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Saw this just as I was writing. I hadn't considered this and I like it.
At the very least it might butterfly away the ridiculous 'we prefer you as Hanna' message from the show's own movie I heard about.
Well, I was reading through the chapter and looking through Sunbow's catalog, when the TV Trash review of Hannah Montana popped in my mind. Particularly when Rowdy made it clear exactly what the show was ripping off from the perspective of a reviewer who absolutely ate up MLP back before Lauren Faust made it cool to do so!
 
1: Who owns the film and television rights to the other Sunbow-Hasbro creations, like G.I. Joe and My Little Pony & Friends?
Hasbro of course.
2: Since Disney owns the film and television rights to Jem and the Holograms, will we see Hannah Montana be properly replaced by a reboot of what it was ripping off in the first place?
Maybe, but probably not. Depending on how long they hold on to the rights we may get a proper Jem film.
 
And yet Henson tried to be a man of honor in his own right. Killing a production that he didn’t like wasn’t just an attack against the original producer, he felt, it was an attack against all of the men and women who’d worked for years to make it happen. He’d experienced the disappointment himself of working for untold hours on a production just to see it go nowhere. He felt he owed it to the actual artists to let them have their day in the sun.
That's the Jim I know and love, a guy who rarely lets his hatred get in the way and a good sport about things.

If there's ever a live-action Transformers film here, you can bet Creatureworks will be doing Cybertronians.

Perhaps under Disney, Hasbro's execs will be replaced by ones more open to more complex storytelling and away from the Reagenomics-fuelled profit focus. Really, you can blame Reagan for how much low quality crap was in cartoons.

Can't wait to see how the 1990's progress for everyone, Disney included (mostly to see when/how Animal Kingdom goes).
 
[6] You know who largely agrees with this sentiment? Lauren Faust, creator of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which was essentially a canonization of her childhood adventures with her own My Little Pony toys. Her Ponies had way better adventures and more complex relationships than the ditzy ones in the original cartoon, after all.
OK, that is something i'm gonna have to object to. The original MLP cartoon was shockingly hardcore. It was probably closer to what I would expect from a D&D cartoon then the actual D&D cartoon. And, meanwhile, MLP Tales did have fairly diverse personalities, and was more slice of life. You could say that FIM just fused the two, basically. It has the diverse personalities and mostly slice-of-life structure of Tales, but set in, and, occasionally, full-on immersed in, the gonzo fantasy universe that G1 had. G3...Was actually pretty shit, even evaluated on its own standards, actually. It's a lot like the Disney direct-to-video sequels: It's not, like, actively harmful, but it's way below par even by the low-ish standards of kids entertainment (speaking of things Henson despies...I've heard it noted that entertainment is one of the very few things we have lower standards for when it's for our children. "It's just a carseat", "it's just food"...If something's for our kids, we want to know it won't be harmful to them.) I'm gonna need a source on that, because that crit sounds like something from someone who's never seen the original show and just assumes it's like all other "girl's cartoons".
 
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OK, that is something i'm gonna have to object to. The original MLP cartoon was shockingly hardcore. It was probably closer to what I would expect from a D&D cartoon then the actual D&D cartoon. And, meanwhile, MLP Tales did have fairly diverse personalities, and was more slice of life. You could say that FIM just fused the two, basically. It has the diverse personalities and mostly slice-of-life structure of Tales, but set in, and, occasionally, full-on immersed in, the gonzo fantasy universe that G1 had. G3...Was actually pretty shit, even evaluated on its own standards, actually. It's a lot like the Disney direct-to-video sequels: It's not, like, actively harmful, but it's way below par even by the low-ish standards of kids entertainment (speaking of things Henson despies...I've heard it noted that entertainment is one of the very few things we have lower standards for when it's for our children. "It's just a carseat", "it's just food"...If something's for our kids, we want to know it won't be harmful to them.) I'm gonna need a source on that, because that crit sounds like something from someone who's never seen the original show and just assumes it's like all other "girl's cartoons".
Seconded to that, @Geekhis Khan

Gen 1 gave us a demonic centaur in Tirek, demon ram necromancer who ruled over his own city in Grogar and many pthers like a thuggish lava monster, a cloud monster that ate pony's shadows, a primordial octopus monster, Katarina with her witch weed and a few others.

Like, Gen 1 was actually pretty all right from what I saw bits of. It only began declining with Gen 3 (Gen 2 from what I heard was pretty all righty.)

The specials definitely were among pretty good stuff for what there was at the time.
 
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I did like Inhumanoids when it came out, but preferred Centurions: Power Xtreme which I hope does better ITTL. The one series Teen me liked most apart from the silliness of the Turtles was Visionaries, which hopefully in this timeline can be produced in by Marvel, Sunbow and Disney together as the core teamwork concepts where great, and I think it just needed more push and stronger scripts. Get it on the Disney channels and I think it could last a lot longer than OTL.

Please help Visionaries @Geekhis Khan
I'd never heard of Visionaries. I'll have to look into it.

Great post!

