Tuesday, February 12, 2008

More Details on "The Muppet Show" Season 3 Bonuses

Last month I shared the exciting news that the third season of "The Muppet Show" was coming to DVD later this spring. The initial report gave some great information on what fans can expect on the upcoming four-disc set, however those early details were not entirely complete. While doing more digging into the details of the set, I uncovered some more information about the bonus features that will be included on the set.

As initially reported, the DVD set will include the vintage 1968 documentary "The Muppets on Puppets". Hosted by Jim Henson and Rowlf the Dog, this hour-long documentary gives a detailed look at the art of puppetry and shows how the puppeteers create and operate the unique Muppet characters.

The DVD will also feature two brand-new featurettes detailing the making of the Muppets. The first featurette is entitled "A Frog is Born" and will explore the origins of Kermit the Frog – from his early days as a unknown lizard-like creature on "Sam and Friends" to his role as the amphibian leader of "The Muppet Show". Aside from exploring the character's development, the featurette will also look at the relationship and similarities between Kermit and his creator Jim Henson.

The second "making of" featurette, entitled "A Company of Players", focuses on the troupe of puppeteers behind the Muppets. This featurette gives a brief look at the group of performers who brought the dynamic cast of "The Muppet Show" to life each week and created an astonishing and memorable group of characters.

Lastly, I've been told that the bonus features also includes am exciting batch of "Original Muppet Commercials". So aside from experiencing all 24 great episodes of "The Muppet Show" (digitally remastered and restored), you'll also get "hours of bonus features" – including a vintage television special, two brand-new documentaries, original commercials, and much more! Below is an updated list of the disc features, and I'll be sure to keep you updated as I continue to uncover more details on this upcoming May 20th release.

"The Muppet Show - Season Three" DVD Features:
24 episodes of "The Muppet Show" - The complete third season with digitally restored picture and sound!
"The Muppets On Puppets" - The original 1968 documentary hosted by Jim Henson and Rowlf the Dog.
"A Frog Is Born" - An all-new featurette exploring the origins of Kermit the Frog and his relationship with creator, Jim Henson.
"A Company of Players" - An all-new featurette focusing on the troupe of puppeteers who operated the Muppets on "The Muppet Show".
Original Muppet Commercials
...and much more!

8 comments:

Vaughn Michael said...

Simply Amazing! Color me excited!

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing that the original Muppet commercials are the ones where one of the Muppets mentions who's going to be on their show that week, such as the ones from the first set.

Anonymous said...

I wasn't that thrilled about the extras when the initial announcement was made but now that more details (and extras) have surfaced, i'm getting much more excited!

Hopefully you can keep digging to find out more info about the kinds of commercials that will be included. The Muppets have a rich history of doing commercials - esp in the 50's and 60's - and while that was their commercial
"heyday" they've done many many more various types of commercials since. I'm hoping we'll see a good mix of commercials from various eras from stuff from 1958 all the way to more recent stuff in the last five years.

But even more than that i'm REALLY hoping that the commercials are a reference to the original promos for The Muppet Show (which is what Nic above is thinking of). These are great pieces of Muppet history and should be easily accessable - and i'd much rather see these included than any other type of commercials since the Muppet Show promos probably wouldn't be otherwise available except as extras on a "Muppet Show box set" - if they don't come out as extras on the dvd releases, we probably won't ever see them anywhere else! (while other types of commercials that the Muppets have done but aren't related to The Muppet Show could always conceivably come out in another type of release)

Anonymous said...

I hope we get to see all the commercials. There were 120 30 second and 120 60 second ads for a total of 108 min or 1 hour 48 min. This would need its own disk with all of them on it.

BJWanlund said...

ORIGINAL MUPPET COMMERCIALS????? o.O

I'm SO excited for TMS Season 3 now!!!

BJ

Garett said...

Actually, anonymous... 120 thirty second ads (60 minutes total) and 120 sixty second ads (120 minutes total), would total 180 minutes—that's 3 full hours of commercials.

Beuks said...

All that is wonderful ... but I want to find out about edits ASAP! I am hoping they'll continue the trend of Season 2 and not make any cuts. Find that out for us, please! :)

Trever Rook said...

Hello Mr. James,
Forgive me for addressing you here.
I could not get through on your contact page.
First off I wanted to thank you for such a wonderful site.
I don't know how you do it, but you do it very well.
I check your site nearly every day. I'm a comic and a puppeteer. I have videos on my website and would love to invite you to take a look. I'd love to hear feed back from a Muppet fan. It's difficult to do anything with puppets and not have Mr. Henson as a mentor.
The site is trevrookfollies.com

Thank you for your time.