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Post by mtw12055 on Jan 10, 2016 14:06:35 GMT -5
Anybody a fan of the Muppets? They seem to be among the last surviving relics of old school entertainment that are still relevant. I've been enjoying their newest TV show, and hope that its current 'retool' will make it even better.
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Post by farina on Jan 11, 2016 17:11:32 GMT -5
Before I deployed to the Ice I was watching the new Muppets. I have to say that they seem to be doing a good justice to Jim Henson. From what I saw so far they have been doing a pretty decent job of resurrecting the series.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2016 16:47:10 GMT -5
I used to love The Muppets when it aired in the original series. Some episodes creeped me out. One such episode that comes to mind is the "Pigs in Space" skit from around 1979 where the spaceship's captain became invisible leaving only a white chalkline surrounding his body, then with a kiss he spread the problem to Miss Piggy, and eventually Dr. Strangepork ridiculed the problem, and Miss Piggy slapped him, spreading the plague to him, and then the whole spacecraft ended up with a pink chalkline. Alice Cooper was the special guest that episode.
It's that one creepy segment that has turned me away from The Muppets forever. And i will pass on the current revival.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2016 14:33:25 GMT -5
Outside sources say that The Muppets has been cancelled after only one season. Link to come.
Makes me wonder if Kermit and Miss Piggy breaking up did the show in?
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Post by mtw12055 on Jul 13, 2016 22:44:51 GMT -5
Outside sources say that The Muppets has been cancelled after only one season. Link to come. Makes me wonder if Kermit and Miss Piggy breaking up did the show in? Yeah, the cancellation was reported back in May, if I'm not mistaken. The thing is, everyone sort of has their own idea of what the Muppets should be. Some liked the idea of the characters changing with the times, while others pretty much wanted a carbon copy of the original "Muppet Show." From the beginning, there were complaints about the show being too "adult." It's a rather silly complaint, since the Muppets have always been geared towards adults (but with enough kid appeal for the younger crowds). Watch the classic "Muppet Show" episodes with Alice Cooper or Raquel Welch, if you don't believe me. Either way, the ratings kept going down, eventually remaining 'neutral' for much of the run. The quality of the new series improved greatly towards the end of its run, but the ratings only slightly improved. Also considering the Muppets is a costly property (seriously, just one of those puppets cost a heck of a lot to build), I'm willing to bet ABC didn't see the point in doing a second season. This wasn't the first time the Muppets fell victim to low ratings. Two previous revivals - 1989's grossly underrated "The Jim Henson Hour" and 1996's "Muppets Tonight" - were both taken off the air quickly and quietly. "The Jim Henson Hour" was a fun how, sort of Henson's take on "Walt Disney Presents." NBC aired the series during the Spring - usually the period for reruns, pilots, and burn-off episodes, and in the Friday Night Deathslot, no less. After airing five of the series' twelve episodes, the network cancelled the series, airing an additional four as "burn-off episodes" on Sunday nights. Two of the unaired episodes ("Living with Dinosaurs" and the behind-the-scenes special "Secrets of the Muppets") were eventually shown on Nickelodeon in the early '90s as stand-alone specials. The final episode ("Food") never aired in the US, but has been shown in Canada. NBC did attempt to boost the ratings for the series by doing a crossover with the "Cosby Show," but the episode (titled "Cliff's Nightmare") wasn't shown until after "Henson Hour" was gone. Brian Henson took over the family business following father Jim's death in 1990. ABC kept trying to talk Brian into producing a new Muppet show, but he kept turning down the offer, after seeing how poorly the networks had treated his father's previous series. He eventually caved, and thus we got "Muppets Tonight," a show that tried to be an updated version of the original "Muppet Show," but also not be too similar to the original "Muppet Show." :/ ABC aired the series as part of their TGIF lineup. The ratings evidently weren't that great, since they cancelled the show after airing only ten of its' first season's thirteen episodes. Disney Channel picked up the show for a second season the following year, airing the remaining three from season one, and producing a few new episodes. The quality improved significantly for season two, but the show was ultimately cancelled a second time. Oh, and speaking "Pigs in Space," some new segments have been produced, and are set to be released online... some day. I'm not sure what the holdup is.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2016 9:41:14 GMT -5
I think modern-day reboots of older TV comedy and drama series tend to do very badly. This was proven in past examples. One such example is The Little Rascals - which aired on TV since the 1950s, and virtually everywhere in the U.S., the blavk-and-white series was off the air by the 1980s. Then 1982 came, the animated reboot debuted, and was proven to be a ratings disaster, which explains its two-year run.
Seriously, why can't the writers use their brains and come up with ideas for original series? This is why Big Bang Theory is getting good ratings, and reboots of older series do badly. For the writers to not put their heads together and come up with original ideas, it's a wonder the writers were on strike nearly a decade ago.
eaking of reboots, I did learn on Facebook last weekend that reboots of Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley are very likely. Trust me, based on history, I bet those revivals will bomb.
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rascalstooge
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10 years this coming November.
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Post by rascalstooge on Jul 18, 2016 13:43:05 GMT -5
Don't know if this counts, yet the Hawaii Five-O reboot has run for several years.
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Post by mtw12055 on Jul 18, 2016 21:35:09 GMT -5
I have to disagree on the argument that all reboots are doomed to fail. If the right people are involved, and if enough people are actually willing to give the reboot a chance, then it can succeed. I'm already hearing loads of positive comments on the new GHOSTBUSTERS movie.