Recently took the time to read through the entire TL again from the beginning, and beyond the sheer quality of your work, I'm still astounded at your speed and continued regularity in posting (151 threadmarks since just MAY of last year!!!). Really, hats off to you @Geekhis Khan!
Thanks, Rosenheim, I'm truly humbled. Since this is really my self-therapy trying to make sense of an increasingly insane world I'm glad that folks like it. The "Speed" is because I wrote all the way up to around 1985 before I launched the first post. The regularity is because I force myself to deliver to a set "T-days & S-days" schedule and commit to replacing each post I put online with a new one in the "Master Doc".

I can't say I expected today's turn of events, but still, I do have two questions about the ownership rights, since Disney under Henson now owns the film and television rights to Transformers and half of the Super Sunday block. The half that was actually successful, of course.

1: Who owns the film and television rights to the other Sunbow-Hasbro creations, like G.I. Joe and My Little Pony & Friends?
2: Since Disney owns the film and television rights to Jem and the Holograms, will we see Hannah Montana be properly replaced by a reboot of what it was ripping off in the first place?
Well, Transformers and Jem were successful, Inhumanoids not so much. Also, My Little Pony and GI Joe were both very successful too. So in reality a mix of the successful and the not for Disney right now.

Hasbro has retaken the rights to both GIJ and MLP. No idea yet who buys them and when.

Jem as a Hanna Montana type series? Intriguing. My nieces loved HM. Worth noting that other than giving Jem an alter-ego (I'm assuming Marvel added that touch) the idea of an all-girl band toy/cartoon was hardly anything innovative. The '60s were full of "Cartoon characters start a rock band" plots. Betty & Veronica had a band IIRC. There was Josie and the Pussycats, of course.

OK, that is something i'm gonna have to object to. The original MLP cartoon was shockingly hardcore. It was probably closer to what I would expect from a D&D cartoon then the actual D&D cartoon. And, meanwhile, MLP Tales did have fairly diverse personalities, and was more slice of life. You could say that FIM just fused the two, basically. It has the diverse personalities and mostly slice-of-life structure of Tales, but set in, and, occasionally, full-on immersed in, the gonzo fantasy universe that G1 had. G3...Was actually pretty shit, even evaluated on its own standards, actually. It's a lot like the Disney direct-to-video sequels: It's not, like, actively harmful, but it's way below par even by the low-ish standards of kids entertainment (speaking of things Henson despies...I've heard it noted that entertainment is one of the very few things we have lower standards for when it's for our children. "It's just a carseat", "it's just food"...If something's for our kids, we want to know it won't be harmful to them.) I'm gonna need a source on that, because that crit sounds like something from someone who's never seen the original show and just assumes it's like all other "girl's cartoons".
Seconded to that, @Geekhis Khan

Gen 1 gave us a demonic centaur in Tirek, demon ram necromancer who ruled over his own city in Grogar and many pthers like a thuggish lava monster, a cloud monster that ate pony's shadows, a primordial octopus monster, Katarina with her witch weed and a few others.

Like, Gen 1 was actually pretty all right from what I saw bits of. It only began declining with Gen 3 (Gen 2 from what I heard was pretty all righty.)

The specials definitely were among pretty good stuff for what there was at the time.
Full disclosure I've never seen either version of MLP and never claimed to, so I'm relaying the thoughts of others here, primarily from The Toys that Made Us MLP Ep., which had little good to say about the 1980s cartoon. Feel free to PM me some suggested changes and I can edit to better reflect a wider set of opinions.

Hey, @Geekhis Khan, guess what?

THE MUPPET SHOW IS COMING TO DISNEY+!!!

Thoughts on this announcement?
Other than "About frackin' time?"
 
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Re: the future of Transformers, I honestly don't think a live-action Transformers film could be done with 80's or 90's special effects.

Like it or not, the concept of live-action transforming robots couldn't really be done justice until the 2000s CGI-filled blockbuster age. It's the same with the MCU - I honestly doubt half of those properties could be adapted until special effects had advanced to a point that allowed them to.

If we get Beast Wars ITTL, a little bit earlier, I will be pretty excited, but, re: film, I would rather either a) the timeline to the 2007 film remains unchanged or b) we get an animated TF film at some point in the mid-to-late 90s or early 2000s.
 
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Full disclosure I've never seen either version of MLP and never claimed to, so I'm relaying the thoughts of others here, primarily from The Toys that Made Us MLP Ep., which had little good to say about the 1980s cartoon. Feel free to PM me some suggested changes and I can edit to better reflect a wider set of opinions.
To be fair, I have heard the series wasn't as good as the specials, and it certainly didn't have a lot of chartization (that was more MLP Tales thing), but it was a lot less bland then its pop-culture reputation suggests.
 
Well, Transformers and Jem were successful, Inhumanoids not so much. Also, My Little Pony and GI Joe were both very successful too. So in reality a mix of the successful and the not for Disney right now.

Hasbro has retaken the rights to both GIJ and MLP. No idea yet who buys them and when.

Jem as a Hanna Montana type series? Intriguing. My nieces loved HM. Worth noting that other than giving Jem an alter-ego (I'm assuming Marvel added that touch) the idea of an all-girl band toy/cartoon was hardly anything innovative. The '60s were full of "Cartoon characters start a rock band" plots. Betty & Veronica had a band IIRC. There was Josie and the Pussycats, of course.

Other than "About frackin' time?"
Sure, Inhumanoids wasn't as successful as the other two shows, but compared to Robotix and Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines, which didn't even get standalone timeslots? I think they should thank their lucky stars they got anything under Jim Henson's regime, whether or not they had to. Nevertheless, you win some and you lose some.

Understandable. However, does Disney still own the rights to the direct-to-video GI Joe movie? Or did Hasbro buy the rights to that when they re-obtained the rights to the show?

Well, as an 18-year-old male who used to unironically enjoy Hannah Montana, you admittedly won't miss much by turning it back into Jem. In fact, I'd argue that you would gain some brand-name recognition out of the gate, plus some real stakes, if you were to bring back the Holograms as a teen sitcom of sorts.

Well, I've never seen the show, but I did see some offshoots of it, most notably Muppets Now and especially Bear in the Big Blue House.
 
[5] Three more than in our timeline.
Four, actually, as "Rebirth" was a three-parter OTL. However, writer David Wise admitted that it was supposed to be five parts before MP/Sunbow whittled to three. I imagine that it remained a five-parter TTL with two extra episodes before the show abrupt cancellation.
 
To be fair, I have heard the series wasn't as good as the specials, and it certainly didn't have a lot of chartization (that was more MLP Tales thing), but it was a lot less bland then its pop-culture reputation suggests.
Yea, I honestly have no idea either way. Never seen more than a few scenes from any MLP production. I was specifically talking about the My Little Pony 'n Friends TV Show, 1986-1987.
Please tell me this abomination of a racist pun from The Transformers has been butterflied away. Yes, it was real, and tasteless even back then. It made Casey Kasem, who was of Lebanese descent, quit Transformers and G.I. Joe on the spot.
Yeesh. Yea, let's say Casey complains to Margaret, and she goes to Roy and Jim. It can be the Sultanate of Suweing, keeping the bad pun aspect (Dire Straights reference), but removing the poor taste racism.

Sure, Inhumanoids wasn't as successful as the other two shows, but compared to Robotix and Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines, which didn't even get standalone timeslots? I think they should thank their lucky stars they got anything under Jim Henson's regime, whether or not they had to. Nevertheless, you win some and you lose some.

Understandable. However, does Disney still own the rights to the direct-to-video GI Joe movie? Or did Hasbro buy the rights to that when they re-obtained the rights to the show?

Well, as an 18-year-old male who used to unironically enjoy Hannah Montana, you admittedly won't miss much by turning it back into Jem. In fact, I'd argue that you would gain some brand-name recognition out of the gate, plus some real stakes, if you were to bring back the Holograms as a teen sitcom of sorts.

Well, I've never seen the show, but I did see some offshoots of it, most notably Muppets Now and especially Bear in the Big Blue House.
I'd enjoyed the Inhumanoids for the most part. I'd suspect that Jim would sell back the distribution rights to existing cartoon as well given his dislike of the cartoon. Hanna Montana was my nieces' favorite when they were kids, so no issues or judgements here.

Fun Fact: Hanna Montana was originally supposed to be called "Alexis Texas", but there was a Stripper that used that stage name.
 
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I'd enjoyed the Inhumanoids for the most part. I'd suspect that Jim would sell back the distribution rights to existing cartoon as well given his dislike of the cartoon. Hanna Montana was my nieces' favorite when they were kids, so no issues or judgements here.

Fun Fact: Hanna Montana was originally supposed to be called "Alexis Texas", but there was a Stripper that used that stage name.
Honestly, if it came down between the Inhumanoids and the Transformers, an overwhelming majority of people would pick Optimus Prime over whoever the protagonist of Inhumanoids is. Even more so if you've come to have a newfound respect for the show after mocking it to kingdom come. While running a major studio, in fact!

As they say, truth is stranger than fiction. And there's nothing stranger than having to change the name of a teen sitcom by Disney because of a member in a strip club taking the name beforehand!
 
Yea, I honestly have no idea either way. Never seen more than a few scenes from any MLP production. I was specifically talking about the My Little Pony 'n Friends TV Show, 1986-1987.
The Gen 1 tv show may have had its shortcomings though I do not think as worse than anything else. There wre more than a few notable villains and the specials and film were definitely a tier above the others.

Honestly, given how good the TV specials were, I imagine that if they maintained that level of quality with the characters, actions and villains, it would definitely be more prominent and remembered.
 
Can't help but think that Jim would have a soft spot for the Care Bears at least. They may be cutesy, but they're very close to Waggles when you think about it.

Now. About Bio-Force 5. I've never heard of them and this is the first time they've been brought up. Choudenshi Bioman?
 
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