The Muppets franchise is slowly dying out as the installments either get canceled, under-promoted, or remain unreleased. Their last two releases, Muppets Now and Electric Mayhem are available for viewing on Disney+, but not many know about it.
A decade after ABC canceled The Office-inspired Muppets, Disney is also moving to remove MuppetVision 3D from Hollywood Studios, which is the late animator Jim Henson’s last project. There are more of Henson’s works stuck in the pipeline, with no news about their release yet.
‘80s ‘Muppet Show’ gets canceled
Henson created The Jim Henson Hour in the ‘80s, which also included MuppeTelevison featuring Muppets managing a TV studio. They hosted celebrities like Ted Danson and did sketches such as the one where Fozzie acts as a weatherman on a nature documentary that ends in a war between butterflies and caterpillars.
The Jim Henson Hour was also punctuated by The Storyteller segments, which showed folklore that was a bit creepier than the earlier half of the show. Henson liked to switch things up for some episodes, leaving out The Storyteller and replacing it with interviews with Ms. Piggy. The early ‘90s saw the release of Secrets of the Muppets, which was a standalone special featuring the best parts of the Jim Henson series; however, it has been canceled.
‘MuppeTelevison’ remains nowhere to be found
Henson died of organ failure from streptococcal toxic shock syndrome in 1990 at 53. Fans consider it sad that Disney has swept most of his work under the carpet, and is set to cancel the last of them. MuppetVision 3D’s removal has sparked uproar among fans, who believe Henson’s work is being erased slowly.
Series like The Storyteller and Monster Maker can be found on streaming platforms like Peacock, Tubi, Amazon, Frevee, and more, but MuppeTelevision remains unseen. Hopefully, the network reconsiders and lets MuppetVision 3D be, or releases The Jim Henson Hour.