Muppets + Disney = Jim Henson's last Muppets project

September 16, 2010 7:02 PM

The Muppets at Walt Disney World is a television special starring Jim Henson's Muppets at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. This was the last Muppets project that Jim Henson worked on before his death. parts: intro 1 2 3 4 5 6

This has been on my backburner for a while and cerebus19's great post earlier today reminded me of it.

posted by item (16 comments total)

Muppet posts are somehow best when they arrive in groups.
posted by item at 7:04 PM on September 16, 2010

Oooh look - outtakes!
posted by item at 7:11 PM on September 16, 2010

There is already a thread about Jim Henson open (from today, no less). This could be posted there.
posted by parmanparman at 7:12 PM on September 16, 2010

It could be posted there, but it wasn't. And I'm glad. It deserves its own FPP and not to be buried in the comment section of a post about very early Jim Henson and him teaching how to make puppets.
posted by hippybear at 7:25 PM on September 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

I love you, hippybear.
posted by item at 7:30 PM on September 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Yay! I just MeFi spoused you. :D
posted by hippybear at 7:31 PM on September 16, 2010 [1 favorite]

Not sure if this clip has appeared on the blue before, but to promote this special Jim Henson made what would be one of his final apperances, on the Arsenio Hall Show.
posted by evilcolonel at 7:38 PM on September 16, 2010 [2 favorites]

I will watch muppet outtakes forever for some reason.
posted by empath at 7:42 PM on September 16, 2010

Man, that Clifford character is embarassing, though. What were they thinking?
posted by empath at 7:44 PM on September 16, 2010

My family taped this special, and I fondly remember watching it over and over. I loved watching Kermit in the Indiana Jones show for many years before I actually saw Raiders of the Lost Ark.
posted by kyleg at 8:46 PM on September 16, 2010

I remain confident that some day, MetaFilter will change its name to MuppetFilter.
posted by incessant at 10:12 PM on September 16, 2010

I remain confident that some day, MetaFilter will change its name to MuppetFilter.

I always thought they were already synonymous.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:31 PM on September 16, 2010

Wow. I feel like we unearthed a missing link, the intermediary between the fossil remains of the great Muppet Show ethos of Jim Henson's day, and the corporate-shill Muppets that roam the earth today.

Also, I'm not sure how well Gonzo's casual beastiality has aged.
posted by bicyclefish at 12:44 AM on September 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

This brings out weird emotions in me. I remember watching this when it first aired and crying at the end because it was still within a year of Jim Henson's death. And as a Muppets special it's pretty good; I was on a kick the previous few years from those AWESOME "Big Bird goes to _______" specials. (though those were much better)

But the thing that makes me feel weird here is that this whole thing is an ad. It was made because Disney bought the Muppets and this was basically a gigantic commercial for "Disney! We have Muppets now!" From the Eisner intro to the "meeting with Mickey" ending it's a whitewash of a whole bunch of lawyers signing papers for a deal that would spend the next decade destroying much of the Muppets creatively. This is an hour of, quite literally, cartoons and hand puppets being used to distract you from a corporate takeover. It's like an ad for a chicken restaurant with a cartoon chicken dancing around to dissuade you from the fact that actual chickens are being butchered and fried in boiling oil for you to consume.

Alright, I'm gonna go drown some kittens and slap ice cream out of childrens' hands now.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:18 AM on September 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

I love the acknowledgement in part 1 that WDW was built on drained swampland. That tickles me for some reason.
posted by hippybear at 11:39 AM on September 17, 2010

There is no such thing as too many Jim Henson posts, and I wouldn't trust anyone who claims otherwise! (Thank you for sharing these videos, item!)
posted by Mael Oui at 10:27 PM on September 17, 2010