News Update: April 18, 2014

APRIL 18, 2014

For the past few years, Hallmark has released a different Muppet ornament around Christmas time. We've seen Animal, Fozzie Bear, Kermit, Beaker, Statler and Waldorf, and The Swedish Chef, so we had no idea what to expect this year. But now we do! This year's Muppet Hallmark ornament is The Great Gonzo. As with the other ornaments in the series, Gonzo comes with new audio recorded for the ornament--and it's incredible. You can listen to the audio on the Hallmark site. No release date has been announced for the ornament yet, but we'll keep you posted!

This week's most incredible content was completely fan-created and it's unreal. Christopher Graham created and recorded a full digital album for Muppet Christ Superstar, a Muppet-themed parody of the classic musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Christopher performs voices for all of the Muppet and they're all super well done. I'm really blown away by this whole thing. You've gotta give it a listen. Thanks for this awesome treat, Christopher!

With the wonderful new show Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge, a lot of focus has been placed on Brian Henson, who has been giving interviews and presentations a lot recently. One of the best interviews recently was with Entertainment Weekly, where Brian discusses everything from Dinosaurs to Fraggle Rock to The Muppet Christmas Carol and more. The interview is really great and I highly recommend giving it a read!

Miss Piggy and Walter star in a new promo video for Lufthansa Airlines. It involves popcorn and in-flight instructions and it's pretty funny. Check it out below!



Finally, in somber news, the world lost one of its real treasures on April 6th, and we haven't had a chance to cover it yet. Mickey Rooney passed away at age 93. The legendary actor will be remembered for roles in countless films and TV shows as well as being one of the most respected actors in the business, all the way up until his death. Muppet fans remember Mickey Rooney for his cameo during "Life's a Happy Song" in The Muppets, one of his final onscreen appearances. Watch it below. Thanks for everything, Mickey!








The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

News Update: February 16, 2014

JANUARY 16, 2014

Miss Piggy and the Muppets will be offering up their talents to home-shopping channel QVC next month in connection with both Muppets Most Wanted and "Miss Piggy's Haute Tote," a tote bag designed by the divine swine herself. Miss Piggy will be on QVC's Red Carpet Style event on February 28 at 9:00pm to exclusively debut her tote bag. But that's not all, because on March 16th, the Muppets (it's unclear which ones) will appear on QVC throughout the day to promote the movie, sell stuff, and probably wreak havoc. For more information, including a chance to enter to win a trip to the Muppets Most Wanted World Premiere, visit the QVC website.

Speaking of our favorite porcine princess, Miss Piggy received some major news this week with the reveal of her brand new wedding dress, which will be featured in Muppets Most Wanted. The dress was designed by beloved designer Vivienne Westwood. The dress is made entirely from recycled water bottles. You can learn more about the dress details and read a brief interview with Piggy and Westwood on Harper's Bazaar. Check out the dress below, and join us in speculating who Piggy will walk down the aisle with in Muppets Most Wanted.

Our friends at Sesame Street won the internet this week with the release of a new cell phone game: Flappy Bert. The game is based off of Flappy Bird, an addicting and challenging game released last week that was subsequently taken down by the developer. This led to a slew of rip-off games, but many people have agreed that Flappy Bert is the best of the lot. Plus, the game features the voice of Frank Oz, which is crazy in itself. You can play the game here: http://www.sesamestreet.org/cms-static/flappy_bert/

The Jim Henson Company has a new animated kid's show, Doozers, all about the little green working creatures from Fraggle Rock. Doozers will arrive with a 52-episode debut on Hulu starting April 25th. Jim Henson Company CEO Lisa Henson said, "Our pod squad is right at home with Hulu Kids, because Hulu is a company of builders and innovators like the Doozers, and because kids can learn from and spend time with these characters on-demand like never before." For more information on the new series, check out The Hollywood Reporter's report.

A whole bunch of exciting merchandise for Muppets Most Wanted is arriving in the coming months. Our friends at Muppet Stuff (who just started an awesome new website) shared a number of the new things coming up, including a talking Kermit plush, Kermit shoes (see right), OPI nail polish, and more. Not mentioned in the post are Muppet puppets coming to Toys R Us and FAO Shwartz, plush at Walgreens, and a number of other awesome things. Hope you've been saving your money, Muppet fans!

