Last week, as I wrote our annual round-up of all the Muppet-related events, news, and commentaries of the past year, I have to admit, the year was a pretty huge downer. We lost our brand new Muppet sitcom and tons of influential celebrities, and we have to deal with Joe Pesci’s Sesame Street villain from Stars and Street Forever as our President Elect. Needless to say (although I’ll say anyway), the past year didn’t leave me with much hope for the next one.
Okay, so looking backward is depressing. Maybe it’ll be more helpful to look ahead. We don’t know much about what’s coming in 2017 yet – We’ll have a new season of Sesame Street, the Henson Company/Netflix series Julie’s Greenroom with Julie Andrews, and a children’s book about Jim Henson, but not much else has been announced yet. So we’re going to throw a few wishes for 2017 into the ether and hope that at least a few of them come true.
More Muppet Productions
I mean, this one’s obvious. But I won’t set my expectations so high to hope for a new movie or TV show. I’ll settle for some quality YouTube videos or an album or an extended guest stint on The Goldbergs or whatever. It’s not too much to ask to see the characters we love so much actually, y’know, work, right??
More Muppet Merch
I won’t use this space to complain about how little Muppet merchandise we’ve been getting over the past few years (Frog knows I do that enough in my annual Toy Fair roundup). But it’d be great to see a company aside from Funko and Diamond release some quality stuff for us to throw our money at. Let’s see some new plush dolls or lunchboxes or Legos in the new year!
Minimal Muppet Deaths
Look, The Muppet Show is over 40 years old now, so there are plenty of celebrities who’ve worked closely with the Muppets hitting their 70s, 80s, and 90s. It’d be crazy to ask for a year without Muppet-related deaths. But let’s see an obit list with more octogenarians and fewer visionaries like David Bowie and Prince. It’ll be hard enough when we have to say goodbye to people like Rita Moreno and Harry Belafonte without peppering the year with farewells to, I don’t know, Josh Groban? Stay safe, Grobes.
Muppets at Walt Disney World
The Muppets’ presence has been increasing, increasing, increasing at the Disney parks. It’s so great to see Muppet*Vision 3D stick around (at least in Orlando) along with PizzeRizzo, Gonzo’s Royal Flush restrooms, the Muppet Mobile Lab, and the Muppets’ live American History show. So here’s a crazy idea: How about more??? If the Muppets aren’t going to have a strong presence on our TV screens, let’s build them a new home at the theme parks.
Old Stuff on DVD
This one’s a longshot. I’d love to see some vintage Muppet stuff pop up on DVD. Or on YouTube (officially, I mean… not that there’s illegitimate Muppet stuff on YouTube, but there is) or Netflix or iTunes or anywhere. It’s probably too much to ask for seasons 4 and 5 of The Muppet Show, but why not The Muppets at Walt Disney World? Or some of those classic Julie Andrews specials like One to One, One Step Into Spring, or Julie on Sesame Street to help promote Julie’s Greenroom? Who owns all the old Rowlf the Dog sketches from The Jimmy Dean Show? I wanna spend money on those! If Disney is holding back on giving us new Muppet material, let’s bring back the old crap.
Something to Make You Leave Your House
This is another far-fetched idea, so we’re keeping it vague. The Electric Mayhem played a live concert last year, so what if they went on tour? And the only way to see them is to get up, put on your pants (because we all know you don’t have no other pants), and venture into the Real World. Or what if the Muppets put on a new live special that streams from movie theaters ala Fathom Events? What if the new Pokemon Go-esque sensation is an app that has you finding Muppets in the real world so you can put on a Muppet Show of your own? As much as I love sitting at home and watching/reading/writing, I’d love for the Muppets to encourage us to actually move our bodies a little bit.
Sesame for Grownups
Shifting gears to Sesame Street, I expect that they’ll keep up the quality work they do for preschoolers, so there’s no need to include that on our silly listicle. But we’ve been a little lacking in content for adult-types like us. We’d love to see some new viral videos, parodying whatever happens to be cool and spoofable in 2017. And how about more like Matt Vogel’s “Below the Frame” series, showing off what goes on behind the scenes at the show? We’re eating that stuff up, despite being very, very far from the show’s target demographic.
Return to the Rock
Aside from the comics (which I’ve enjoyed very much), we haven’t seen much of anything new from the world of Fraggle Rock. My expectations are pretty low here, but all I’m asking for is a little something. A new Sprocket doll. A coffee table book. A downloadable album of unreleased songs. The Jim Henson Company seems to have a great relationship with Funko – Maybe Fraggle Rock Funko Pop toys are on the horizon? I’d dance my cares away for that!
Celebrate Dark Crystal’s 35th
We know that the Henson Company has plans for The Dark Crystal‘s 35 anniversary – at the very least, we’ll be seeing an “Ultimate Visual History” book. So this 2017 request isn’t so much a “will they?” but more of a “will it be good?”. So here’s hoping we get some cool Dark Crystal merch on the shelves or specials on our TVs or interviews with the Frouds or whatever the Hensons have planned.
Museum of the Moving Image
Will the Jim Henson exhibit at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image ever open? Let’s hope their opening gala isn’t pushed any further than 2017.
ToughPigs in ’17
This is the hardest bit to list out what I hope for. We have plenty of fun stuff in store for the year, all of which will be revealed in time, so here’s hoping it all goes off as planned. I hope we have fun things to talk about – we were spoiled by the existence of a new Muppet TV show last year, which led to plenty of reviews, commentaries, and news items to keep us busy. It’d be nice to see the Muppets continue to churn out stuff for us to blather on about, or for us to find cool old stuff to reintroduce to everyone. I hope we get some fun interviews with fun people who have fun things to say about the Muppets. Mainly, I just hope we stick around to 2018 to see how much of this list we actually accomplished.
So, I guess we’ll check in at the end of the year to see how much of our 2017 hopes came true. I have a good feeling about this year. I bet we’ll look back in early 2018, reading ToughPigs via our psychic links to our iBrowsers, commenting to our robot butlers about how everything was so great in the past year, and thank goodness the Muppets have continued to be a strong part of these futuristic lives of ours.
Click here to have a Happy Lew Year on the ToughPigs forum!
by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
