Very possible, considering Universal Studios Moscow is very close to being in development OTL.
A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
- Start date
- Status
Well, you know what they say! Crimea River and Get Over It!
Henson Bio XVI: Progress and Congress
Chapter 16: Staring into the Sunset (Cont’d)
Excerpt from Jim Henson: Storyteller, an authorized biography by Jay O’Brian
As 1989 continued Jim, as always, had a thousand irons in the fire. Few of them involved performance or production. He’d handed nearly all of the Muppets off to others, adding only his performance as Rowlf in a limited framing device to Oliver and the Dodger. Roy Disney was up and running in Animation and keeping that crazy bunch together, and more and more Roy was filling in for Jim as host of Disney’s World of Magic. Jim was instead managing development of Disneyland Valencia and his new exciting distraction, Port Disney and its DisneySea resort. The latter was getting more and more glorious and exciting every day with each new drawing and blueprint and his Imagineers, including his son Brian, often had to chase him out of the room.
“I’d say, ‘Dad, we’ve got it!’ and he’d say, ‘Oh…yes, of course! I’d better get to my next appointment at X’, and we’d say, ‘yea!’” said Brian, later. “I have a feeling in hindsight that he was distracting himself from what was happening to Richard [Hunt] and Howard [Ashman] and what had recently happened to the Coreys.”
Work and fun were, once again, merging. Sunset Puppetry was taking on a life of its own as the local youth of LA were starting to find subversive fun in it all. “Sunset [Puppetry] had the advantage of not having the Muppets name attached to it,” said Jim, “It was something free and experimental, ironically like the Muppets used to be. We found ourselves pushing for more and more adult and serious content with each show.”
Soon enough, they were doing shows about serious issues like AIDS and drugs and gang violence and police misconduct, all spiked with a bit of subversive and irreverent dark humor that they referred to as the “spoonful of sugar.” Shows produced entirely in local Chicano Spanish or other languages and dialects appeared, run entirely by locally recruited performers. The “AIDS sketch” or “Just one Prick”, framed as a modern-day retelling of Rumpelstiltskin set in San Francisco and addressing both gay culture and drug use, was written and directed by Richard Hunt and was soon getting requested at numerous events and venues, even getting showcased on HBO at one point and winning Hunt an Emmy.
This, of course, led directly to former Muppet performer Louise Gold, now working in London on Spittin’ Image, approaching “Sunset Puppetry” with the intent to make a US version of the British political puppet show[1]. “I called the number in the Yellow Pages,” said Gold, “Someone picked up the phone and said ‘Sunset Puppetry, Jim speaking.’ I recognized the voice immediately. ‘Oh my god, Jim?’ We laughed and talked about old times and then I pitched the Spittin’ Image idea. Jim cleared it with Frank Wells and we set up the show on CBS, Ted Turner loving the idea, with all of Sunset’s profits going to support charitable causes.”
Spittin’ Image would become a minor hit and, since it was based on the politics of the day, they “never ran out of great material. Just when our writers started to run out of ideas, Dan Quayle would say something stupid or some Congressman would get caught with his pants down and we were solid for a month,” recalled Gold, who became the show runner for the US version.
Of course, just as Sunset Puppetry took off on its own, the company was soon flooded by young, diverse, and enthusiastic would-be performers and writers. And soon even Jim’s small role was largely set aside so that the New Generation could take over. Cheryl, likewise, had a career at Disney and Heather was in school at CalArts for most of the year and busy with her studies. John still had his charity work, and soon received a boost when none other than former President Jimmy Carter came calling, and began a new philanthropic collaboration with Sunset Charities developing housing and affordable health clinics in the poor neighborhoods of LA. John, who largely identified as “Buddhist” but with Taoist, Zen, and Hindu influences, and Jimmy Carter, an Evangelical Protestant, found kindred souls in one another despite their differences in religion, and soon “John and Jimmy” found themselves having long and poignant conversations about religion, spirituality, and philosophy, often with other spiritual leaders of various faiths, which eventually evolved into the Interfaith Council on Ethical Governance and Giving.
But with so much going on across Disney, there was little time for Jim Henson to work on Sunset Puppetry anyway, and John agreed to keep an eye on “the boys” as Jim thought of the young, struggling musicians and actors of the Strip, like Bob Forrest and River Phoenix.
Instead, it was off to Pego, Spain, or to Philadelphia for the Disneytown ribbon cutting, or to San Antonio and Denver to scope the new Disneytown locations, or London to meet with Gerry Anderson, or to Chicago to meet with Oprah Winfrey about a new Disney Afterschool Special[2], or to Orlando where Tom Wilhite and Bernie were in the process of building new sound stages to handle the growing productions. As a bone to Frank Wells, who still wanted a Disney Studio Park at WDW to compete with the developing Universal Studios and who had growing concerns over the recent Six Flags acquisition by Warner Brothers, they agreed to build a “Yellow Brick Road” (actually textured yellow concrete) from the Entertainment Pavilion to the new organically developing studio complex , with a small tour train and Hollywood props along the way.