The Muppets are appearing in a new promotion for Subway restaurants coinciding with Muppets Most Wanted. Check out their new commercial, featuring Kermit, Miss Piggy, The Swedish Chef, and Subway's Jared below!



Earlier this week, a new Valentine's Day-themed spot for Muppets Most Wanted debuted online. The spot features lots of Tina Fey's Nadya character expressing her undying love for Kermit. I laughed. Multiple times. Watch it below.



Yet another promo for the movie debuted last night during the Winter Olympics and appeared online immediately afterwards. The Twitter review aspect of the commercials have reached their peak with this one. Watch below...



We close this week on a very sad note. John Henson, son of Jim and Jane Henson and performer of Sweetums from the late 80s to the early 2000s, passed away Friday night at age 48. The Jim Henson Company confirmed John's passing on Saturday and we join the rest of the Muppet community in sending our thoughts to his family and friends. John was a wonderful talent, a partner of The Jim Henson Company, and is remembered as a kind, generous, and thoughtful person. Thank you for sharing your talent with the world, John. You will be missed.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

News Update: January 26, 2014

JANUARY 26, 2014

A lot of this week's News Update will focus on the Muppets' upcoming Super Bowl commercial for Toyota. The Muppets are co-starring in the spot with actor Terry Crews. To promote the ad, Access Hollywood visited Terry and the Muppets on their first day of shooting. The video is below, and it features lots of Zoot and Floyd!

Another making-of video was posted on YouTube by Toyota themselves. This one features an extended listen to the brand new song in the commercial, performed by Dr. Teeth, Floyd Pepper, Janice, and Animal. Could this be our first brand new Electric Mayhem song since 1990? The video also stars Terry Crews' pecs, which seemingly have minds of their own.   Animal stars in the Vine video for Toyota, getting excited about the trunk space of the new Toyota Highlander. Miss Piggy, ever the renaissance woman, has now expanded into the world of newspaper contribution. In February's Wall Street Journal Magazine, Miss Piggy has written a short column on love. And she even got her own, beautiful Wall Street Journal illustrated portrait. Read the column here and admire the portrait below!

As we've reported in the past, the Syfy Network is developing a brand new reality competition show themed around Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Contestants in the show will design and create their own incredible creatures to be judged by the all-star panel, which includes Brian Henson. Syfy has released a teaser for the show, which you can watch right here! Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge premieres on Syfy on March 25th at 10:00pm/9:00pm central time.
Finally, our friend Tim Shields has alerted us to yet another Disney Store exclusive piece of Muppets Most Wanted merchandise. A brand new, much improved Miss Piggy plush is now available at certain Disney Stores, soon to be available at all Disney Stores. Check out the photo below. Thanks Tim!

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

Muppets Most Wanted Merchandise Round Up

The merchandise for Muppets Most Wanted is about to start arriving in droves, and we've got the scoop on some of the exciting products coming soon to stores. Let's take a look!

New T-Shirts (available now at the Disney Store)

Kid's Muppets World Tour shirt

Adult Muppets World Tour Shirt

Adult Animal shirt

Constantine Plush (available now at the Disney Store)

Rowlf the Dog Plush (available now at the Disney Store)

Muppets Most Wanted Figure Set with Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Animal, Walter, and Constantine (available now at the Disney Store)

Sam the Eagle POP! Vinyl Figure (coming in February)

Swedish Chef POP! Vinyl Figure (coming in February)

Muppets Most Wanted: Kermit's Double Trouble Book (available Feb. 11)

Muppets Most Wanted Read-Along Storybook and CD (available Feb. 11)

Muppets Character Encyclopedia (available Feb. 7)

Muppets Most Wanted: The Junior Novel (available Feb. 11)

Muppets Most Wanted Themed OPI Nail Polish (available March 1)

That's all we can find. If anyone has news or information about any other merchandise for Muppets Most Wanted, let us know!







The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

News Update: January 16, 2014

JANUARY 16, 2014

The Muppets Most Wanted merchandise train is finally leaving the station at the Disney Store. Yesterday, our friend Max Jessop alerted us to the fact that new Muppet plush are being released for the movie. The characters being made into plush are Constantine and, most excitingly, Rowlf the Dog! Check out pictures of the plush below. We also have been told that a lot more Muppets Most Wanted stuff is on the way as well.

