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

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El Pip

Star Trek V, much better than the original obviously. You can also tell that DC Fontana was writing for TNG at the time, it is a lot more talky and does feel a bit like an extended episode, not necessarily a bad thing but certainly different.

It is also nice that things are not so unpleasant behind the scenes, I know stormy sets can produce good shows/films but I don't think Trek is one of them. Classic Trek is supposed to be a bit optimistic (not full on Roddenberry idealist, but at least heading that direction) and that is easier to get across if there aren't huge rows. It's clearly not perfect, the hint at "complex" relationships, but that's probably impossible.

Overall it was just a nice counter-point to the subject that should not be discussed, Trek is clearly a franchise treated with respect and being successfully by being true to itself.
 
Ogrebear

Ogrebear

Oliver and The Dodger sounds like a fun movie, it probably works better as a Muppet feature than an animated show. Beating Oliver! was probably the critics overreaching as few adaptions of the Oliver Twist story reach those heights.

Glad Jim got to do some Muppet work again, and Brian has taken his character over later - very torch passing, like all the performers on this I guess.

Hopefully the characters (or their kids?) end up recycled onto other Muppet projects. Kermit meeting Oliver might make a nice sketch too.

Guess 1989 I going to see ITTL me at the cinema a lot...

Nice work @Geekhis Khan
 

Damian0358

Oliver and the Dodger sounds like good fun, and it's great to see that it helped rather than butterflied the existence of Dog City TTL! Though now, if Dog City ends up receiving an animated spin-off series per OTL, one can remark the irony that is Oliver starting out animated and becoming muppeted, and Dog City (basically) going the other way around!
 
GrahamB

GrahamB

I'm wondering if Oliver might be Jim's last on-camera role TTL, unless he gets to play Kermit on Sesame Street a couple of more times when he's supposed to be on vacation.
 
Denliner

Denliner

I never expected Oliver and Company to become a Muppets feature, but I guess it worked excellently for Walt Disney Entertainment!

So far I appreciate how this is essentially a passing the torch moment for much of the original Muppets crew as Henson and Oz are obviously too busy doing their own endeavors while Goelz, Whitmire, Rudman, Prell, and others become the main performers. I expect Steve Whitmire to take up the role as Kermit like OTL with the departure of Henson in most acting roles, but at least the transition is out of necessity instead of tragedy.

I'm really curious to see how future Muppets productions will go under Walt Disney Entertainment for the 90s. Disney certainly won't abandon the cast with Henson, as I'm sure that he has some ideas cooking up in his head!

GrahamB said:
I'm wondering if Oliver might be Jim's last on-camera role TTL, unless he gets to play Kermit on Sesame Street a couple of more times when he's supposed to be on vacation.
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No way that he'll just stop performing. There's Sunset Puppetry and Sesame Street as you mentioned. If he has the time and he feels like it, then it's likely that he will return, even at a limited capacity.
 

tobg999

Geekhis Khan said:
The Muppets would even recycle the many Dog Muppets they created for TV Movie Dog City, which debuted in 1990 on the World of Magic, also narrated by Rowlf, who was voiced by Brian Henson in this case.
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Why that could be due to Jim's Disney duty's, it could also mean... the other thing.
 

Darrenb209

Wasn't his death fairly avoidable? Illness and getting anti-biotics too late so that while they cleared up the illness the damage was already done?
 
Denliner

Denliner

Darrenb209 said:
Wasn't his death fairly avoidable? Illness and getting anti-biotics too late so that while they cleared up the illness the damage was already done?
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Mhm, this is exactly why Jim Henson's death isn't some impossible-to-butterfly event unlike Hunt or Ashman. Even if his personality is like OTL, which he isn't because of the changes that are rapidly happening to his life as the CCO of Walt Disney Entertainment, he could reasonably survive a similar illness and come out fine. He was just extremely unlucky.

We should probably say goodbye to old classic Jim of the 60s-early 80s though. He's becoming more used to his role as CCO every passing day as he becomes increasingly busy as the creative director for the entire company instead of the hands-on creative that he was previous. Dare I say, he's resembling more like Walt Disney as the 90s inches closer, although it's fortunate that he is more like Uncle Walt, the persona, than Walter Elias Disney the person (Jim is so radically different from Walt personality-wise that "the Second Coming of Walt Disney" is not a good title for him when you look past surface level).

Although I disagree with GrahamB with Oliver and Company being his last acting performance for the Muppets or anything related (iirc, he still found time to perform and direct some episode of Fraggle Rock during his free time as his schedule was increasingly filled OTL), I do think it does make sense.
 

Sunflare2k5

Darrenb209 said:
Wasn't his death fairly avoidable? Illness and getting anti-biotics too late so that while they cleared up the illness the damage was already done?
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According to Wiki, Jim admitted to Jane that he didn't want to take time off from his schedule to go to the hospital. And that was with his OTL workload; how much more does he have on his plate with Disney?

OTOH, there's also more people he'd have to deal with because of that. So greater possibility of an intervention, and someone makes him go to the hospital?
 

Spooner The Trinity

Sunflare2k5 said:
According to Wiki, Jim admitted to Jane that he didn't want to take time off from his schedule to go to the hospital. And that was with his OTL workload; how much more does he have on his plate with Disney?

OTOH, there's also more people he'd have to deal with because of that. So greater possibility of an intervention, and someone makes him go to the hospital?
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I could see a situation where a boardroom meeting is broken up by the cough of an under-the-weather Jim and one of the Disneys or even Bernie drives him to a Hospital as an interventive measure.
 

CountDVB

Sunflare2k5 said:
According to Wiki, Jim admitted to Jane that he didn't want to take time off from his schedule to go to the hospital. And that was with his OTL workload; how much more does he have on his plate with Disney?

OTOH, there's also more people he'd have to deal with because of that. So greater possibility of an intervention, and someone makes him go to the hospital?
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Makes sense. He's responsible for more people and different decisions and influences would cause him to make different choices. Disney knows he's kept succesful and don't want to relive the same chaos as "Uncle Walt" dying
 

Pesterfield

Started May 4th and he was still feeling bad enough that he cancelled a performance on the 14th, that's ten days for people to be worried and get him to a hospital.
Even after he started coughing blood on the 15th a doctor said just a few hours earlier could have saved him.
 

HonestAbe1809

It seems reasonable that Jim would be working with enough people for someone to notice his health issues and to get him to a doctor immediately. They wouldn’t want poor health to take Jim like how it took Walt.

nick_crenshaw82 said:
How may people (especially Brits) think that Mr. Rogers Neighborhood would succeed in the UK, maybe on BBC Two?
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What, like importing it directly? Because I would think that a British version of the program could be wonderful. But who would star in the show?
 
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