A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)

[Denliner]

With no Michael Eisner we could stick get this:

Dreamfinders

Dreamfinders was an unmade television show proposed for the original Disney Channel line-up. Based on the Journey Into Imagination attraction, it featured Dreamfinder (going under the alias Old Eli) and Figment taking children on adventures through the Realms of Imagination while avoiding a...

disney.fandom.com

It's canon in the timeline.

A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)

Thanks for covering that, I just had concerns 'Waggle' was less distinct and memorable than 'Fraggle'. I kind of assumed someone would have pondered 'could we come up with a better name?' but that's as far as my thinking went. It's clear the show is still the same at heart with only minor...

www.alternatehistory.com

 

[nick_crenshaw82]

It's canon in the timeline.

A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)

Thanks for covering that, I just had concerns 'Waggle' was less distinct and memorable than 'Fraggle'. I kind of assumed someone would have pondered 'could we come up with a better name?' but that's as far as my thinking went. It's clear the show is still the same at heart with only minor...

www.alternatehistory.com

Oops. In that case I found a reason not to butterfly away The Little Mermaid:

Little Mermaid's Island

Little Mermaid's Island was a show proposed by Muppets creator Jim Henson during his short time in talks with the Walt Disney Company. A pilot (called "Sebastian's Birthday") and a second episode ("Tell The Truth") were shot, intended for a series to air daily on the Disney Channel, with puppets...

disney.fandom.com

 

[Migrant_Coconut]

A handy reference. Wouldn't mind Odysseus instead of Hercules...

 

[Denliner]

Oops. In that case I found a reason not to butterfly away The Little Mermaid:

Little Mermaid's Island

Little Mermaid's Island was a show proposed by Muppets creator Jim Henson during his short time in talks with the Walt Disney Company. A pilot (called "Sebastian's Birthday") and a second episode ("Tell The Truth") were shot, intended for a series to air daily on the Disney Channel, with puppets...

disney.fandom.com

Considering how busy Jim Henson is running the creative studios at the Walt Disney Company, I doubt he's going to personally work on it like in OTL. Regardless if the show is going to made or not, I have high hopes that The Little Mermaid will not be butterflied ITTL. It would be a good project to hop off from A Small World while Aladdin would probably follow shortly after.

So maybe like this?

• A Small World (1988)
• The Little Mermaid (1989)
• Aladdin (1990)
• Beauty and the Beast (1991)

There is still Oliver & Company though, and I have no idea where they will play out though.

---

My ideal Renaissance list (up until 2000) would be:

Spoiler: My Disney Renaissance (1986-2000)

• Where the Wild Things Are (1986)
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1987)
• A Small World (1988)
• The Little Mermaid (1989)
• Aladdin (1990)
• Beauty and the Beast (1991)
• Puss in Boots / Don Quixote (1992)
• Odysseus (1993)
• Kimba, the White Lion (1994)
• Hiawatha (1995)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
• Tarzan (1997)
• Mulan (1998)
• Spider-Man (1999)
• Treasure Planet (2000)

Again, it's my wishlist and definitely won't reflect what's going to happen canonically, but a man can dream....and imagine.

 

[Nerdman3000]

My ideal Renaissance list (up until 2000) would be:

Spoiler: My Disney Renaissance (1986-2000)

• Where the Wild Things Are (1986)
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1987)
• A Small World (1988)
• The Little Mermaid (1989)
• Aladdin (1990)
• Beauty and the Beast (1991)
• Puss in Boots / Don Quixote (1992)
• Odysseus (1993)
• Kimba, the White Lion (1994)
• Hiawatha (1995)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
• Tarzan (1997)
• Mulan (1998)
• Spider-Man (1999)
• Treasure Planet (2000)

Again, it's my wishlist and definitely won't reflect what's going to happen canonically, but a man can dream....and imagine.

