All five seasons of “The Muppet Show” coming to Disney+ in February.

Muppets Tonight faced the same issue that most TV show revivals face - trying to balance the old and new characters to satisfy the old audience and appeal to a new. I was expecting more of the old, so I was disappointed how sparingly the original characters were used. There were good reasons why they weren’t there, of course, but it didn’t make it any less disappointing.

 

What "extra" musical numbers are you referring to? My only quibble with the Season 1 DVD was that a few episodes actually had musical numbers removed due to (I think) licensing issues.

 

Edit to my above post... some episodes had footage that was originally only shown in the UK, so I assume that's the "extra" footage mentioned earlier.

 

The UK is commercial free so they featured an extra musical number that was not included in the US versions.

 

Any news on how complete these episodes will be?

 

Just checked the run times before bed without watching any of the episodes. The vast majority of them are 26 minutes, though there are some that are 24 minutes. I assume the 24-minute ones have music cut out, but I don’t know for sure. I’m sure someone more knowledgeable than I will shed light on the shorter episodes tomorrow.

And for those who were fearing the show would be cropped into widescreen, fear no more.

 

It looks like 3 episodes are missing. Wikipedia says there were 120 and we have 117 here.

 

A tally of missing episodes and segments:
The Muppet Show Edits Revealed | Tough Pigs

To be expected. Honestly at this point I’m surprised there’s no edits to the confederate flags in Johnny Cash episode

 

There’s a disclaimer saying that they opted to keep everything intact despite the outdated cultural references in the info extras screen for the show. I’m looking forward to watching these.

 

I know what I'm doing this weekend!

 

You’ve got to give Disney credit for this. With a vast majority of the show being intact on +, it’s obvious they did this the right way, probably doing everything they could to clear all the music.

 

I doubt the Chris Langham episode will ever see the light of day, and it's a shame about the Brooke Shields though the Time Life DVD isn't a scarce one. And hopefully they work out Kaye Ballard - they skip #23 on the scroll so it does seem like it will get fixed.

All the cuts made to the S1 DVD collection have been restored so hats off to Disney for coming through. The two losses that stick out are Don Knotts' "Lullaby of Birdland" - IIRC that interaction ran a couple of times in the episode before they played the song, so that's a big time loss as well as being a decent skit. And Robin with "I'm Five" is a good Robin moment. I'm not complaining at all - the idea that they're finally streaming is a great thing. So if you have D+ with the three season sets and the 15 disk Time Life set, there's only one episode and maybe four sketches missing. It's great considering the legal issues wrangling for 700-800 songs. I'll be watching a lot from the last two seasons this weekend.

 

I’ve just started watching a few episodes on Disney+. I own all three season sets that were released on DVD in the 2000’s, and I’ve got to say that, despite the missing episodes and segments, the visual and audio have received a HUGE upgrade from those releases. I cannot get over how great it looks and sounds.

 

I finally watched two episodes from season 4, so with the exception of them possibly shown on TNT in the early 90s I haven't seen them since I was 8 or 9. And I remembered Waldorf's wife, though that could come from a wiki article and not memory. It looks odd, like a hybrid video / film. It does have softness but it looks different from what I'm used to seeing when going from SD to HD. My only guess is I'm used to seeing SD NTSC -> HD, and this could be PAL -> HD (assuming they shot in PAL), so it's got a little more resolution to play with.

By the time I fired up the episodes tonight Kaye Ballard was listed, so they corrected that mistake already.

 

I just watched the 1st episode.. man, that was fun. It's been so long since I've seen these. I'm going to really enjoy this.

 

Has anyone seen the text for this posted? My old eyes couldn't read the screen...

 

• “This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.
• “Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe.”

 

I watched the first three episodes from season 1 with my 6-year-old daughter last night and really enjoyed them. This is ancient history for a kid her age but she seemed to be having fun and kept asking to see the next one. I don’t think she’s used to this kind of slapstick humor, and the adult gags fly over her head, but she did laugh out loud a few times.

As far as picture goes, I have a feeling this is as good as PAL video is ever going to look in the HD age, and it holds up surprisingly well. Resolution and detail for old video is shockingly good, and for the first time I’m seeing almost too much detail in the materials and clever tricks the muppet performers used. I do think there are some motion artifacts leftover in the transfer, but overall it preserves the 25fps feel of the PAL standard. The mono audio is superb for the era, but a bit bass heavy at times. No biggie.

Overall though these are wonderful to see again and thankfully Disney has beautifully and sensitively restored the video. It could’ve so easily been completely botched like too many PAL and NTSC tapes have.

dan c

 

"This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together."

I for one find the negative depictions of the curmudgeon community extremely problematic.

 

Mahna mahna.

 

If the Country Trio hadn't formed, would A Mighty Wind have even been shot? (o;

 

I can't believe they haven't yet worked out getting the rights to Brooke Shield's episode.