But increasingly in 1989 he found himself in, of all places, Washington, DC, sitting before Congress or meeting with various politicians. There was growing debate over children’s entertainment and Jim, as the name attached to much of it, was a frequent person to call upon, often bringing along Bernie Brillstein or other producers and Al Gottesman or other Disney lawyers to accompany him. The legal team became affectionately known as Disney’s Legal Weasels and led directly to the introduction of the Muppet Barry Stirr, the Legal Weasel[3], in 1989, who became the Disney Legal Department’s official mascot in 1992.
Barry Stirr, esq., of the law offices of Shy and Stirr (Image source “muppets.fandom.com”)
The emerging politics surrounding kids programming had both positive and negative aspects in Jim’s mind. On one hand, Congress was growing increasingly suspicious of the toy-driven franchises and shameless direct-to-kids marketing that always bothered him. But on the other, there was also a growing push towards censorship. The recent appearance of The Bunyans and even some of the Sunset Puppetry specials on HBO were starting to upset a lot of people. The Bunyans, with its bratty, underachieving kids and abusive father, were causing moral outrage for proponents of traditional family values[4]. Featuring anthropomorphic rabbits, numerous parents assumed that it was intended for kids only to be appalled when they saw its casual misanthropy and adult subject matter. Even a lot of Henson’s own official Disney productions, like The Dark Crystal, Mort and the Dungeons & Dragons spinoff Mickey Quest, were becoming the target of some socially conservative groups, caught up in the last vestiges of the Satanic Panic. Henson, though he struggled to remain above the partisan political fray, hoped for the government to act responsibly on the issue of child marketing, but avoid the obvious (to him) pitfalls of censorship.
The culmination of this tumultuous issue was a series of congressional hearings in the summer of 1989, where Jim was called to testify before congressional subcommittees on several occasions. Many would later compare the event to Fred Rogers talking to the Senate in 1969, with Jim Henson remaining the voice of calm and caring concern even in the face of some hostile congress members, some of whom accused him and his company of moral indecency (Frank Oz would famously parody the event at a charity as Sam the Eagle), and some of whom called him out for hypocrisy for airing shows like Bio-Force Five that sold a wide range of popular toys even as he questioned the “toy driven” shows of the 1980s.
“For Jim it is about the source,” said Al Gottesman, defending him in an interview. “Bio-Force and The Muppets began as creative shows or comics. When the creative product drives the toy, it’s one thing. When the toy drives the creative product…it just seems manipulative to him,” fully admitting that, “It’s a nuance lost on many.”
And many did not see any nuance there. Jim’s long-standing uneasy relationship with merchandise continued to egg at him, but by this point merchandising was such an irrevocable part of the business that not selling toys could, ironically, lead to a creative artist losing their own copyright![5] Henson carefully tried to thread that needle, but didn’t escape fully unblemished.
On defending against censorship, he fared quite a bit better. He defended The Dark Crystal and The Black Cauldron against accusations that it was “too scary for kids,” maintaining that “trying to hide the challenges of life from children is a recipe for disaster, for them and for society.” He brought in expert child psychologists to support his assertations. He spoke of the duty that parents and creative artists alike had to care for the “growth” of children, not simply to “try and sweep the challenges of life aside, but to prepare them to face the challenges on their own.”
And when one socially conservative congressman openly accused him of pushing “morally depraved” material, citing The Dark Crystal in particular, Jim, noting the lack of sex and the relatively mild violence compared to other PG films of the time, challenged the congressman to explain what he meant. This ultimately led the congressman to cite its personal offensiveness to his own religious faith and thus (somehow) becoming a violation of his First Amendment rights. Jim replied, famously, “Um, doesn’t the First Amendment apply equally to all of us, regardless of our faith?” He even expressed his own childhood as a Christian Scientist and how much it had shaped his life, openly rejecting the notion that he was in any way trying to “steer children away from God or Christ” and openly spoke of the central message of the gospels and what they and Jesus meant to him personally, a rare public peek into his complex and multifaceted spiritual views.
In general, Jim Henson, buoyed by his old friend Al Gottesman, remained calm and focused, and came across like a caring man trying to “do right by America’s youth,” regardless of anyone’s personal opinions on individual issues, and attempts to label him a fraud or a hypocrite or a corrupter of youth almost inevitably backfired in the face of his natural sincerity and lack of any overt or hidden agenda.
And when pressed on the issue of The Bunyans, Jim said that he “liked it, actually,” citing its “cynical, but honest” satire and admitting that it “is probably a bit dark and intense for younger children,” but that there were “numerous age-appropriate options in that same TV hour.”