Ideally if possible I would include Atlantis: The Lost Empire in the Disney Renaissance ITTL, replacing Spider-Man on your list for a 1999 release. That said, I have my doubts on Atlantis, Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Hunchback, and Mulan being able to avoid getting butterflied away, as much as I’d love each of them to exist ITTL. I just think everything after Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast overall will be harder to avoid getting butterflied, even if I would admittedly love all those movies to survive.

Also, I don’t see why Disney ITTL, if they did make a Spider-Man movie, would make it animated and not live action.

One movie I could see happen in the 90’s ITTL, is a revival of the Snow Queen concept from the 40’s (in other words, a earlier Frozen film ITTL).

 

[Denliner]

Ideally if possible I would include Atlantis: The Lost Empire in the Disney Renaissance ITTL, replacing Spider-Man on your list for a 1999 release. That said, I have my doubts on Atlantis, Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Hunchback, and Mulan being able to avoid getting butterflied away, as much as I’d love each of them to exist ITTL. I just think everything after Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Beauty and the Beast overall will be harder to avoid getting butterflied, even if I would admittedly love all those movies to survive.

For Treasure Planet, it's going to happen since it's one of Ron Clements and John Musker's passion projects. It only got pushed that far due to consistent rejections from Katzenberg and Eisner. With an accelerated development on CGI and the blessing of Henson, a 90s Treasure Planet is very very possible, in my opinion.

As for the rest, I do have to agree that that films like Hunchback, Atlantis, Hercules, or Mulan are definitely in the nebulous zone of being butterflied or not, but I don't know the specific conditions on whether they will be made or if they're going to disappear. I think that The Lion King and Pocahontas are complete goners though.

Also, I don’t see why Disney ITTL, if they did make a Spider-Man movie, would make it animated and not live action.

Well I figured that live-action wouldn't be able to emulate Spider-Man to its full potential until the late 90s or early 00s where CGI is sufficient enough to do it, like with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy OTL.

Even for 2002, the original Spider-Man could only do brief CGI and the rest is just in-person shots. Imagine if they made Spider-Man during 1992 or earlier? It would look absolutely comical, in my opinion.

One movie I could see happen in the 90’s ITTL, is a revival of the Snow Queen concept from the 40’s (in other words, a earlier Frozen film ITTL).

Now that I think about it, Spider-Man in 1999 would be rather unusual for an animated film since live-action could probably simulate his movements in its entirety. Maybe it should be replaced by something like The Snow Queen or Rapunzel, since they were on the table by the late 90s.

IMO, Rapunzel is my preferred film since Frozen had a hellish time trying to adapt The Snow Queen into something other than the villain. It could work, but I don't know if it'll be as successful if she remained an antagonist or even a villain protagonist as the creative liberties done in the film were pretty unique to the directors and writers on the team.

 

[Denliner]

Sorry for the double-post but the Japanese did attempt to do a live-action Spider-Man to great success, but even with a giant robot, he could not do the web-slinging across cities like in the movies. Sigh....

EDIT: OH CRAP! Marvel also did a live-action Spider-Man and yikes! That is bad.....but probably closer to what an 80s/early 90s Spider-Man would look like than Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. Technology really is the ultimate enemy of any Spider-Man production, isn't it?

 

[Migrant_Coconut]

For Treasure Planet, it's going to happen since it's one of Ron Clements and John Musker's passion projects. It only got pushed that far due to consistent rejections from Katzenberg and Eisner. With an accelerated development on CGI and the blessing of Henson, a 90s Treasure Planet is very very possible, in my opinion.

I would be forever grateful if we could get the sequel as well. And there's Antonius too - Sabor the leopard, but as an ancient Egyptian freedom fighter. So many possibilities.

More importantly, we can avoid Home on the Range, Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons, and that's worth ten times anything we've lost.

