The Muppets Are Back!

Although they never really went away completely, it seems as if the Muppets as we old-timers knew them are back, and in full force! When the Walt Disney Company acquired the Muppet properties in 2004, the Muppets had just about faded into obscurity. They were seen around on the occasional TV special, interview show, or direct to DVD movie, but had not been able to reach a broad audience for awhile.

Disney’s acquisition of the Muppets caused a great deal of stir among Muppet fans. The company was immensely adept at using synergy to promote its various properties:  Promoting their movies and TV shows in the Disney parks, the theme parks in various TV specials and parades, and cross-promoting their characters across all forms of media from TV and movies to music, books, and toys/gifts. There was excitement in the air. Muppet fans eagerly awaited the ambush of Disney promoted Muppet releases. They had to wait a little while.

As with any major acquisition, the Muppets were tied up in existing contracts when Disney purchased them. Disney had to wait a bit, to allow those contracts to run their course, before doing anything extensive with the properties. In addition, the Disney company had another problem. The Muppets were no longer relevant to today’s culture. They had been absent long enough that newer, younger generations were not as familiar with the characters, or as interested in getting to know them. Older generations of fans remembered the Muppets with nostalgia, but could Disney recapture that fandom AND gain new fans at the same time in a culture that grew up with CGI rather than puppetry? Disney attempted as early as 2005 to rejuvenate the Muppet brand, but the company had not yet figured out how best to do so, and instead most projects either died on the drawing board or were lost among the flotsam and jetsam of entertainment promotion.

In 2008, Disney stepped up efforts to reintroduce the Muppets. It’s taken nearly a year to do so, but it really seems as if their efforts this time were successful. Take a look at the recent YouTube video of the Muppets performing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The video quickly went viral, and now has over 7 million (yes, that’s MILLION) hits, with nearly 40,000 reviews and a five-star average rating. It was a trending topic on Twitter for a couple of days, and has been the subject of many a blog post (including on this blog!). The Muppets have a history of over-the-top parody and just plain fun. This video brings us back to those days of Muppet humor and Muppet glory.

Now we’re beginning to see the true value of Disney synergy. Kermit the Frog performed a duet with Disney Channel star Tiffany Thornton during the 2009 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Macy’s Boston Tree Lighting ceremony. Last year’s Christmas special, “Muppets: Letters to Santa” has recently been released on DVD and the music is available in MP3 format from Amazon.com. (The special re-airs this Friday on NBC as well)

In the theme parks, the Muppets are also getting some much needed attention. Rumor has it that Muppet Vision 3*D is due for a makeover to Disney Digital 3D in the near future. Updates to the pre-show and queue areas of the attraction in both Disney Hollywood Studios in Florida and Disney’s California Adventure in California are also rumored. David Gumpel, who directed the original pre-show, has posted in his blog that he directed a new pre-show for the updated attraction in November of 2008, but he had no further information on when it would debut. In October of 2009, the queue area of the attraction received new movie parody posters. With titles like “Beak-e” and “Hammah Montana”  the new posters are representative of what happens when Muppet humor meets Disney humor face on!

One can only hope that the current excitement over the Muppets will lead to bigger and better things. Updates to the existing theme park attractions, future performance videos and guest appearances, and an untitled movie in the works for some time around 2012 appear to be in the Muppet’s future. If they continue with the same quality as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” they should snowball into a return to popularity for the Muppets. After all, everything old is new again. Although computer animation is popular, Disney has returned to the good-old-days with hand-drawn animation in “The Princess and the Frog” and 20th Century Fox has returned to old-fashioned Claymation (puppetmation) with “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” both to critical acclaim and audience approval, so perhaps the time is right to return to good, old-fashioned puppetry as well. I certainly hope so!

You can view the Parody posters here: