Why can’t Disney figure out The Muppets?

As a Henson classic closes, what’s the future for Kermit and Company?

Last week, Disney’s Hollywood Studios closed beloved longtime attraction MuppetVision 3D. The show – a combination of film, animatronics and live actors – had run at the Orlando park since 1991, and was shuttered to make way for a future Monsters Inc. land and roller coaster.

I debated whether to write about it. I don’t really cover theme park attractions here, although I am a bit of a nerd about these things and I post about them occasionally on social media¹. And while I’m a Jim Henson superfan and have posted about The Muppets before, I hesitated about being that guy who always needs a Muppet take.

But I felt compelled, both because we’ve lost an important piece of pop culture history and because the attraction’s closure – and the future plans for Muppets at Disney World – is representative of the Mouse House’s continued bungling of what I think is one of our great collections of characters.

I understand the old adage that theme parks are not museums; they constantly need to innovate and change to meet demands, and sometimes that means saying goodbye to beloved attractions. I don’t expect Kings Island – the Ohio park my family has frequented for 40 years – to still have the Smurfs boat ride or every coaster I rode three decades ago. When I returned to Universal for the first time in 30 years in 2022, I was sad to see rides based on Back to the Future, Jaws and Earthquake gone, but largely happy with replacements like Diagon Alley and The Simpsons Ride.

There might be an argument worth having that some theme park rides and attractions are worthy of preservation. After all, certain roller coasters are called out for their noteworthiness and some amusement park rides have even been historically registered. I don’t think any Orlando-based rides meet that criteria yet – and the constant upgrades probably make that harder – but it’s worth having a conversation about whether some rides and attractions are so integral to a park’s identity or so groundbreaking that they should be protected².

I think there’s a strong argument that MuppetVision3D fits that bill.

Muppet Magic

Opened in May 1991, exactly one year after his death, MuppetVision3D was the last Muppet project Jim Henson worked on. For a theme park empire that derives so much of its identity from a personality – it’s literally Walt Disney World – it would seem that might be enough to give Disney pause. I won’t argue that Jim Henson had the same commercial success as Walt Disney, but his impact on entertainment and the greater world is just as impactful and potentially more important, given that, via Sesame Street, Henson and his collaborators are responsible for teaching entire generations how to read and count. He turned puppetry into more than kids’ stuff. There was a period when The Muppet Show was the most popular television program in the world, and adults and kids alike both loved the characters.

Henson was a true artist, fueled by the opportunity to push the form of puppetry forward and play with his collaborators. The Muppet Show, particularly in its earliest episodes, sometimes plays like experimental television, with the crew playing with the frame and the possibilities television presented. There’s at least one moment in every one of the first three Muppet movies where audiences tend to scratch their heads and wonder how it was pulled off. Henson was an innovator, constantly looking for new ways to tell stories³.

In fact, in Brian Jay Jones’ fantastic biography, it’s noted that an opportunity to play with theme park technology was partially why Henson was so eager to sell the Muppets to Disney. He felt the energy and joy of his creations would be a perfect fit for the studio. He wanted to sell the Muppets so that he could fund his own ambitious films, but he also was eager to play around with theme park technology and design rides and attractions. One concept for Hollywood Studios – initially the Disney MGM Studios – was to include an entire Muppet land, complete with a restaurant where animatronic rats brought your food, and a Muppet spin on the park’s famous Great Movie Ride. Henson was thrilled by the opportunity to build rides with Disney, and the studio’s interest in the deal was as much about having access to Henson as it was Kermit and Co⁴.

When my family went to Disney World last year, my wife and kids were eager to get to Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge but – even before its closure was announced – I couldn’t wait to see MuppetVision3D again for the first time in three decades. And I wasn’t disappointed. The show was just as hilarious and endlessly creative as I’d remembered. Even in its pre-show, it played with expectations, with characters interacting across multiple screens. The show itself was perfectly orchestrated zaniness, plopping you right in the middle of an episode of The Muppet Show. The 3D was fun, but what astonished me was just how elaborate it all was. In addition to the movie and its sensory effects like smoke and water, it did so much more. Statler and Waldorf animatronics heckled everyone from the balcony, and an orchestra of penguins rose to score the whole thing. At one point, a costumed Sweetums lumbered across the auditorium. At the show’s climax, an animatronic Swedish Chef fired a cannon from the projection booth and the theater threatened to explode.

You could feel the spirit of Jim Henson in that room, constantly seeing just how far he could push the illusion, play with the frame and use everything at his disposal to entertain an audience. Coupled with the fact that this was the last time that Henson, Frank Oz, Dave Goelz, Jerry Nelson and the entire Muppet troupe would voice these characters together, it felt almost like time travel. I’ve liked some of what they’ve done with The Muppets in the years since Henson’s death – we’ll get there – but this was a reminder of how potent a combination these people were when you put them together. For a Muppet nerd like me, it was magic, and I’m not prone to throwing that term around.

What’s going on?

Of course, the potential of giving Jim Henson his own playground in the parks did not come to fruition. He died in May 1990, and Disney’s Muppet deal languished⁵. Without Henson, Disney wasn’t sure what to do with the characters. They made the beloved Muppet Christmas Carol and the less-beloved (but still really good!) Muppet Treasure Island under the direction of Henson’s son, Brian. Then the rights bounced around a bit – Sony released the little-loved Muppets from Space, and another company handled video rights of The Muppet Show. Disney finally got control of the Muppets in 2004 and then…well, nothing.

The company spent nearly a decade trying to figure out the right approach, occasionally pumping out largely disliked television movies like The Muppet Wizard of Oz and a few Christmas specials. In the early days of YouTube, Muppet Studios had a few clever viral hits – the Muppet version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” is fantastic – but there was a sense that Disney didn’t quite know what to do with them. Were they for adults? Kids? Just IP they could plug in as Disney ambassadors, or was there more potential?