 

[nick_crenshaw82]

Another idea killed because of Eisner:

Walt (TV movie pitch)

Walt was a planned TV movie for The Wonderful World of Disney. The film was planned to be the premiere opener for the revival of the anthology series and was co-written by Mike Bonifer and L.G. Weaver. As described by Bonifer, the TV movie would have covered the life of Walt Disney. "The [film]...

disney.fandom.com

Could imagine how traumatic it would have been if NASA had solved how to send the Big Bird suit on the challenger in 1986

Big Bird's proposed flight on Space Shuttle Challenger

In the mid-1980s, NASA approached Children's Television Workshop in the interest of getting "the children of America to be more interested in [the space program]". Caroll Spinney was meant to go into space on board the Space Shuttle Challenger scheduled for launch in 1986. Sequences were to be...

muppet.fandom.com

We need to have this, the sooner the better

The Great Muppet Movie Ride

The Great Muppet Movie Ride is an abandoned concept for an attraction at (what was then) Disney-MGM Studios in Walt Disney World. The attraction, which was meant to parody the park's own Great Movie Ride, would have brought guests through a variety of set pieces in which the Muppets attempted to...

muppet.fandom.com

I think we need a new update of Muppet attractions at Disney parks:

Here Come the Muppets (parade)

Here Come the Muppets was a proposed parade for Disneyland park during the failed sale of the Muppets to Disney in the 1990s. Similar to Disneyland's Party Gras parade which launched in 1990, giant inflatable characters of Sweetums, The Swedish Chef, Fozzie Bear on a trunk with Vaudeville props...

muppet.fandom.com

Muppet All-Star Motorcade

The Muppet All-Star Motorcade was a proposed parade for the Disneyland theme park during 1991. Planned as part of a Muppet taker-over of the park, re-naming it Muppetland, the parade, along with the Here Come the Muppets parade, was abandoned after the failed sale of The Jim Henson Company to...

muppet.fandom.com

Now that Henson works at Disney I think Muppetville could actually happen and the above "suggestions could be done during its opening

Muppetville (concept)

Muppetville was a concept for a Muppet-themed amusement park first explored by Jim Henson around 1987. Artwork was commissioned and created by Kurt Hanks before the idea was eventually abandoned.[1] Henson dropped the idea, conceding that "Disney does it so well that we could never do it...

muppet.fandom.com

Funny film concept

The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made!

The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made! is an idea for a film that Jim Henson, Jerry Juhl, and Frank Oz first developed in 1985. Juhl, the Muppets' head writer from the late 1970s through the 1990s, discussed the film's concept in a 1998 interview with Muppet Central: Additional plot details were...

muppet.fandom.com

How about releasing this in 1988
Another idea killed because of Eisner:

Walt (TV movie pitch)

Walt was a planned TV movie for The Wonderful World of Disney. The film was planned to be the premiere opener for the revival of the anthology series and was co-written by Mike Bonifer and L.G. Weaver. As described by Bonifer, the TV movie would have covered the life of Walt Disney. "The [film]...

disney.fandom.com

Could imagine how traumatic it would have been if NASA had solved how to send the Big Bird suit on the challenger in 1986

Big Bird's proposed flight on Space Shuttle Challenger

In the mid-1980s, NASA approached Children's Television Workshop in the interest of getting "the children of America to be more interested in [the space program]". Caroll Spinney was meant to go into space on board the Space Shuttle Challenger scheduled for launch in 1986. Sequences were to be...

muppet.fandom.com

We need to have this, the sooner the better

The Great Muppet Movie Ride

The Great Muppet Movie Ride is an abandoned concept for an attraction at (what was then) Disney-MGM Studios in Walt Disney World. The attraction, which was meant to parody the park's own Great Movie Ride, would have brought guests through a variety of set pieces in which the Muppets attempted to...

muppet.fandom.com

I think we need a new update of Muppet attractions at Disney parks:

Here Come the Muppets (parade)

Here Come the Muppets was a proposed parade for Disneyland park during the failed sale of the Muppets to Disney in the 1990s. Similar to Disneyland's Party Gras parade which launched in 1990, giant inflatable characters of Sweetums, The Swedish Chef, Fozzie Bear on a trunk with Vaudeville props...

