When The Walt Disney Company Owned Jim Henson Productions

[danielshooley]

In August 1989, as MANY here are aware, Jim Henson decided to sell off his old Muppet characters to The Walt Disney Company (as would eventually happen in February 2004) in order to create NEW Muppet characters; sadly, before the sale could be finalized, Jim died, age 53, on May 16, 1990.

The decision was made to keep the Muppets, for the moment, with Jim Henson Productions; soon afterwards, Jims son Brian, then aged 28 (born on November 30, 1962 in New York City, New York) became President/CEO of Jim Henson Productions.

On December 18, 1991, the week before Christmas, The Walt Disney Company bought Jim Henson Productions (per the New York Times) for $150 million; the Jim Henson acquisition included 30 years of Muppet programming up to that time--not just with Muppet characters, but also Fraggle Rock, The Storyteller, The Jim Henson Hour, Dog City, and MANY more.

In December 1996, Disney sold Jim Henson Productions (a BAD move in my opinion) to German company EM.TV, with Columbia/Sony owning U.S. rights to the Henson library until 2003, when Brian & his 4 siblings (Lisa, Cheryl, John & Heather) bought back the Henson Company.

February 16, 2004 was the day that the Muppet characters were sold to Disney from Henson.

Since then, I firmly believe that as a company, The Jim Henson Company has gone downhill and turned to Shit, with Fraggle Rock being the companys most valuable property.

[FigmentJedi]

Except Disney NEVER bought Jim Henson Productions. Michael Eisner was getting really grabby with Sesame Street in the negotiations when Jim wanted them to go to CTW and his arrogance killed the buyout deal just as much as Henson's death did.

What ended up happening though was that things were patched up enough that Disney became a DISTRIBUTOR for Henson's works throughout the nineties hence the Muppet Literature movies, Classic Theater, Muppets Tonight and all those video releases under the Disney label.

Then the Henson company got bought by the Germans until the Henson family bought it back and then they foolishly let Disney pull a Mortal Kombat on them and rip out the spine that was the Muppet Show family of characters (and Bear in the Big Blue House), plus they let CTW have full custody of Sesame Street according to Jim's wishes. Besides Fraggle Rock, they've been trying to spark some media franchises out of the Creature Shop movies like Labyrinth and Dark Crystal getting all those comic books and the attempts at making Dark Crystal 2. They're also trying to get back to making puppet shows for adults between the Puppet Up Improv shows, various TV pilots and an effort to make a puppet Film Noir-esque murder mystery.

[2099net]

And indeed, That Puppet Game Show has launched on the BBC in the UK last week - spun-out of one of their theatrical improvisations. It's had mainly positive reviews (some very positive) but personally I don't like it. It channels The Muppet Show too much and doesn't appear to be new or fresh IMO.