His friend and longtime business partner Bernie Brillstein, on the other hand, openly confronted hostile congresspersons, all but accusing one of antisemitism and openly mocking many of them for hypocrisy for supporting the invasion of Panama or, in some cases, the Vietnam war, which was still a sore spot in the public memory at the time. “You dropped how many bombs on Hanoi and killed how many actual people, including children, and you’re worried about a guy in green spandex with a plastic ninja sword fighting rubber-suited actors? I saw pictures of the aftermath of napalm. Don’t moralize to me, pal!”
“It was like good cop-bad cop,” recalled one observer. “Bernie would go on first, coming across on the surface as exactly the greedy and soulless ‘Hollywood Man’ that the congressmen and senators expected, only to demonstrate his real intelligence, integrity, and caring. They’d underestimate him, put their foot in their mouth, and [Bernie] would make [the politicians] look like a bunch of hypocritical assholes. Then they’d bring in Jim and the riled-up congressmen would come across as bullies as they tried to hammer on this kind and sincere and soft-spoken man. I’m certain Gottesman did that deliberately.”
The hearings ultimately accomplished two things. First was H.R. 1669, the Children’s Television Bill of 1989, which outlined both new guidelines for entertainment marketed at children, patching some of the loopholes that were exploited in the 1980s and giving certain requirements for educational, developmental, and social relevance. It also limited the duration of advertising in programs for children to a specified number of minutes per hour[6]. It also included recommendations for industry self-oversight on censorship issues, providing certain guidelines, but no new overt rules. In fact, censorship in certain areas was relaxed if (and only if) the potentially-offensive material was appropriately marked, giving parents and guardians some advanced notice to help guide their children’s viewing habits.
This latter provision led to the second biggest change, the Television Ratings Agreement of 1990. The entertainment industry and union in partnership with the FCC and MPAA made an agreement to expand the MPAA ratings system to TV shows and networks, with the industry self-regulating as they had done with the film industry to longstanding success, with shows “rated” according to the familiar G-PG-T-R scale. At first moral guardians hailed the decision as a win for morality and free speech advocates decried this agreement as censorship.
“Censorship? Hell!” said Bernie Brillstein in an interview with Variety. “This is liberation!” Instead of having set, fixed prohibitions, TV, much like film following the end of the Hays Code, could now experiment and push the boundaries in new ways simply by slapping a “PG” or “T” on the show. The Bunyans, sporting a “PG”, could now explore issues that would have been outright banned in that time slot by the FCC a year before, like race, crime, LGBTQ issues, drugs, and AIDS (all within reason). Late night shows like Saturday Night Live, Monsters, or Freddy’s Nightmares could slap a “T” on themselves and push the limits even further. “Viewer Discretion” became the buzzword, pushing responsibility (and thus liability) to some degree onto the viewer and away from the studio.
There were still rules. Timeslots usually came with limits on what could be shown, with kids’ educational hours limited to G in most cases, the Family Hour not allowed to have shows of a higher rating than PG, Network TV still banned from anything R-rated, and T-rated shows only allowed after the 10 PM local time “watershed”. Cable could push things further, particularly Premium Subscription channels like HBO, which could push R-rated stuff without having to blur the nudity, cut the bloodshed, or bleep the curses.
“The TRA of 1990 gave us far more leeway in our programming,” said Ted Turner in a later interview. “You could have G-rated stuff for the kids on Saturday morning, a PG-rated cop show in the evening, and a sexy T-rated show after 10. Then on cable it was virtually anything goes!”
For Jim Henson it was just another day at the office. “I think it’s good to just be clear with your audiences what to expect,” he said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Families can plan their TV choices now the way that they plan their movie choices. There’s no guessing on whether The Bunyans is good for your kid or not. You see the ‘PG’ and you know.”
[1] Yet another hat tip to @nick_crenshaw82.
[2] Will become “Our Little Secret”, a special about child sex abuse, how to spot it, how to report it, and how to get help for yourself or someone you know.
[3] This Muppet, performed initially by Steve Witmer, was famous for spouting off endless streams of pseudo-legal Latin phrases all leading up to a one-word response, for example “Habeas corpus a priori ad hominem, in pari materia, quid pro quo…so, no.” For the record, his partner Gunnison “Gun” Shy, esq., is later introduced as a shark, along with his paralegal “Pilate Fisk”, a remora. They are voiced by Bill Barretta and Karen Prell, respectively.
[4] Believe it or not, this happened to The Simpsons in our timeline, which were seen by moral crusaders as a direct assault on family values. George and Barbara Bush both weighed in with negative opinions of The Simpsons, the President famously saying in a speech how families should be “more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons.” Needless to say, Matt Groening and company had fun with that one.