muppet.fandom.com

Muppet All-Star Motorcade

The Muppet All-Star Motorcade was a proposed parade for the Disneyland theme park during 1991. Planned as part of a Muppet taker-over of the park, re-naming it Muppetland, the parade, along with the Here Come the Muppets parade, was abandoned after the failed sale of The Jim Henson Company to...

muppet.fandom.com

Now that Henson works at Disney I think Muppetville could actually happen and the above "suggestions could be done during its opening

Muppetville (concept)

Muppetville was a concept for a Muppet-themed amusement park first explored by Jim Henson around 1987. Artwork was commissioned and created by Kurt Hanks before the idea was eventually abandoned.[1] Henson dropped the idea, conceding that "Disney does it so well that we could never do it...

muppet.fandom.com

Funny film concept

The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made!

The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made! is an idea for a film that Jim Henson, Jerry Juhl, and Frank Oz first developed in 1985. Juhl, the Muppets' head writer from the late 1970s through the 1990s, discussed the film's concept in a 1998 interview with Muppet Central: Additional plot details were...

muppet.fandom.com

How about releasing this in 1988

Sesame Street - The Movie

In early 1982, proposals were made for a feature film based on Sesame Street. At least two treatments were prepared by David Connell and Jim Thurman for Sesame Street - The Movie, a musical and political romp in which Big Bird is elected President of the United States, intended to please...

muppet.fandom.com

Considering the Benson's environmentalism is this would be a possible show to save

W.I.L.D.

A series referred to as The Environmental Show by the press, but called W.I.L.D. during production, was proposed for the Disney Channel in 1990 with the intentions of educating young people about animals and the environment. Set in a TV station, anchor Ponce D. Lion and iguana cohost Netty would...

muppet.fandom.com

A couple of cool concepts

Muppetmobile

Muppetmobile was a proposed international TV series, which Jim Henson developed with Duncan Kenworthy, Louise Gikow and Jocelyn Stevenson during the production of Labyrinth in 1985. The series was meant to teach English as a second language, hopefully launching a video and book series to...

muppet.fandom.com

Muppet High

Muppet High was a planned television series that was never produced. The series was mentioned as having been in the works at The Jim Henson Company in 1990, in the months before Jim Henson's death. Muppet High was to depict the Muppets as 1950s high school students. A toy company, Presents...

muppet.fandom.com

Also, I don’t see why Disney ITTL, if they did make a Spider-Man movie, would make it animated and not live action.

It would be difficult doing the web slinging sciences so early.

 

[Nerdman3000]

It would be difficult doing the web slinging sciences so early.

Yeah, but why exactly does it need to come out so early? I don’t see why it wouldn’t ultimately happen in the early 2000’s like in our timeline, which is when the technology finally caught up enough to make a true live action Spider-Man film a reality.

 

[TheFaultsofAlts]

Walt (TV movie pitch)

Walt was a planned TV movie for The Wonderful World of Disney. The film was planned to be the premiere opener for the revival of the anthology series and was co-written by Mike Bonifer and L.G. Weaver. As described by Bonifer, the TV movie would have covered the life of Walt Disney. "The [film]...

disney.fandom.com

Muppet High

Muppet High was a planned television series that was never produced. The series was mentioned as having been in the works at The Jim Henson Company in 1990, in the months before Jim Henson's death. Muppet High was to depict the Muppets as 1950s high school students. A toy company, Presents...

muppet.fandom.com

Personally, I would have loved to see these two projects get made IOTL! However, I'm not sure if we need toys for Muppet High, as the idea of Kermit and the gang in a 1950's-era high school is both creative and memorable enough that the toyline would just cheapen the quality of the show. And besides, we already have Muppet Babies and the Benny Bunny series for toy-driven Muppet projects.

