If Jim hadn't died in 1990

Yeah! It really didn't seem like all that long ago

I overheard some people discussing Will Ferrell recently, though they said that it's hard for him to always be funny because he does so many movies a year.

I think Will Ferrell could make that jump to a serious actor. I like him alot

I was just thinking, The Muppets themselves are about 54 years old. And for their 50th aniversary, Disney only did small stuff. The Kermit traveling around the world thing was nothing. I heard that it was going to be this big TV special. Instead it was just photos on Muppets.com. The only good thing Disney has ever done with them was Muppets Wizard of Oz and From the Balconey on Movies.com.

Well, at least Disney was nice before when they worked side by side with The Henson Company on Christmas Carol, Treasure Island and puting the rest of the episodes of Muppets Tonight on the Disney Channel.

You know what I think, I think Disney only bought The Muppets so they don't have competition

I know that's kind of harsh towards Disney, but it kind of makes sence since they aren't really doing much with them unless you could murchandise.

Again, I don't want to be too mean to Disney, but as a huge Muppet / Henson fan, I feel going to the theme park with a nice giant mouse trap sounds good to me. LOL

I remember Jim once said that he liked the idea of The Muppets being owned by Disney in the future because the company seems like a fun company considering them making theme parks and family entertainment.

I have a tape from 1990 and it was a Fox News thing where The Henson Company sewed Disney for using The Muppets without them completeing the contract and also it was around the time where it was canceled because of Jim's Passing. It kind of shows how heartless Disney can be.

Well, maybe I shouldn't be to hard on Disney. At least they gave The Muppets their own division "Muppets Holding Company" (I think the name changed to Muppets Studios LLC or something), instead of something horrable like Disney's Muppets.

Yeah, I mean that have all those J Ward cartoons and they have been after the chipmunks before so I know what you mean by then not wanting competition.

And even then there's not really been much merchandise. And I don't know what "murchandise" is.

Well we will probably never know for sure, but that certainly isn't unheard of in the business.

Now, the Muppet show was the biggest show in the history of television, but it was syndicated. So does anybody here think that the Muppets would stayed as successful as they were if the had stuck with syndication? Or do you think that it's just about how much attention Jim Henson wanted to give the characters?

I don't know, but recently I've been wondering if, once The Mupet Show became successful, any of the major networks offered to broadcast the show.

Not sure, but I d know hat they sure did take interest in them, thouhg.

It's funny the things that Jim made that where succsussful and the ones that did not do so good.

If Jim Wasn't Dead I would wish I could meet him right now.

I would love to meet him. I have also been looking for an authentic Jim Autograph and I can only find preprints

I think Jim was ready to move on to other things. Just like in a career, you don't want to stick to the same thing you want to try new things (well at least you SHOULD want to). Jim was gong towards more complex projects towards the end of his life. The conceptual work of Dinosaurs, the Storyteller, Jim Henson Hour, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all examples of his change in direction within the muppet universe. Do I think Kermit would still be making cameos and a special here or there, yes. I guess we'll never really know.

If Jim hadn't died in the first place, the new Guy Smiley episodes should of go on.

What are you trying to do? *Is shocked*

I think that was an attempt at an alternate history if Jim hadn't died in 1990 and died in 2003 instead. Kind of morbid. Kind of interesting. I don't know quite how to feel about it.

But again, from the article posted in Animation Magazine back in 1990 (transcribed here at Muppet Central a few years back) we know what projects Jim was working on and many of them appear more reasonable and interesting than this alternate reality.

http://www.muppetcentral.com/articles/archives/1990_mouse_frog.shtml

Excerpts:
Henson, who once came to Disney looking for work as an animator, says that he wants to make some more movies in that area. He even speculates that an animated Muppet feature might be down the road.

Henson says that he hopes to do more projects with Lucasfilm and ILM too, and that the Disney buyout shouldn’t change his relationship with them. “George (Lucas) has always been a friend,” he says.

“Hopefully, about this time next year we may be shooting a Muppet film. And we’re also working on a couple of other movie ideas, non-Muppet but creature-oriented.”

The vibe I'm getting form this is what you posted is that Jim still wanted to do the Muppets and eveything, but he wanted to space his time put to do other things. Call me crazy, but it's almost as if Jim were in some kind of love/annoyed thing with them.

Humm so are you saying that you think Jim have have been startig to think the Muppets where holding him back? I don't know about all that.

I think Jim was annoyed of only being associated with the Muppets. It caused him grief when the studio didn't like the Dark Crystal because they felt it was going to be a comedic Muppet fantasy picture or something. The Muppets were only one of the colors in his complete palette of creations. It isn't that they were holding him back necessarily. It just appeared all that studios would fund. In his mind the Disney sale solved that problem for him. He kept wanting to do new things, but didn't feel the need to abandon classic creations to do so. At least that's how I see it.