[5] This happened in our timeline to Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame, whose refusal to merchandise his characters (other than comic reprint books) left him ironically powerless to stop the wave of “Calvin pissing on a Ford logo” type auto decals that sprang up in the 1990s, leading to him essentially losing his copyright when it pertained to merchandise.
[6] Up to this point in keeping with H.R. 1677 of 1990 of our timeline. Everything after this is new.
Excerpt from Jim Henson: Storyteller, an authorized biography by Jay O’Brian
As 1989 continued Jim, as always, had a thousand irons in the fire. Few of them involved performance or production. He’d handed nearly all of the Muppets off to others, adding only his performance as Rowlf in a limited framing device to Oliver and the Dodger. Roy Disney was up and running in Animation and keeping that crazy bunch together, and more and more Roy was filling in for Jim as host of Disney’s World of Magic. Jim was instead managing development of Disneyland Valencia and his new exciting distraction, Port Disney and its DisneySea resort. The latter was getting more and more glorious and exciting every day with each new drawing and blueprint and his Imagineers, including his son Brian, often had to chase him out of the room.
“I’d say, ‘Dad, we’ve got it!’ and he’d say, ‘Oh…yes, of course! I’d better get to my next appointment at X’, and we’d say, ‘yea!’” said Brian, later. “I have a feeling in hindsight that he was distracting himself from what was happening to Richard [Hunt] and Howard [Ashman] and what had recently happened to the Coreys.”
Work and fun were, once again, merging. Sunset Puppetry was taking on a life of its own as the local youth of LA were starting to find subversive fun in it all. “Sunset [Puppetry] had the advantage of not having the Muppets name attached to it,” said Jim, “It was something free and experimental, ironically like the Muppets used to be. We found ourselves pushing for more and more adult and serious content with each show.”
Soon enough, they were doing shows about serious issues like AIDS and drugs and gang violence and police misconduct, all spiked with a bit of subversive and irreverent dark humor that they referred to as the “spoonful of sugar.” Shows produced entirely in local Chicano Spanish or other languages and dialects appeared, run entirely by locally recruited performers. The “AIDS sketch” or “Just one Prick”, framed as a modern-day retelling of Rumpelstiltskin set in San Francisco and addressing both gay culture and drug use, was written and directed by Richard Hunt and was soon getting requested at numerous events and venues, even getting showcased on HBO at one point and winning Hunt an Emmy.
This, of course, led directly to former Muppet performer Louise Gold, now working in London on Spittin’ Image, approaching “Sunset Puppetry” with the intent to make a US version of the British political puppet show[1]. “I called the number in the Yellow Pages,” said Gold, “Someone picked up the phone and said ‘Sunset Puppetry, Jim speaking.’ I recognized the voice immediately. ‘Oh my god, Jim?’ We laughed and talked about old times and then I pitched the Spittin’ Image idea. Jim cleared it with Frank Wells and we set up the show on CBS, Ted Turner loving the idea, with all of Sunset’s profits going to support charitable causes.”
Spittin’ Image would become a minor hit and, since it was based on the politics of the day, they “never ran out of great material. Just when our writers started to run out of ideas, Dan Quayle would say something stupid or some Congressman would get caught with his pants down and we were solid for a month,” recalled Gold, who became the show runner for the US version.
Of course, just as Sunset Puppetry took off on its own, the company was soon flooded by young, diverse, and enthusiastic would-be performers and writers. And soon even Jim’s small role was largely set aside so that the New Generation could take over. Cheryl, likewise, had a career at Disney and Heather was in school at CalArts for most of the year and busy with her studies. John still had his charity work, and soon received a boost when none other than former President Jimmy Carter came calling, and began a new philanthropic collaboration with Sunset Charities developing housing and affordable health clinics in the poor neighborhoods of LA. John, who largely identified as “Buddhist” but with Taoist, Zen, and Hindu influences, and Jimmy Carter, an Evangelical Protestant, found kindred souls in one another despite their differences in religion, and soon “John and Jimmy” found themselves having long and poignant conversations about religion, spirituality, and philosophy, often with other spiritual leaders of various faiths, which eventually evolved into the Interfaith Council on Ethical Governance and Giving.
But with so much going on across Disney, there was little time for Jim Henson to work on Sunset Puppetry anyway, and John agreed to keep an eye on “the boys” as Jim thought of the young, struggling musicians and actors of the Strip, like Bob Forrest and River Phoenix.
Instead, it was off to Pego, Spain, or to Philadelphia for the Disneytown ribbon cutting, or to San Antonio and Denver to scope the new Disneytown locations, or London to meet with Gerry Anderson, or to Chicago to meet with Oprah Winfrey about a new Disney Afterschool Special[2], or to Orlando where Tom Wilhite and Bernie were in the process of building new sound stages to handle the growing productions. As a bone to Frank Wells, who still wanted a Disney Studio Park at WDW to compete with the developing Universal Studios and who had growing concerns over the recent Six Flags acquisition by Warner Brothers, they agreed to build a “Yellow Brick Road” (actually textured yellow concrete) from the Entertainment Pavilion to the new organically developing studio complex , with a small tour train and Hollywood props along the way.