 

[nick_crenshaw82]

My ideal Renaissance list (up until 2000) would be:

Spoiler: My Disney Renaissance (1986-2000)

• Where the Wild Things Are (1986)
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1987)
• A Small World (1988)
• The Little Mermaid (1989)
• Aladdin (1990)
• Beauty and the Beast (1991)
• Puss in Boots / Don Quixote (1992)
• Odysseus (1993)
• Kimba, the White Lion (1994)
• Hiawatha (1995)
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
• Tarzan (1997)
• Mulan (1998)
• Spider-Man (1999)
• Treasure Planet (2000)

Again, it's my wishlist and definitely won't reflect what's going to happen canonically, but a man can dream....and imagine.

If Disney moves some of these to the Muppets, like Oliver & Company, the others may get bumped up.

 

[nick_crenshaw82]

Personally, I would have loved to see these two projects get made IOTL! However, I'm not sure if we need toys for Muppet High, as the idea of Kermit and the gang in a 1950's-era high school is both creative and memorable enough that the toyline would just cheapen the quality of the show. And besides, we already have Muppet Babies and the Benny Bunny series for toy-driven Muppet projects.

If Jim Henson lives past 1990 ITTL he'll probably shoot down the toy line. Also I was thinking of having it be more like Muppet Babies but in high school.

 

[TheFaultsofAlts]

If Jim Henson lives past 1990 ITTL he'll probably shoot down the toy line. Also I was thinking of having it be more like Muppet Babies but in high school.

Aaand that's yet another reason why he should live past 1990. As for your way of thinking, isn't that kinda obvious for a show called Muppet High to be the same as Muppet Babies in terms of the basic plot of "Kermit and friends being pals before they became famous"? Just saying.

 

[nick_crenshaw82]

Aaand that's yet another reason why he should live past 1990. As for your way of thinking, isn't that kinda obvious for a show called Muppet High to be the same as Muppet Babies in terms of the basic plot of "Kermit and friends being pals before they became famous"? Just saying.

But not as Happy Days is all I'm saying.

 

[TheFaultsofAlts]

But not as Happy Days is all I'm saying.

Yeah. Don't forget that we're still chronicling the teenage lives of talking animals made of clothing materials here.

 

[TheMolluskLingers]

As for your way of thinking, isn't that kinda obvious for a show called Muppet High to be the same as Muppet Babies

Why not make it a sequel series to Muppet Babies?

 

[TheFaultsofAlts]

Why not make it a sequel series to Muppet Babies?

Because then Skeeter would need to be involved somehow.

 

[myuacc1]

More importantly, we can avoid Home on the Range, Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons, and that's worth ten times anything we've lost.

I agree with the former two films, although I like Meet the Robinsons.

 

[Denliner]

Yeah, but why exactly does it need to come out so early? I don’t see why it wouldn’t ultimately happen in the early 2000’s like in our timeline, which is when the technology finally caught up enough to make a true live action Spider-Man film a reality.

Fair point. I'm still interested towards an animated Spider-Man but a live-action adaptation is definitely out of reach until the late 90s or 2000s thanks to technology.

Now that Henson works at Disney I think Muppetville could actually happen and the above "suggestions could be done during its opening

You know Henson can't resist putting an entire land dedicated to the Muppets, right? Hehehehehe

Praying that the Magic Kingdom still has its Muppetland....just please.

We need to have this, the sooner the better -> The Great Muppet Movie Ride

But the Great Movie Ride doesn't even exist ITTL, since there's no Disney-MGM or Eisner in Disney, so I don't know if Henson is gonna come up with the same idea. I generally prefer Disney that's less tacky and self-referential towards Hollywood like the Eisner era was, so no love lost for not having The Great Movie Ride or its spoof.

Muppet*Vision 3D is an absolute must though, as does the Here Comes The Muppets! parade.

A couple of cool concepts

I would absolutely love WILD and Muppet High to be made at some point. Great suggestions there.