CBS This Morning got the chance to send one of its correspondents, Mo Rocca, to the set of Sesame Street recently, where he got to learn how to be a Muppet performer from our friends Matt Vogel and Martin P. Robinson. The video is really, really cool and fun. Gotta love seeing the Muppet performers given the spotlight they so richly deserve.

Muppets Most Wanted is in the running in MTV's Movie Brawl, a March Madness-style tournament pitting the year's most anticipated movies up against each other. Muppets Most Wanted is up against something called Camp X-Ray that I've never heard of. So let's rock the vote, Muppet fans, and make sure the Muppets win the first round (and the whole thing, if we can help it)!

In big, hugely exciting news, the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia announced this week their plans for a major expansion to be completed in 2015. The press release has everything you need to know about the amazing full expansion, but here is the relevant Muppet related info:

In 2007, Jim Henson’s family announced a momentous gift of puppets and props to the Center for Puppetry Arts. We are thrilled that approximately half of our expanded museum space will be dedicated to the Jim Henson Collection. 

This interactive exhibition will follow Henson’s prolific imagination chronologically, transporting visitors through environments that typified the master puppeteer’s world such as Jim’s Office and the Television Studio.

In addition to learning how Henson’s characters came to life and are stillperformed, visitors will be able to view iconic puppets such as Kermit 
the Frog and Miss Piggy.

We are so, so thrilled for our great friends at the Center. They are a huge part of keeping the art of puppetry alive and well and their museum is absolutely amazing. If you ever have the chance to visit them in Atlanta, I cannot recommend it enough. Already they have on display Big Bird, Rowlf, Dr. Teeth, Emmet Otter, Mokey and Red Fraggle, Link Hogthrob and Dr. Strangepork, and plenty, plenty more. Take the time to see it if you can!

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

News Update: July 25, 2013

NEWS UPDATE: July 25, 2013
The biggest news of the week over in the real world was the birth of the royal baby, the Prince of Cambridge, the son of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Why should we as Muppet fans care about the new heir to the British throne? Because Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy care, of course! Check out the video below, direct from our friends at The Muppets Studio, to watch Kermit and Piggy pause filming of Muppets Most Wanted to congratulate the royals on the new baby!



At Toy Fair this year, the toy company Funko revealed a new series of "Cupcakes" figures modeled after various Disney characters. Two of these characters in the series will be Kermit and Miss Piggy! The figures are kind of weird but also pretty delightful... so check out the figures and their boxes below! They'll be released in October and will retail around $14.99. (Thanks to our friends at VinylmationWorld.com for the info!)

This week The Jim Henson Company launched a brand new website for Jim Henson's classic fantasy epic The Dark Crystal. The site is located at http://darkcrystal.com and it is totally awesome. It is jam packed with information, mythology, pictures, and a whole encyclopedia of vast information about the film. I'm not a huge fan of The Dark Crystal, but the website is pretty incredible. You could spend ages pouring over all of the interactive content. Well done, Henson Company!

Last week, the great Jeffery Tambor appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson to promote Arrested Development. Well, since Craig is such a big Muppet fan, it shouldn't be such a big surprise that they ended up talking about Muppets From Space. It's a fantastic moment, that you should definitely check out in the video below. Skip ahead to 8:45 for the Muppet talk!



Back in February, we were thrilled to showcase a fan made animated video starring Baby Sinclair and Earl Sinclair from Dinosaurs. The video was ridiculously good and made by our friend Davide Maugeri and his team of animators. Well, I'm once again thrilled to announce that Davide and his team are working on another short starring even more Dinosaurs characters! Check out the teaser poster below and be on the lookout for the new short sometime in 2014.

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

Muppets Vinylmation Series 3 Chaser REVEALED!

The fine folks at Vinylmation World revealed late last night the confirmed, rare chaser figure for the upcoming The Muppets #3 Vinylmation set to be released at Disney Parks and Disney Stores on July 26th. As we predicted, the chaser is Walter, and he's even better than I could've expected! Check out pictures of the figure below courtesy of Vinylmation Exchange user Jay Oh.

I don't know about you, Muppet fans, but I seriously love Walter so much. Check out the entire roster for Muppets Vinylmation #3 in our post from last month.






