MuppetFest: Discuss Original and Your Dreams

I advocated this in 1998-2000 on here, but the fact is...without some sort of 1) official sponsor/event or 2) without at least some JHC/Muppeteers involved in some way, even unoifficially...its going to be like ya said, just a few people meeting at a restaurant to watch dvds in a hotel room.

MuppetFest got what, I think 1200 people. And that was before the massive 2002/2003 Muppets everywhere blitz at the stores and on tv.

If...IF Disney designated a "Muppet filled weekend" with Muppeteers at either WDW or California Adventure, this may be the closest we'd have to a Muppet fest...and I guarantee youd have alot of fans flying out.

LOL! Disney probably would cut the FR and SS guys out if they rereleased it.
The post 2004 era has not been kind to us fans.

True. Deep down most people have afondness for the Muppets...but the *actual* active Muppet fans/diehard fans are few and far between.
That said, if Muppetfest had been properly promoted, ya woulda h ad azillion more people...as ya say, people have a fondness for the Muppets.

It's sad because the Muppets have such potential for a major comeback. I like that they were trying to do some edgier stuff with them for a while, but I think the main focus on any future Muppet production would have to focus heavily on sticking to the characters personalities, and maybe playing with that.

(momentary plug for myself): In my fan-fic/script, I included Bean Bunny as a fairly large character. I think I did an okay job at giving him his personality, but expanded on it so he could say things that maybe he couldn't get away with before. That'd be pretty cool to see for the Muppets on the large scale.

I attended the movie with a friend who only "likes" the Muppets, but he was laughing just the same as anyone else in the theater. Not a "diehard" fan, but I think I can draw him out some. Another MuppetFest would do extraordinarily well, in my own opinion. The Muppets are still cool, they're still funny, they have their diehard fans and their frequent viewers. And I think more people like the Muppets a lot more than they might care to admit.

Alright, so we all agree that there needs to be a big Muppety gathering for 2007 sometime.

Question tho:

Do we want to count on the off chance Disney will do something...and the super off chance they'll have JHC be a part of it...

or are people going to organize their own small independent Muppet gathering, with the off chance they can get a few people from the Muppet world involved?

I think we need to give the first a try and have the second as a fall back.

I am going to look into that.

What we should do is have a MC Fest, basically all the members close to a certain state all meet. So lets say NY, if anybody is near NY, they come to New York etc. What we could do is just have a week marathon (in the summer) of muppet productions (old, new, rare) I would be glad to participate. We can also have food, muppet music, etc.

I am all about that. I dont need much of an excuse to go to New York.

I have an idea. Why dont we just do it independently? Like how they do comic conventions, or even horror conventions. They invite actors, in this case muppet performers, pay for their travel and hotel expense, and the actors make money themselves selling autgraphed pictures, and autographing your own stuff. Thats how the Chiller and Fangoria conventions of horror and stuff got started, independently. Maybe Disney or the JHC will even be interested. Set up rooms with performers, puppets autographing, and other rooms with vendors. Then you have Henson-type happenings, movie showings, Q&A, etc.

I dont know, I mean I know Disney owns the Muppets now, but There's gotta be something we can do as fans and do a fest or convention or something. I mean face it, muppet fans are like a cult status, just like comic book and horror fans. lol

That sounds great except there would be alot of up front costs that I dont know if us Muppites (a while back we did vot on Muppites, right?) would be able to afford. Cost is always the first obstacle and it is a big one at that.

That's actually not as difficult as you might think. Think of the sponsors you could get if you could gaurantee a certain amount of people going to the convention. And, besides that, imagine the price of a ticket if the companies put one together! Now, I didn't go to the original, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't cheap. If everyone were willing to donate a certain amount to site rental and the cost to take care of all the guests invited (Muppeteers, writers, directors, builders, etc.), you might find it would actually cost less than MuppetFest 1. After all, we're not expecting to make a profit off of it the way I'm sure the original did.

Maybe it is more feasable than I thought

Was there anything higher than a Gold Ticket

Were you able to buy a Movie Star ticket?

Yeah I know. Disney sucks. =)

Disney is going to turn this all around I have faith in them

Let's just say you won't hear any more whiny complaints or rants from me anymore...some pretty big muppety things are in the works. (some of which has been subtly hinted at, even by the frog himself)