But increasingly in 1989 he found himself in, of all places, Washington, DC, sitting before Congress or meeting with various politicians. There was growing debate over children’s entertainment and Jim, as the name attached to much of it, was a frequent person to call upon, often bringing along Bernie Brillstein or other producers and Al Gottesman or other Disney lawyers to accompany him. The legal team became affectionately known as Disney’s Legal Weasels and led directly to the introduction of the Muppet Barry Stirr, the Legal Weasel[3], in 1989, who became the Disney Legal Department’s official mascot in 1992.
Barry Stirr, esq., of the law offices of Shy and Stirr (Image source “muppets.fandom.com”)
The emerging politics surrounding kids programming had both positive and negative aspects in Jim’s mind. On one hand, Congress was growing increasingly suspicious of the toy-driven franchises and shameless direct-to-kids marketing that always bothered him. But on the other, there was also a growing push towards censorship. The recent appearance of The Bunyans and even some of the Sunset Puppetry specials on HBO were starting to upset a lot of people. The Bunyans, with its bratty, underachieving kids and abusive father, were causing moral outrage for proponents of traditional family values[4]. Featuring anthropomorphic rabbits, numerous parents assumed that it was intended for kids only to be appalled when they saw its casual misanthropy and adult subject matter. Even a lot of Henson’s own official Disney productions, like The Dark Crystal, Mort and the Dungeons & Dragons spinoff Mickey Quest, were becoming the target of some socially conservative groups, caught up in the last vestiges of the Satanic Panic. Henson, though he struggled to remain above the partisan political fray, hoped for the government to act responsibly on the issue of child marketing, but avoid the obvious (to him) pitfalls of censorship.
The culmination of this tumultuous issue was a series of congressional hearings in the summer of 1989, where Jim was called to testify before congressional subcommittees on several occasions. Many would later compare the event to Fred Rogers talking to the Senate in 1969, with Jim Henson remaining the voice of calm and caring concern even in the face of some hostile congress members, some of whom accused him and his company of moral indecency (Frank Oz would famously parody the event at a charity as Sam the Eagle), and some of whom called him out for hypocrisy for airing shows like Bio-Force Five that sold a wide range of popular toys even as he questioned the “toy driven” shows of the 1980s.
“For Jim it is about the source,” said Al Gottesman, defending him in an interview. “Bio-Force and The Muppets began as creative shows or comics. When the creative product drives the toy, it’s one thing. When the toy drives the creative product…it just seems manipulative to him,” fully admitting that, “It’s a nuance lost on many.”
And many did not see any nuance there. Jim’s long-standing uneasy relationship with merchandise continued to egg at him, but by this point merchandising was such an irrevocable part of the business that not selling toys could, ironically, lead to a creative artist losing their own copyright![5] Henson carefully tried to thread that needle, but didn’t escape fully unblemished.
On defending against censorship, he fared quite a bit better. He defended The Dark Crystal and The Black Cauldron against accusations that it was “too scary for kids,” maintaining that “trying to hide the challenges of life from children is a recipe for disaster, for them and for society.” He brought in expert child psychologists to support his assertations. He spoke of the duty that parents and creative artists alike had to care for the “growth” of children, not simply to “try and sweep the challenges of life aside, but to prepare them to face the challenges on their own.”
And when one socially conservative congressman openly accused him of pushing “morally depraved” material, citing The Dark Crystal in particular, Jim, noting the lack of sex and the relatively mild violence compared to other PG films of the time, challenged the congressman to explain what he meant. This ultimately led the congressman to cite its personal offensiveness to his own religious faith and thus (somehow) becoming a violation of his First Amendment rights. Jim replied, famously, “Um, doesn’t the First Amendment apply equally to all of us, regardless of our faith?” He even expressed his own childhood as a Christian Scientist and how much it had shaped his life, openly rejecting the notion that he was in any way trying to “steer children away from God or Christ” and openly spoke of the central message of the gospels and what they and Jesus meant to him personally, a rare public peek into his complex and multifaceted spiritual views.
In general, Jim Henson, buoyed by his old friend Al Gottesman, remained calm and focused, and came across like a caring man trying to “do right by America’s youth,” regardless of anyone’s personal opinions on individual issues, and attempts to label him a fraud or a hypocrite or a corrupter of youth almost inevitably backfired in the face of his natural sincerity and lack of any overt or hidden agenda.
And when pressed on the issue of The Bunyans, Jim said that he “liked it, actually,” citing its “cynical, but honest” satire and admitting that it “is probably a bit dark and intense for younger children,” but that there were “numerous age-appropriate options in that same TV hour.”
