father, but slowly, it takes a dark turn. The Ultragorgon, which Henson described as being brought to life by eight different puppets, was a large piece of the working effect voiced by Dumbledore himself, Michael Gambon.

Dog City

You can get both Dog City again Monster Maker to broadcast as independent films, without exception The Jim Henson Hour independent devices. However, the best episode of the series, released in 1992 as a stand-alone special, “Secrets of the Muppets,” is nowhere to be found.

Henson pulls back the curtain and explains to the children how the Creature Shop created the puppets for the show, how they operate on the set, the wizardry that makes them ride bikes, and shows the puppeteers who look after the different Muppets, including Henson, as Kermit, introducing Henson, ancestor. It’s one of the funniest hours of television that explains the magic of Hollywood to kids without talking down, which Henson excels at.

Disney Needs To Honor Henson’s Legacy

The Jim Henson Hour

You can broadcast Narrator free on Peacock, Amazon Freevee, and Crackle, while Dog City it’s in Tubi, too Monster Maker it’s in Tubi. It is good that small films are accessible to the audience today, but MuppeTelevision it is always lost in time.

What is missing, too, is what I consider to be your heart and soul The Jim Henson Hourparts with Jim Henson himself. Those are not available anywhere. Henson was a creative genius, and although his work lives on forever, Disney, the owner of the rights to the Muppets, denied people access to the last series he worked on before his passing.

That’s why Disney’s announcement about the removal of MuppetVision 3D from Hollywood Studios is so troubling for fans: it was Jim Henson’s last work with the Muppets. Since the company will not issue The Jim Henson Hourhis last series, there is little faith that his last creative work will be honored and remembered in any way by the company. It’s great that the Muppets house band, Electric Mayhem, is taking over Rock’n’Roller Coaster, but that has no direct connection to Henson.

If Disney is keeping the Carousel of Progress, the last ride at the Magic Kingdom that Walt Disney worked on, Jim Henson deserves the same level of respect.



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