Sam And Friends

[Pug Lover]

I've recently read about this show in"Jim Henson The Works".As many of you may know,this series went from 1955 until 1961,and was produced in Washington DC.Among the muppets in the show was Kermit,before he became a frog.

This show came out long before I was born.I've never seen it.Do you suppose they'll ever show it in reruns,or bring it to DVD?

 

[Krazedmuppet]

The closest you will see of this is in "the world of Jim Henson" documentary, "Muppets Magic" wich is him on Ed Sullivan or... and well it may not be there anymore, but they had some clips on henson.com. I dont think they will ever put them all on a DVD just for Sam and Friends, you may see a few apperances here and there on some specials.

 

[superfan]

I had found out about it the same way you did, PugLover, and it was in A&E's Biography special that they showed some clips of the show. It would definately be a wonderful thing for that to come out on DVD.
You never know....

 

[minor muppetz]

Jim Henson only saved a small amount of Sam And Friends episodes. back when the show was made, most shows were broadcast live and a lot of shows were not saved, mostly due to the high cost of film and because many people didn't think that people would want to see the same television program more than once. Also, Sam And Friends was a local show, so it would have been more expensive.

So, Jim Henson pretty much only saved episodes where he did something that he really wanted to remember. I don't know how many episodes were saved. Since this show was five minutes long, it may not be likely to be seen in reruns (especially since reruns of the show were never syndicated). I think the number of episodes that are saved could fill an entire DVD (and even a video).

Another reason why having the show on DVD is because even though Kermit was in this show, Henson still owns the rights to it. Kermit was a major character on the show, and he seems to appear on most of the existing clips that have been shown to the public. I read in the Muppet Central review of the new DVD release of Emmit Otters Jug-Band Christmas that Disney actually did refuse to allow Hit! to keep Kermits scenes in the special. Ever since the DVD was announced it had been said that Hit! just didn't feel it was neccessary to make a deal to include Kermit, yet the review says that Disney didn't want kermit included at any price. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney would refuse to let henson leave Kermits scenes in a release of Sam And Friends.