His friend and longtime business partner Bernie Brillstein, on the other hand, openly confronted hostile congresspersons, all but accusing one of antisemitism and openly mocking many of them for hypocrisy for supporting the invasion of Panama or, in some cases, the Vietnam war, which was still a sore spot in the public memory at the time. “You dropped how many bombs on Hanoi and killed how many actual people, including children, and you’re worried about a guy in green spandex with a plastic ninja sword fighting rubber-suited actors? I saw pictures of the aftermath of napalm. Don’t moralize to me, pal!”
“It was like good cop-bad cop,” recalled one observer. “Bernie would go on first, coming across on the surface as exactly the greedy and soulless ‘Hollywood Man’ that the congressmen and senators expected, only to demonstrate his real intelligence, integrity, and caring. They’d underestimate him, put their foot in their mouth, and [Bernie] would make [the politicians] look like a bunch of hypocritical assholes. Then they’d bring in Jim and the riled-up congressmen would come across as bullies as they tried to hammer on this kind and sincere and soft-spoken man. I’m certain Gottesman did that deliberately.”
The hearings ultimately accomplished two things. First was H.R. 1669, the Children’s Television Bill of 1989, which outlined both new guidelines for entertainment marketed at children, patching some of the loopholes that were exploited in the 1980s and giving certain requirements for educational, developmental, and social relevance. It also limited the duration of advertising in programs for children to a specified number of minutes per hour[6]. It also included recommendations for industry self-oversight on censorship issues, providing certain guidelines, but no new overt rules. In fact, censorship in certain areas was relaxed if (and only if) the potentially-offensive material was appropriately marked, giving parents and guardians some advanced notice to help guide their children’s viewing habits.
This latter provision led to the second biggest change, the Television Ratings Agreement of 1990. The entertainment industry and union in partnership with the FCC and MPAA made an agreement to expand the MPAA ratings system to TV shows and networks, with the industry self-regulating as they had done with the film industry to longstanding success, with shows “rated” according to the familiar G-PG-T-R scale. At first moral guardians hailed the decision as a win for morality and free speech advocates decried this agreement as censorship.
“Censorship? Hell!” said Bernie Brillstein in an interview with Variety. “This is liberation!” Instead of having set, fixed prohibitions, TV, much like film following the end of the Hays Code, could now experiment and push the boundaries in new ways simply by slapping a “PG” or “T” on the show. The Bunyans, sporting a “PG”, could now explore issues that would have been outright banned in that time slot by the FCC a year before, like race, crime, LGBTQ issues, drugs, and AIDS (all within reason). Late night shows like Saturday Night Live, Monsters, or Freddy’s Nightmares could slap a “T” on themselves and push the limits even further. “Viewer Discretion” became the buzzword, pushing responsibility (and thus liability) to some degree onto the viewer and away from the studio.
There were still rules. Timeslots usually came with limits on what could be shown, with kids’ educational hours limited to G in most cases, the Family Hour not allowed to have shows of a higher rating than PG, Network TV still banned from anything R-rated, and T-rated shows only allowed after the 10 PM local time “watershed”. Cable could push things further, particularly Premium Subscription channels like HBO, which could push R-rated stuff without having to blur the nudity, cut the bloodshed, or bleep the curses.
“The TRA of 1990 gave us far more leeway in our programming,” said Ted Turner in a later interview. “You could have G-rated stuff for the kids on Saturday morning, a PG-rated cop show in the evening, and a sexy T-rated show after 10. Then on cable it was virtually anything goes!”
For Jim Henson it was just another day at the office. “I think it’s good to just be clear with your audiences what to expect,” he said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “Families can plan their TV choices now the way that they plan their movie choices. There’s no guessing on whether The Bunyans is good for your kid or not. You see the ‘PG’ and you know.”
[1] Yet another hat tip to @nick_crenshaw82.
[2] Will become “Our Little Secret”, a special about child sex abuse, how to spot it, how to report it, and how to get help for yourself or someone you know.
[3] This Muppet, performed initially by Steve Witmer, was famous for spouting off endless streams of pseudo-legal Latin phrases all leading up to a one-word response, for example “Habeas corpus a priori ad hominem, in pari materia, quid pro quo…so, no.” For the record, his partner Gunnison “Gun” Shy, esq., is later introduced as a shark, along with his paralegal “Pilate Fisk”, a remora. They are voiced by Bill Barretta and Karen Prell, respectively.
[4] Believe it or not, this happened to The Simpsons in our timeline, which were seen by moral crusaders as a direct assault on family values. George and Barbara Bush both weighed in with negative opinions of The Simpsons, the President famously saying in a speech how families should be “more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons.” Needless to say, Matt Groening and company had fun with that one.
