Little Muppet Monsters is on Youtube

I recently posted a thread on whether Jim Henson and CBS might have given this show more ofa chance if either the show was completely live aciton or completely animated, and watching this, I think it could have succeeded if given a chance (though you could say that about almost any short-lived show).

It makes me wonder if The Muppets: ACelebration of 30 Years had any special material with these monsters taped but cut before the broadcast. After all, characters from all of Henson's other major shows by 1985 had their own scenes in the new footage (even the Sama nd Friends Muppets), yet the monsters only appear in clips highlighting the series, and in the audience. They don't introduce any clips, or appear with the main Muppets, though the closing song does have a close-up shot of them.

That was a newer show, and the special was probably taped before the shows debut (but broadcast months after). So they could have done something. Tug Monster appears in the title logo. However, I don't know whetehr Camille Bonora or David Rudman performed in the special (they aren't credited).

I wondered if the penguins who performed with the Electric Mayhem in that special were meant to eb the penguin musicians from this special, and I'll have to watch the special again to check, but I noticed that the show's penguins look a bit different from the average Muppet penguin. They look smaler and younger (though one has a bit of white hair, so the leader could be old). Some look slightly distinctive (one has sunglasses).

I have some interesting observations.

• It seems like the show takes place in a house instead of the Muppet theater. And the penguins broke into the basement thinking that would get their foot in the door. I wodner how they expected to find work by breaking into the basement of a house, unless they knew that the Muppets were somehow associated with the house (could it have been the basement of the Muppet boarding house, later seen in Muppets From Space?).
  
• I've read a quote from writer Scott Shaw that the program was only broadcast on the TV's upstairs in the house, but the show doens't show any sign of it being broadcast. I guess that might have been shown in later episodes, and perhaps the scene in the opening with The Electric Mayhem was meant to imply that. I guess we might never know that, unless somebody who has the other episodes either uploads them on you tube or trades them, or Disney decides to release them on DVD (or have them broadcast on The Disney Channel), or somebody who worked on the show reveals info somewhere, like an interview or message board post.
  
• The Muppet Wiki page for the animated Beaker says that Beaker was able to smile on the show. I haven't checked to see who wrote that piece of information, but Beaker doens't appear in animated form in the first episode (though he's illustarted on a block in the background). Since the first episode is the only one in fan circulation (at least for now), I wodner how this is known. I couldn't tell if Beaker smiled on that block, and he didn't seem to smile on the animation cell that I've seen online, though Beaker did sometimes smile on Muppet Babies.
  
• On you tube, it seems like the person who uploaded the show cut part of the closing (I think the voice credit part). Weird.
  
• I never thought about whetehr the show would still have a "Go bye-bye" tag after the credits in the Muppets, Babies, and Monsters format. Of course, I expected two seperate closing credits, including one after Mupet Babies ended. I wonder if a Little Muppet Monsters closing, without the Muppet Babies references, was ever produced.
  
• I wonder if the show was structured (which we could know if we knew more about the other episodes). I don't know if Pigs in Space, Muppet Sports Shorts, and Kermit, Private Eye were the only segmnets but I think that Muppet Sports Shorts could have alternated with other types of segmnets, like Muppet Labs and Swedish Chef cartoons. A Veterinarian's Hospital cartoon would have also been good. I see "Kermit, P.I." as perhaps the segment where the biggest amound of known Mupets were aniamted in. The first epsidoe only shows Kermit, Fozzie, and Piggy, but Kermit and Fozzie could have helped solve crimes for other characters as well (this could be where Bunsne and Beaker were used. After all, detectives could have their own scientists).
  
• The first episode didn't feature much interraction between the monsters and the established Mupets. Scooter sent them downstairs, and the others appeared in their own segmnets (Gonzo and Fozzie suddenly appeared on TV, while Kermit suddenly appeared to write a Kermit, P.I. story). But I guess that they did eventualy interract. I think the clip montage in the 30th anniversary special showed Kermit talkign to one of the monsters, and the epsiode lsit on the Muppet Wiki page mentioned titled with Gonzo and Foo-Foo's names (I assume that all titles had to do with the live action plots). Then again, I don't know the source of the episodes (okay, accoridng to the talk page they're from a TV epsidoe guide site, but then what's that source's source?).
  
• I wonder if Animal was the only character to appear in Mupet Sports Shorts. There are a lot of different characters who would have fit right in these segments, including Fozzie, Gonzo, Link, Beauregard, Sweetums, and Beaker.
  
• The show did have it's own theme song, yet the monsters thought they needed one. The song they come up with is different from the theme, and I doubt thate very epsidoe would begin with it after the theme. Bu their "On TV" song is really good. It's been stuck in my head all day. It reminds me of the title song from In Search of Dr. Seuss (I wonder if they ahve the same writer).
  
• I guess it's safe to assume that all/ most segments with Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo were tapped on the same day, as they don't see to interract with the monster,s and their segments are pretty much seperate from them. Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Dave Goelz were most likely busy with other projects (Jim on many, Frank directing something, and Dave probably busy with Fraggle Rock). After all, they don't apear to perform any other character sin the first episode (and I don't recognize the vocies of any of the penguins or rats).
  
• I don't know where this was taped, but my guess is New York. Most of the performers were on Sesame Street at the time, though I don't know when Camille Bonora started on Sesame Street. I've read that Richard Hunt focused on Sesame Street more than Fraggle Rock, and he did perform a main character on this show.
  
• When the TV (or whatever machine it was) showed Gonzo hosting a program, I wonder how they knew that they could do their own show. Tug suddenly appeared on television shortly afterwards, but where they aware of there beign a camera in the basement?
  
