The Muppets Studio

Background

In the late-1980s, Jim Henson had been in talks with Disney CEO Michael Eisner to sell Jim Henson Productions to the Walt Disney Company. In August 1989, the two officially announced a deal for Disney to purchase Jim Henson Productions for $150 million. The deal fell through several months after Jim Henson's death in 1990.

Despite the collapse of the merger deal, by 1992, Disney and Jim Henson Productions had already struck a number of deals:

The Henson family subsequently sold the entirety of the Jim Henson Company to German conglomerate EM.TV in 2000. In 2003, the Henson family repurchased The Jim Henson Company from EM.TV.

Muppets Holding Company

Eisner, still interested in the Muppet properties, re-opened negotiations with the Hensons and announced the purchase of The Muppets and Bear in the Big Blue House assets from The Jim Henson Company for $75 million on February 17, 2004. The acquired Muppet assets were then placed into The Muppets Holding Company with Chris Curtin as general manager within Disney Consumer Products. A new website was launched in November 2004 and the Muppets made an appearance on the 2004 Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live.

The first Muppet production under complete Disney control, The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, went into production immediately and aired on ABC in May 2005. On July 30, 2005, Animal and Pepe the King Prawn made appearance on The X Games 11 Preview show of All Access on ESPN2. While Bear first appeared under Disney's control in the reality show, Breakfast With Bear in 2005.

A fiftieth birthday tour for Kermit, "Kermit's World Tour" was planned with a leadership changes made just days before the tour began. The tour made its initial three stops before being canceled: Kermit, Texas, Johnson Space Center tour and cake with The Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, NYC. Following Eisner's exit from the Disney company, new CEO Bob Iger removed the head of the Muppets Holding Company and several senior staff members hand-picked by Eisner. Since that time, the company has been attempting to define the role of The Muppets within the Disney corporate structure. Muppets Holdings was then pair with Baby Einstein under Senior Vice President and General Manager R. Russell Hampton, Jr.

ABC, in October 2005, commissioned America's Next Muppet, a script and five script outlines, but ABC was reluctant to green light America's Next Muppet, and it never got out of the planning stage. Muppet Holding's new general manager instead licensed the Muppets out to TF1, a French television network, to produce Muppet TV in September 2006.

The Muppets Studio

In 2006, the Muppets Holding Company was transferred from the Disney Consumer Products unit to The Walt Disney Studios; with studio executives passing on oversight, the unit was placed in the special events group. That same year, Disney contracted with Puppet Heap to rebuild, maintain, and create puppet characters for the Muppets Studio. In April 2007, the Muppets Holding Company changed its name to The Muppets Studio under new leadership by Special Events Group SVP Lylle Breier.

In 2008, The Muppets Studio began a licensing agreement with F.A.O. Schwarz, to create a Muppet-themed boutique where customers can design their own Muppet. In 2013, Disney Theatrical Productions revealed that a show based on The Muppets was in active development and that a 15-minute show had been conducted by Thomas Schumacher to see how the technical components would work out.

The company was transferred in 2014 to Disney's new media unit, Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media Labs. On April 3, 2015, a series of shorts named Muppets Moments premiered on Disney Junior. The series features conversations between the Muppets and young children. By April, Bill Prady was commissioned to write a script for a new Muppets pilot with the title The Muppets.

Leadership

Projects