The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

News Update: July 28, 2013

NEWS UPDATE: July 28, 2013

A new piece of pretty awesome Muppet merchandise is apparently coming soon. We have only found it available for pre-order at ComicsInfinity, who provide this information about the cool piece: "This character-authentic polystone mini-bust is designed and sculpted by Patrick Romandy-Simmons. Standing 6 1/2" tall, Kermit the Frog comes painted and ready to display." The bust is currently on sale for $64.70, down from the normal $70. Hopefully more Muppets will be made into busts soon. Check out the Kermit bust below and click over to ComicsInfinity if you wish to pre-order!

Our friends at ToughPigs.com found a musical little gem on YouTube this week from Canadian rapper Classified. His new song, "3 Foot Tall" features a sample from "Life's a Happy Song." Classified sampled Walter's line from the song, "When you're alone, life can be a little rough, it makes you feel like you're three foot tall. When it's just you, well times can be tough when there's no one there to catch your fall." The song is insanely catchy and really, really well done. Take a listen below! (WARNING: There are a few semi-explicit lyrics.)



Over on the suddenly-active-again Facebook fan page for The Muppets, the fine folks from Disney posted a cute little picture to promote the release of The Muppet Movie on Blu-ray on August 13th. The image, which you can see below, shows a few pages from Walter's scrapbook about his favorite film, The Muppet Movie. It's adorable and absolutely something Walter would do.

And, unfortunately, that's all the news this week. So... happy Friday! Go have some ice cream--on us! (NOTE: Ice cream will not actually be on us, unless you dump it on us because we didn't pay for it when we said we would.)

The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com

News Update: May 24th, 2013

NEWS UPDATE: May 24th 2013
As we reported last week, The Muppet Movie is coming to Disney Blu-ray on August 13th. Unsurprisingly, the Muppet Facebook pages have been celebrating the upcoming release, but so has the official Disney fan-blog "Oh My Disney," which has come up with an article called "Reasons Why We're Excited That The Muppet Movie Is Coming to Blu-ray." The reasons are pretty great and very Muppet-fan friendly, so be sure to check it out.

The first official products from The Muppets... Again! have been made available for pre-order on Amazon.com. The products are two books, the first Kermit's Double Trouble is an illustrated storybook about the film, and the second, Muppets: Official World Tour Book, which is described as "Filled with photos and props from the movie, this paper-over-board storybook will be the souvenir tour book from the Muppets' international tour in the film." The second book definitely sounds awesome. Both will be available on February 11th, 2014 and both come with this description of the film:

"The Muppets are off on a global tour, selling out grand theaters in some of Europe's most exciting destinations, including Berlin, Madrid and London. But mayhem follows the Muppets overseas, as they find themselves unwittingly entangled in an international crime caper headed by Constantine-the World's Number One Criminal and a dead ringer for Kermit-and his dastardly sidekick Dominic, aka Number Two."

In more news about The Muppets... Again! another cameo guest star has been reported in rapper/actor P. Diddy. Our friends at ToughPigs.com broke the story from an Australian news source, which talked to an actress who appeared in the scene with P. Diddy and Pepe the King Prawn. The actress said, "Travelling on a train, she plays the dice game craps with both of them, then dances with Pepe and ends up in a tussle with another girl while vying for the prawn's affections. 'It was funny as we ended up tearing both his hands off in the scene. It was an amazing experience,' she said." So this confirms both Pepe and P. Diddy! I know which one I'm more excited about.

In the biggest news of the week, New York City's Museum of the Moving Image and The Jim Henson Legacy announced this week that they are opening a brand new, permanent Jim Henson Gallery. Opening in "Winter 2014-2015," the gallery will be home to more than 400 puppets, costumes, props, and more from Jim Henson's creations ranging from the Muppets, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and more. It sounds like a truly amazing gallery--but what is even more amazing is the announcement of the gallery, which featured Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Cheryl Henson, Miss Piggy, Oscar the Grouch, and Gobo Fraggle!

And the best part is, our friends at ToughPigs.com were on hand at the announcement to take video! Watch below for Miss Piggy, Oscar, and Gobo. It's truly fantastic. Eric Jacobson, Caroll Spinney, and John Tartaglia prove again how truly fantastic they are. Enjoy and thanks ToughPigs!







The Muppet Mindset by Ryan Dosier, muppetmindset@gmail.com