• I thought I'd read that they were sent to the basement for driving the other Mupets crazy, but it seems like Scooter was just getting them out of the way so he could clean a mess that they made.
  
• Before Kermit, P.I., Kermit mentiosn Muppet City. I wonder if thatw as just a ficitonal universe he thought up, or if it was part of Hensonville, or vice versa (in Muppets From Space, Kermit read a newspaper called The Hensonville News Observer). And could Muppet City be located arounf Muppet Land (of the Tales from Muppetand specials)?
  
• The monsters wondered who they could get to perform a theme song, and they hire the penguins because there wasn't any other band around. I wonder if they'd ever considered having The Electric Mayhem perform the theme (unless maybe they were on tour at the time).

Like it or not, it's a crime that the other 16 episodes have never seen the light of day. I can't help but think that Disney should at least show them in a webisode format or something.

It would have been great if Disney channel had showed them a number of years ago when they were still showing Fraggle Rock.

I thought the show was good, They could probobly releas eht unaired episodes on DVD like they did with Invader Zim.

My favorite segment from Little Muppet Monsters

My favorite segment from Little Muppet Monsters is Kermit the Frog: Private Eye. I kinda thought it was hysterical.

How COOL is that?

The only reason I even knew Little Muppet Monsters existed was because they were part of The Muppets 30th Birthday Special I have recorded.

Seeing any official release of LMM is a longshot but there is one (actually plausable) scenario where i could see it happening...

If Disney releases season boxsets of Muppet Babies. Being both a cartoon series and one geared towards a child audience, there probably wouldn't be the kind of love with bonus features and such that you see with The Muppet Show or Fraggle Rock dvd sets - Disney would be more likely to just slap 'em together and throw 'em out and happily count the money they make on the sales. But let's say they actually took care with such a set and they released the episodes uncut with lots of awesome bonus features...

...Well then if the episodes were indeed all truly uncut, then when they got around to releasing Season Two, they could release the full Muppets, Babies, and Monsters episodes - including the unaired ones (which could be a selling point for the dvds - "PREVIOUSLY UNAIRED MATERIAL!") A little bit of a stretch but still not within the realm of actual possibility.

(And BTW if the Little Muppet Monsters monsters made it onto JHH and David Rudman wasn't available, Boo undoubtedly would have been done by Dan Redican who sounds AMAZINGLY like David!)

Yeah, I still want to see the pitch of TJHH to the networks if that is still up.

Here is a page on youtube that has the pitch on it. it will be the first two videos

Link

I love that user for puitting that stuff. The "On TV" song is a another great Chris Cerf song.

I have only watched part 1 so far but after doing so, I can now see why The Muppet Babies ended the way it did from season 2 onwards.

I was just watching the Animal sports cartoon again. I love Richard Hunt's narration, it's reminiscent of the old Goofy athlete shorts. And Animal's cartoon face is pretty cute. What's weird is seeing the legs. Obviously the Henson crew generally concentrated more on facial expressions than the lower half of the puppets (which is totally fine). But then when they attempt to show them walking (puppet or cartoon) it tends to look weird!

I think that was the best segment. It was a little like Goofy, but unlike the Goofy segments, Animal seemed to be unwavered by whatever happened. Like he doesn't mind getting hurt. A lot of the comedy from the Goofy shorts results from Goofy's injury (like No Smoking for example).

Plus, I really love how Richard's voice was very much like his muppet monster, gravely type voices. It gives it a real pop.

Yup, that was the extra Muppet twist.

In my own opinion all I got to say is, the 1980s was very commercial. This is a great example of that.

First off Jim Henson majored in Business at the University of Maryland and Jim was a very smart buisness man.

CBS wanted to make a Saturday Morning Cartoon of The Muppet Babies based from Muppets Take Manhattan. Jim personally didn't like Saturday Morning Cartoon probably because it was just a way to sell out. But Jim wanted to make some extra money so he could put in his future projects like Labyrinth. But he was smart when he did the deal. He wanted a point to the cartoon and that was to teach kids how to use their imagionation. That was a great idea. But what I dislike about Muppet Babies was even though it was based on an idea by Jim Henson. The only things he did was produced it and the idea for television. None of the Muppeteers did the voices. Same with Muppet City, Pigs in Space animated and Fraggle Rock animated. The cartoon bussiness in the 1980s was mostly about selling out. Until John Kricfalusi came along to change it for the 1990s which is a different story.

I admitt that in Muppet City and Pigs in Space the drawings are cool and accurate to the characters design. It's just that it's different people doing it.


This kind of reminds me of Tough Pigs' site "Save The Muppets.com". You got to have the real people doing it otherwise you got commercial stuff like from the 1980s.


Disney doing okay with The Muppets, but I guess plan one is to get the audiances attention again. But I just don't understand Disney. They got lots of money, a lot more than The Jim Henson Company budget, so why can't they just do another prime time Muppet Show instead of TV movies based on classics? Christmas Carol and Treasure Island are Awesome. But I think the idea is kind of getting old. You already had the "It's a Wonderful Life parody" (which personally I felt was a lot better that Muppets From Space) and The Muppets Wizard of Oz.

What happend to Muppets Haunted Hotel? It's been an idea since Jim Henson's time so why isn't it made yet? I heard that it was originally going to called something like "The Cheapest Muppet Movie ever" and directed my Gonzo. I think it would be hilarious and funny so why not?

Sorry if I seemed kind of stressed out about certain things regarding the behind the scenes buisness but I take Muppets and Business like Politics. Seriously.