Save the Fozzie Replica

Beautiful work! It appears to be "good to go" from where I'm sitting. The only tiny thing I noticed was that none of Gonzo's funky little hairs are visible, but that's one of my favorite parts of the poser. I know it makes me weird. It is just such a fantastic image you have constructed.

I guess one more comment has to do with marketing text. If this actually circulated it should give the recipient the message that the future of these items is up to Muppet fans everywhere.

My encouragement for your composition is genuine. You really should send this to MR!

HOLY COWS! That honestly looks FANTASTIC! VERY good job! I'd LOVE to open up an issue of ToyFare or log onto MasterReplicas.com and see that! It really stands out!

i agree, this looks fantastic..
only change I would probablly make would be to put Kermit a little more in the background, as if he were behind the other two. partially because, at this point, it's not about the Frog (dear as he is..) and he's "officially" sold out via MR itself.
Am really hoping things change for the better in the next year for MR.. I would really love more of these guys.. and since I have to wait a year or so before hubby will be home long enough to build my display case for these guys... it'd be nice to be able to tell him it's got to be bigger then we're currently planning on (based on just these three..)

meanwhile.. back to the proper chicken search! (for gonzo, of course...)

I second, third and fourth that statement!

This is beautifully done, but I do have a minor quibble with it. Your posers have been modified and Gonzo's eyelids don't really do that on their own. I think you have to be scrupulously honest in an ad about what the person buying one of these will actually get, or risk more ill-will towards the company.

I can see that, but companies usually put a disclaimer on advertising images that products may differ from the prototype photograph. That would work here for the minor changes made. Easy fix.

Reevz1977....

Your advertisement piece is ABSOLUTELY STUNNING & GORGEOUS. Let me tell you, I was on the fence when animal first came out. If I saw this, I would have NEVER been on the fence.

I just hope that maybe you can speak to someone at MR instead of just e-mailing it. The e-mail might "get lost" with all the others they receive.

Is there a way reevz can get in touch with tom and dicuss this with him?

I think there would be way more interest AND, if disneydirect.com, whom already sells the posers, can put this on their front page, I wouldn't see why MR would have any trouble selling these.

Any thoughts of getting in touch with TOM?

Amazing, simply...Amazing.

I think a disclaimer exacerbates the problem. It doesn't help the cause if you're misrepresenting the product in a similar way to how the lousy MR photos misrepresent the product. Why not use images of the REAL posers then and just put a disclaimer on it? Because in either case, it's not what the consumer will receive. I'd be terribly disappointed if I ordered off those photos and then got the product the way it really looks, unless MR is going to start sending out a manual for "tweaks". I'd be especially disappointed in Gonzo's eyelids. That was something I begged Travis to make poseable, but in the end, they didn't do it.

Hey there WOE, I appreciate your comments but having worked in the design industry for sometime, I would have to disagree. I've worked in all areas of advertising - foods, jewelry, automotive, fashion... on such brands as Aston Martin and in all honesty every product I've ever had to work on has undergone more indepth adjustments than the ones done on this. Let's just say I'd be shocked if I had my artistic licence revoked over this

Hey Reevz1977-

Wow, that really is a nice piece of work. I have already conceded that we needed better pics... But the one issue I have with the ad -- and let me go on record as saying that this is not a criticism of you, personally -- is the red curtain motif. Not that I don't like it, I do. In fact, I rallied very hard to use the red curtain motif on the packaging for the Muppet Photo Puppets.

The problem is that Disney's style guide is broken into 3 tiers -- Mass, Mid-tier, and Specialty. And the red curtain motif is (I think) reserved for Mid-tier products. The mass guide is the green and purple one, and the specialty one is the brown/green that was used on MR's Kermit. So were were prohibited from using the red curtain on any specialty products. I tried to get them to make an exception since, in my ever so humble opinion, the red curtain is both more elegant AND creates a sense of nostalgia. But ultimately, we had to go with the green/brown guide. (We did get them to let us change the color scheme for Animal and Gonzo, but we had to stick to the same motif -- with the technical drawings of the characters in the background!)

I would have LOVED to use the red curtains...

Hi Travis, I knew you were going to say that and to an extent I understand it, however, my genuine opinion is that the majority of these will be sold to people 25+, whose income allows them to purchase such highend products. That age, leads me to believe that it would be largely Muppet Show fans that buy into this line. I knew that Disneys corporate guidelines would be extraordinarily restrictive (and probably suffocating) and that they appear to want to move away from the more nostagic/ classic Muppet Show look. The strange and confusing part is that the Gonzo and Animal that were produced are specific to The Muppet Show days The beauty of producing a 'fan made' ad is that this does not restrict me as such and although I really want to remain faithful to Disney's sensibilties over the Muppet brand, I wholeheartedly feel the made a mistake to move away from this look.