[5] This happened in our timeline to Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame, whose refusal to merchandise his characters (other than comic reprint books) left him ironically powerless to stop the wave of “Calvin pissing on a Ford logo” type auto decals that sprang up in the 1990s, leading to him essentially losing his copyright when it pertained to merchandise.
[6] Up to this point in keeping with H.R. 1677 of 1990 of our timeline. Everything after this is new.
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Muppet Barry Stirr, the Legal Weasel - who said that all lawyers where bad?
Glad John is doing ok, I was worried about him in the earlier chapters. Mr Carter and him sound like an interesting ‘odd couple’, though perhaps they need a Muslim viewpoint to make a trio?
Those Congrssional hearings sound like comedy gold for Spittting Image- both versions. Wonder if it will sell to New Zealand, Oz, and the rest of the Commonwealth too? Certainly bolster local puppetry talent?
The Billstein-Henson combo also sounds deadly to politicians egos. I bet it was devastating at times, to the point where CSpan probably got a ratings boost!
Having cinema style rating for TV shows is clearly a good idea as you know in advance what a show is about. I bet some fun experiments come from this. I hope you include some ITTL only shows please @Geekhis Khan
Good chapter.
Glad John is doing ok, I was worried about him in the earlier chapters. Mr Carter and him sound like an interesting ‘odd couple’, though perhaps they need a Muslim viewpoint to make a trio?
Those Congrssional hearings sound like comedy gold for Spittting Image- both versions. Wonder if it will sell to New Zealand, Oz, and the rest of the Commonwealth too? Certainly bolster local puppetry talent?
The Billstein-Henson combo also sounds deadly to politicians egos. I bet it was devastating at times, to the point where CSpan probably got a ratings boost!
Having cinema style rating for TV shows is clearly a good idea as you know in advance what a show is about. I bet some fun experiments come from this. I hope you include some ITTL only shows please @Geekhis Khan
Good chapter.
Great post!
I did notice the recurring error of 'copywrite' instead of 'copyright'. It's not something that pings the spellchecker. I find this particularly funny since 'copywrite' isn't a real word, but 'copywriter' is a real job. Anyway, felt compelled to point that out.
Again, great post about the man this whole thread revolves around!
[edit] All hail the power of "Viewer Discretion is Advised!"
I did notice the recurring error of 'copywrite' instead of 'copyright'. It's not something that pings the spellchecker. I find this particularly funny since 'copywrite' isn't a real word, but 'copywriter' is a real job. Anyway, felt compelled to point that out.
Again, great post about the man this whole thread revolves around!
[edit] All hail the power of "Viewer Discretion is Advised!"
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Jim is awfully busy for 89, but we all know that most of the stuff that he's working on in Walt Disney Entertainment is going to end up being literal gold (aside from a few stinkers, but no one is perfect). I can't wait until we get to see all of these come to fruition!
Also I like how Roy is stepping up for Jim and becoming even more involved as the Chairman of Walt Disney Animation. No doubt that if there was a fourth member to this special Disney Triumvirate, it would be him. Hopefully we'll see a far more optimistic side of him in the 90s and 00s with Henson keeping the magic alive.
Sunset Puppetry is probably one of the greatest creations that Jim and the rest of the Muppets cast has ever produced. With mature subject matter, experimental concepts, and clever writing, it's like the Muppets all over again but with all of the creative freedom and adult content that Jim craved. It's definitely something that they would've done OTL, under different circumstances and I'm glad that it's prospering here. Plus Hunt with an Emmy? Absolutely epic.
Disney is up to something in Walt Disney World with these studios. What could they be?
🧐
Surely it won't develop into a theme park.....
In all seriousness, I'm curious at what's currently being produced at the studios. Maybe a future Animation Studios expansion like OTL or live-action fare for NBC/Hyperion?
As for the Congressional Hearings, I love how we get the weasel Muppet along with his shark partner as legal representatives for both Disney and the Muppets. If there's a future Muppets revival, then they'd be a natural fit for the show. Bernie and Jim are also a pretty dangerous duo with their bad cop-good cop routine throughout the entire hearing, with them constantly hammering the moral puritans on their own hypocrisies. We will probably see them again as Disney continues to become even more progressive and forward-thinking for the 90s.
As for the ratings system, this is secretly the best gift that Disney could ever receive. No longer are they bounded with set rules of censorship as Disney could now afford to diversify their content even further than under Ron Miller's initial push with Hyperion Pictures (now MGM) and the Disney Channel. While the Disney Channel is most likely rated G content, I reckon that they will need to be competitive with Nickelodeon and CartoonTV with more mature lineups if they want to stay relevant among new audiences, especially with the advent of anime. With this new act, they are poised to reinvent themselves and push with new PG/T-rated stuff for late at night or the weekends.
Guys, I think it's time for Disney to unleash the Vault.....
Maybe a new block for anime too....a Disney Toonami.