Finally, in 2011, new life seemed to be breathed into the characters with the theatrical release of The Muppets. Co-written by and starring Jason Segel, it was a straight dose of nostalgia that didn’t try to do anything new with The Muppets but rather celebrated their sincerity and zaniness. It was funny, it was touching, and its third act was pretty much just a full episode of The Muppet Show. It felt closer to what Henson and Co. were doing than anything since, well, MuppetVision3D. The film was a good-sized hit, beloved by critics and fans, and seemed to imply the Muppets were back. There was a sequel – the not-as-successful (but still good!) Muppets Most Wanted – and then…nothing.

Well, that’s not true. Disney has tried to figure out how to integrate the Muppets into streaming and into its parks, and hasn’t really figured it out. In the parks, there was a Muppet show at Magic Kingdom that featured the characters riffing on American history; I heard good things, but it was shut down fairly quickly. About a decade ago, ABC attempted a Muppet sitcom in the vein of The Office that lacked the sincerity and joy at the heart of the characters and was canceled after one season. Disney+ has had several different programs of varying success. There was a perfectly fine revamp of Muppet Babies. There was a sketch comedy show called Muppets Now, which should have worked but made the odd decision to only have one or two characters share the screen at a time, when the fun of the characters is how they bounce off each other. There was a Muppets Haunted Mansion special, which didn’t work for me but has its fans. And there was Muppets Mayhem, a show about the Electric Mayhem that was actually fairly funny with some great music, but, again, was canceled after one season. Disney just can’t seem to figure out what to do with Kermit and the gang⁶.

Their next move? They’re staying at Hollywood Studios and taking over Rock N’ Roller Coaster. And, sure, that makes sense. Music is core to the Muppets’ identity. I’m sure that they can have a lot of fun with that. Aerosmith is apparently a more ancient and irrelevant property than The Muppets. But it just proves that Disney only knows to approach this like another bit of IP that they can program at their whim. And treating the characters like that is always destined to fail.

There are two things that made The Muppets special. The first was the creativity of Henson and his fellow artists, a desire to push the bounds of the possible and bring true innovation to entertainment. MuppetVision3D was funny, but that’s not what made it special. It was a truly creative effort, the chance for Henson and his team to play with every tool at their disposal. Movies were another way to keep pushing the format – and while I’m not sure what that looks like in a day of CGI and IP, I’d love to see them try⁷.

But the Muppets were also fueled by a sense of play with the performers. The reason Kermit and Piggy, or Kermit and Fozzie, or Bert and Ernie were so funny was because of the real-life banter from Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Dave Goelz struggled to find a take on Gonzo for several weeks on The Muppet Show until he got it right. Many of the characters evolved based on the interests, experimentation and interplay of the puppeteers, and no matter how much someone tries to mimic it these days, something’s always going to be missing (I like the current takes on Kermit, Piggy and Fozzie just fine….but watching MuppetVision3D last year reminded me that Henson and Oz are truly inimitable).

And maybe that’s a good enough reason for Disney to let the Muppets lie. I get that this sounds like fan ranting, but there was something truly special about those characters in the 70s and 80s that just can’t be recaptured. Continuing to treat them as just random IP that can be plugged into and out of theme park and streaming spots only dilutes them and shows a lack of respect to one of our true creative geniuses. Maybe it is just time to stop the music and dim the lights.

But then I see something like The Muppets and realize that, in the right hands, there’s still life left in these characters. If Disney still wants to make them work, then the Muppets need their own Kevin Fiege or Kathleen Kennedy to take the wheel. I can’t imagine Jason Segel and Nick Stoller want to make it their full-time jobs, and Frank Oz is too successful a director to come back for this. I don’t know who could take the helm. But I’d love to see someone who truly understands and loves these characters take the helm and treat them with the respect they deserve.

1. If I lived in Florida or had access to funds to travel more, there’s probably a second career as a theme park blogger that I could have pursued…but movies are cheaper and can be experienced in Detroit. That said, if anyone at Universal or Disney marketing are reading, I’m negotiable!

2. You know Magic Kingdom will likely run Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain until the heat death of the universe.

3. I’ve heard some people say that Henson would be appalled by CGI characters, but he was actually fascinated by it, and MuppetVision3D actually had one of the earliest computer-generated characters, with Waldo (who nearly brings the show down, so maybe Henson’s feelings were more complex).

4. You can actually track down “The Muppets at Walt Disney World,” a TV special that aired just 10 days before Henson’s death, on YouTube (put it on Disney+, cowards). Yes, it’s an hourlong commercial for the parks, but it has an energy and humor to it that is pure Muppets, and I wish we would have seen more of these collaborations.

5. Jones’ Henson biography goes into better detail, but it’s widely believed the stress from the deal – and Henson’s attempts to keep Sesame Street out of Disney’s hands – might have contributed to the illness Henson succumbed to.

6. For the life of me, I don’t understand why Disney doesn’t just reboot The Muppet Show in the same format. People love watching the old episodes, the show hits its 50th anniversary in 2026, it’s an easy way to bring in guest stars. There’s no need to modernize the concept; part of its appeal was always the Muppet anarchy clashing with an old-fashioned format.

7. There was a script decades back that Henson and Frank Oz both liked called The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever. The concept was that Gonzo was allowed to direct a movie and given a giant budget – that he wasted on the opening scene. So, throughout the movie, the film would keep getting cheaper and cheaper, until the finale was filmed with Super 8 film. I love that idea; I think there’s still merit to that.