Can you tell me if the change in packaging made a difference to the Palisades line, I genuinely would be really interested to know if it affected the sales figures in any way? I guess it would be hard to tell because of the character choices but I would expect it to have had some influence.

I completely agree with all of your comments. But, Disney gets what Disney wants, for the most part. Personally, if I were the King of the World, I would have made the red curtain the Specialty Style Guide... for all of the reasons that we've both mentioned. Just makes more sense to me.

As for the change in packaging affecting the sales at Palisades... I don't think so. Although, geez... that was so long ago, it's hard to remember. If anything sales increased between series 3 and 4 (when the packaging changed)because Target came on board w/ S4. That said, there was a backlash with some MIB collectors, because the packaging looked so drastically different. But I don't think that it changed anyone's purchasing habits. The real change in sales numbers didn't occur until around Series 7, when we started to run out of "mainstream" characters...

Hey Travis!

I just wanted to make sure you knew that I'm not blaming you for this. You'll notice that I wrote "THEY didn't do it," not that you didn't follow through. I know that you did everything that was humanly possible.

Take care!
Earl

I hope Disney revises their style guide for their new Muppet push.

Thanks Travis for bringing that to our attention. I do remember Henson's blue packaging swap wasn't well received, but I liked it. It made the Palisades figures pop, but I wish they'd kept some sort of red curtain element in it. I remember pitching a box design to Ken: I had this idea if they ever did a Seymour and Pepe convention combo to make the box resemble an elevator. Aside from the fact GLue was your graphics guy; Ken gave me a similar response as in your statement. It would have been a really nice piece. I have often considered cleaning up my art on it to stick it as a spec piece in my portfolio, but its overrun with Muppets already.

As for WOE's comment about the photograph and disclaimer - it is a standard practice that happens all the time. Part of this is because products aren't ready until after the graphics are completed, but also they placing their product in the best possible light. This is usually done with massive amounts of Photoshop. Reevs' posers were improved by a pupil tweak and a couple of brow pins. 95% of what we see in advertising is retouched more than this composition. My posers look close to those in the photo right now. Sometimes I think they're watching me.

I think the pupil tweak is okay because Animals were alright and Gonzo's pupil issues weren't as visible when shot from an angle. I would lower Gonzo's eyelids for the shot, but that's just my personal taste. From fast food to high end items - the advertising pictures are usually remarkably different from the final piece. I always wonder how someone can go into a burger joint and not compare their food to the many photos surrounding them, but I am a vegetarian. Anyway, I think the photos are great as they are. The fact that Animal doesn't have his stand is misleading in itself. Nothing here crosses the line IMHO. The notice inside each box should expand a little more and mention how the poser will settle over time.

EDIT: Brown is generally a bad advertising color (except for coffee or chocolate products).

To the issue of presenting a pic of an altered muppet:

You say that its okay if it doesnt look the same because people know that the final product always looks different or not quite the same...... Hmm I wonder if that is the same attitube MR had with their photos......

just a thought

But I do agree. awesome awesome layout and I would vote for it

I think there was just a general inexperience with photographing Muppets with the MR images. It didn't appear to be a top priority. I can't imagine any company releasing unattractive promotional product photos for any reason especially the one stated above. But we've been through that. At least none of them were on skateboards or smoking an invisible doobie.

Reevs' posers are really "altered" as much as they are styled. They aren't going to look that good out of the box and posers by nature are meant to be styled. In an alternate universe where I was the one in charge of this product this is exactly what I would have done. Oh, and hire Reevs for the photos and graphic design of these (even being a designer myself).

His stuff is amazing and he obviously takes pride in his work. I have met too many people that call themselves graphic designers and artist that just slap stuff together and give excuses of why it looks underwhelming. In fact much of the design world I've seen is that way. People seem to give more points for speed than accuracy for some reason. When did all these talented people flood this forum? It used to be a much smaller group. Now you could throw a frog and hit at talented artist here. Not that I condone the throwing of frogs for any reason!

Does anyone who's been reading think that MR will change their mind after looking at Reevz photos?

Travis, you've worked at MR, is it that when their mind is made up, that's it, or will they look further into these photos and see poptential to sell the posers?

Any and all thoughts welcomed. I honestly hope we get Fozzie.

In all honesty...I don't think they're going to release Fozzie. I think the line's dead.

Oh, they've been known to change their minds... but sadly, I think that Telly is right.

Thanks, Trav. I appreciate it.

Well, it looks like our muppets will NEVER be complete...Unless...

another company picks up this idea and runs with it. That could be a possibility.....right?

I know, I'm really trying to hold on here...but...I guess I should just let go.