THE MUPPETS was really more of a continuation of the franchise than a reboot, anyway. Like I said, they were on the right track towards the end of its run, but not enough people were willing to give it a second chance.
I can agree that rebooting can come off as a sign of lack of originality. I'm not a big fan of Disney remaking all of their animated classics in live-action form.
However, a continuation is a different case. A continuation by popular demand from the general public, that is. A continuation from the popular demand of a few Hollywood execs, not so much.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2016 15:23:03 GMT -5
I wonder if Jim Henson's company is struggling to stay in business as of lately? I know that one of its products, Sesame Street, has likely been losing viewership in the last few years, facing budget cuts, reducing the episode order to 18 episodes per season, reducing to 30-minute broadcasts, and eventually struck a deal with HBO last year just to keep Henson's legacy alive. Sesame Street's ratings most likely peaked on November 24, 1983 (Thanksgiving Day) when Mr. Hooper's death was revealed on air (fourth episode of Season 16)..
Makes me wonder if popularity of Muppets hit its peak in the 1990s? Either way, they have to try much harder, or they may as well file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
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Post by mtw12055 on Jul 19, 2016 16:17:46 GMT -5
I wonder if Jim Henson's company is struggling to stay in business as of lately? I know that one of its products, Sesame Street, has likely been losing viewership in the last few years, facing budget cuts, reducing the episode order to 18 episodes per season, reducing to 30-minute broadcasts, and eventually struck a deal with HBO last year just to keep Henson's legacy alive. Sesame Street's ratings most likely peaked on November 24, 1983 (Thanksgiving Day) when Mr. Hooper's death was revealed on air (fourth episode of Season 16). Makes me wonder if popularity of Muppets hit its peak in the 1990s? Either way, they have to try much harder, or they may as well file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A few corrections: The Henson company hasn't owned the Sesame Street characters, or the Muppet Show characters in years. Jim Henson's company never actually produced Sesame Street - they were asked to work on it. They still build the show's puppets, but the characters themselves are Sesame Workshop's property. Meanwhile, Disney has owned the other Muppets - Kermit, Miss Piggy, etc. for about 12 years now. The HBO deal was done because Sesame Workshop didn't have enough funding. The HBO episodes will eventually be shown on PBS, by the way. Mr. Hooper's death was revealed on the Season 15 premiere. It aired on Nov. 21, 1983, three days before Thanksgiving. I doubt the ratings peaked for that episode. After all, it's Sesame Street, not the Super Bowl. As for the Henson company struggling to stay in business, well I can't say for sure if that's the case. They've got a handful of CG shows out, and that Puppet UP! Uncensored thing. The company seems to have a habit of announcing major projects (a DARK CRYSTAL sequel, a Fraggle Rock movie), and never getting anywhere near production. From what I can gather, part of it has to do with the fact that Hollywood doesn't have much interest in puppets these days. This would also explain why Henson's more recent projects have largely been CG. In a way, I'm glad Disney wound up with the Muppets. Had they stayed with the Henson company, I doubt we would have gotten any of the projects seen in the last few years.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2016 13:28:26 GMT -5
Actually, Mr. Hooper's death was revealed on Ep. 1839. During that time, episode numbers that end with 4 or 9 does indicate a Thursday episode. Maybe some local affiliate aired it on Monday, November 21, 1983 because of being a very important episode.
I did watch Sesame Street on Saturday mornings (before the Little Rascals cartoon came on ABC) during the time, and the local affiliate would normally air Monday's and Tuesday's episode on Saturday mornings on Detroit Public Television. I can safely declare that Mr. Hooper's death being revealed was not the season premiere, otherwise I would of seen it at 7:00 a.m. ET on November 26, 1983. As far as I know, that episode was the "Gordon runs the NYC marathon" episode.
A telltale sign that an episode during those days was a season premiere is an occurrence of only one letter instead of the usual rwo ("K", in this case), and the number 2 being featured. Mr. Hooper's death episode featured the letters J and M, and the number 5.
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Post by mtw12055 on Jul 22, 2016 13:42:31 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2016 16:24:19 GMT -5
Well, unfortunately, I am unable to view the episode because my mother banned me from watching the show later in 1984, due to my growing obsession at the time (I have autism, by the way, and was going on 12 when my ban was implemented).
If not for the ban, I probably would have stopped watching by 2005, and maybe I would have downloaded and viewed this episode, even though I truly have lost interest in Sesame Street long before now.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2016 13:20:38 GMT -5
And speaking of Sesame Street, I did find out two days ago that the three most senior human stars who played Bob, Luis and Gordon have all been fired from the show. I am suspecting the show is doing badly in the ratings on HBO. I think moving the show to HBO was an attempt to try to fix something that's broken. And they broke it even more.
I wonder if they might be planning to end the show after Season 50? It's heading into Season 47 now, and I bet the episode orders will get smaller towards the 50th season.
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Post by mtw12055 on Jul 29, 2016 20:03:57 GMT -5
And speaking of Sesame Street, I did find out two days ago that the three most senior human stars who played Bob, Luis and Gordon have all been fired from the show. I am suspecting the show is doing badly in the ratings on HBO. I think moving the show to HBO was an attempt to try to fix something that's broken. And they broke it even more. I wonder if they might be planning to end the show after Season 50? It's heading into Season 47 now, and I bet the episode orders will get smaller towards the 50th season. Those three recently met with Sesame Workshop. Reportedly due to such a large outcry from fans, Sesame Workshop changed their minds and decided to keep them around. It's worth noting that none of these decisions are being made by the HBO people, who are merely financial backers.
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