Also I like how Roy is stepping up for Jim and becoming even more involved as the Chairman of Walt Disney Animation. No doubt that if there was a fourth member to this special Disney Triumvirate, it would be him. Hopefully we'll see a far more optimistic side of him in the 90s and 00s with Henson keeping the magic alive.
Sunset Puppetry is probably one of the greatest creations that Jim and the rest of the Muppets cast has ever produced. With mature subject matter, experimental concepts, and clever writing, it's like the Muppets all over again but with all of the creative freedom and adult content that Jim craved. It's definitely something that they would've done OTL, under different circumstances and I'm glad that it's prospering here. Plus Hunt with an Emmy? Absolutely epic.
Disney is up to something in Walt Disney World with these studios. What could they be?
Surely it won't develop into a theme park.....
In all seriousness, I'm curious at what's currently being produced at the studios. Maybe a future Animation Studios expansion like OTL or live-action fare for NBC/Hyperion?
As for the Congressional Hearings, I love how we get the weasel Muppet along with his shark partner as legal representatives for both Disney and the Muppets. If there's a future Muppets revival, then they'd be a natural fit for the show. Bernie and Jim are also a pretty dangerous duo with their bad cop-good cop routine throughout the entire hearing, with them constantly hammering the moral puritans on their own hypocrisies. We will probably see them again as Disney continues to become even more progressive and forward-thinking for the 90s.
As for the ratings system, this is secretly the best gift that Disney could ever receive. No longer are they bounded with set rules of censorship as Disney could now afford to diversify their content even further than under Ron Miller's initial push with Hyperion Pictures (now MGM) and the Disney Channel. While the Disney Channel is most likely rated G content, I reckon that they will need to be competitive with Nickelodeon and CartoonTV with more mature lineups if they want to stay relevant among new audiences, especially with the advent of anime. With this new act, they are poised to reinvent themselves and push with new PG/T-rated stuff for late at night or the weekends.
Guys, I think it's time for Disney to unleash the Vault.....
There will still be some slyly slipped in adult jokes here and there.
Depending on geopolitics a Disneytown seems possible in the 2000s, perhaps something bigger in Crimea, geopolitics permitting.
You know you loved it.
They will have Muslim members of the Council I mentioned. I may explore this idea further in future posts.
Fixed, thanks.
At the moment they're actual working studios, sets, and sound stages for live action film and TV. The Ghostbusters sequel will take advantage of a New York City set.
A noticeable Disney presence in Crimea (Disneytown Yalta has a certain ring to it) would probably end up having Geopolitical consequences itself. Russia annexing a bit of another country is one thing, Russia potentially inconveniencing a Big US Corporation is quite another. What did Disney buy all those senators for if not to defend their interests?
- I'm still adamant that having a reforming Soviet Union is still far better than the corrupt authoritarian mess post-1991 Russia became.
- One of my suggestions for Ghostbusters 2 is to have Peck be involved and have some character development to be less one-note. This video will elaborate.
I've been making my suggestions regarding a Disney theme park in the region with the concept that the Soviet hardliner coup doesn't happen and Gorbachev can continue his work reforming the Soviet Union. So a potential theme park would be in the Soviet Union rather than either Russia or Ukraine.
I could only see a Disney theme park in Crimea if politics were favorable to it. There's no way that they would build it in Sevastopol ITTL if politics ended up the same as OTL. Maybe if the Soviet Union survives as a federation then it's likely.
If not, there's always Odessa, Moscow, or Sochi.
Have to agree, Odessa (for Ukraine) and Sochi (for Russia) make a lot more sense, instead of the latter maybe at Krasnodar, near the coast
So something similar to this?
New Union Treaty - Wikipedia
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If this were to happen - a Sovereign Union that consists of Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine (staying under the terms of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine) - it would bring into question what might have occurred had it gone through, considering some of the events which happened OTL, such as the Transnistria War (with the Gagauz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and the area of Pridnestrovie, wanting to rejoin), the wars involving Georgia (with Abkhazia and South Ossetia), the Nagorno-Karabakh War (as Armenia rejected the New Union Treaty, like Georgia, so Artsakh becomes a sticky issue), and everything involving Chechnya and, to a much lesser extent, Tatarstan.
Another thing to consider is whether we end up seeing an OTL repeat of the economic downturn brought about by the transition out of communism, as well as whether the cultural developments we say OTL would repeat TTL (i.e. movies like Brat, music like hardbass, subcultures such as the gopniks, etc.)
Which was what I was thinking. The whole gist of the butterfly effect is how a seemingly minor change can send ripples that cause big changes. And no change can be bigger than the Soviet Union surviving.So something similar to this?
For this proposal to occur we need to prevent the 1991 August Coup. An added benefit of preventing the August Coup is that it potentially keeps out both Yeltsin and Putin.New Union Treaty - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
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