Twelve years after the failure of Muppets From Space, Disney had purchased the rights to The Muppets but was letting them languish in TV specials, commercials, and music videos. The idea of another feature film starring Kermit and the gang didn’t enter the realm of possibility until 2008 when Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller and writer/star Jason Segal sought out Jim Henson Productions for help and advice on a Dracula puppet rock opera sequence featured in the film.

Through their mutual love of The Muppets, Stoller and Segal crafted a pitch to bring them back into the limelight with a feature film that would honor their past while reintroducing them to a new generation. After getting the greenlight from Disney, the movie was announced as The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever!!! until it eventually became THE MUPPETS, the highest-grossing Muppet movie of all time.

Joining Nick and Scott to discuss this high point for the legacy of these characters is musician and Muppet Man Scott Tofte (After the Echo, Geek By Night).

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After the failure of Muppet Treasure Island, Disney had no interest in continuing their relationship with Jim Henson Productions. Instead, the company signed a three-picture deal for The Muppets with Sony Pictures that would include another adaptation from classic literature directed by Brian Henson, The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made directed by Frank Oz, and a film that would finally see Gonzo take center stage directed by a Muppet outsider.

That film was MUPPETS FROM SPACE and it would not only be a critical and commercial failure but would also cancel the remaining films in the Sony deal and see The Muppets take a twelve-year hiatus from theatrically released films.

Joining Nick and Scott to discuss weird cameos and what Muppet canon truly means is professional stage technician and podcaster Becca Beaulieu (Queue to Queue).

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The modest theatrical success of The Muppet Chrismas Carol lead Brian Henson and the rest of the Henson company to decide on a new literary classic to adapt with the Muppets. This time, though, they wanted to focus on comedy and adventure, ultimately deciding on Robert Louis Stevenson’s pirate adventure.

The film was 1996’s MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND, and it would take 4 years to produce after a lengthy development and preproduction process that resulted in the budget ballooning to nearly 3x the modest budget of Christmas Carol, and an uphill battle at the box office that the film ultimately lost.

Joining Nick & Scott to discuss the flop that changed the tide for post-Jim Muppet movies is writer and podcaster Cass Fredrickson (The Doctor’s Companion).

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Jim Henson was dead: to begin with.

But that wasn’t the only thing that had changed for the Henson company in the eight years since the Muppets took Manhattan: Frank Oz had become a successful film director; the company had expanded into new live-action series, Saturday morning cartoons, and creature creation for non-Henson films; an attempt was made to sell the company to Disney…

And then, on a random day in May of 1990, at the age of just 53 years old, the company’s founder, Jim Henson, suddenly and tragically died of complications from a case of walking pneumonia that no one knew he had.

In the aftermath, the Henson company, now being run by Jim’s son Brian Henson, had only one thing on their mind: Jim’s legacy, and the idea of the Muppets continuing beyond his death. They pitched ABC on the idea of a 2-hour Christmas special that would be a Muppets adaptation of the Charles Dickens holiday classic, but it would be Walt Disney Pictures who would give the project the greenlight, not as a television special but the first theatrically released feature film since 1984, resulting in THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL hitting theaters nationwide in December of 1992. 

Joining Nick and Scott to discuss the start of the post-Jim era for the Muppets is musical aficionado Ripley Green (they/them/muppet).

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After the back-to-back productions of Muppet Caper and Dark Crystal, Jim Henson was ready for a break from directing. So when the studio wanted a third Muppet Movie, he turned to his creative partner Frank Oz to take over the behind-the-scenes duties of the latest Muppet opus, unknowingly kicking off the career of a prolific director.

What began as a very jokey script called “The Muppets: The Legend Continues” became a very earnest, heartfelt film about friendship, found family, and Broadway. Also featuring a sequence that introduced the world to the Muppet Babies, as well as a wedding that took the world by storm, the legacy of THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN holds a special place in the history of the Muppet franchise.

Associate Producer Matt Bennett joins Nick and Scott to discuss how this movie evolved the Muppets from vaudeville archetypes to three-dimensional characters. 

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After the box office success of The Muppet Movie and The Muppet Show’s time on the air coming to an end after 5 seasons, Jim Henson was ready to take on his next challenge: film director. But it wasn’t a Muppet Movie sequel that he wanted to be his directorial debut, but a fantasy epic starring original puppets called The Dark Crystal.

To do that, however, he’d have to make a deal that included directing a Muppets sequel first before rolling directing into production on his puppet fantasy film. And so, with barely a concept and only a few ideas, Henson dove into directing what would become 1982’s THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER, a film that was bigger and more ambitious than anything the Henson Company had ever done before.

Joining Nick and Scott is Adam Sheehan (Tales From the Short Box) to discuss the magic tricks on display through what might be the most slept-on entry in Muppet movie canon.

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It’s time to play the music… it’s time to light the lights… our coverage of The Muppets franchise begins TONIGHT!

While he had earned huge success with the creation of Sesame Street, Jim Henson wanted to break out of children’s entertainment and create something for a more well-rounded demographic leading to the creation of The Muppet Show. Almost instantly, the variety sketch series became a pop culture juggernaut, but Henson has another medium he wanted to conquer next: Movies!

With lofty ambitions for his puppet stars, Henson pursued a musical road trip origin film for the Muppet gang featuring unforgettable original songs written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher. After shooting experimental footage to prove that the Muppets could still work outside of the Muppet Show sets, the film was greenlit, and THE MUPPET MOVIE became an iconic part of Muppet history.

Join Nick and Scott as they reminisce about their Muppet fandom, discuss the arduous process of making the film, dive deep into the meaning behind “Rainbow Connection”, and ponder the question: are the Muppets queer culture? (Of course they are)

No guests! Just vibes!

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It’s a Betweenisode!

Join Nick & Scott as they discuss the conclusion of the Mummy mini-series, rank each movie, speculate about the future of the franchise, and announce our final mini-series of Franchisography Season Two!

Next week: Our final franchise of Season 2 begins!

FRANCHISE POTENTIAL: Van Helsing (2004) episode now available on PATREON!

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Welcome to a new world of gods and monsters. After Tomb of the Dragon Emperor failed to win over fans, Universal Pictures would bury their beloved franchise for another nine years before raising it from the dead yet again as studios all over Hollywood tried to capture some of the profits and popularity that the Marvel Cinematic Universe was seeing in an unprecedented run of box office domination.

Universal’s play? Create their own cinematic universe, featuring interconnected stories starring their iconic cast of monsters. The first chapter of this Dark Universe would be a remake of THE MUMMY starring Tom Cruise, the Last Movie Star. Would this odd concoction of star and series birth a new cinematic universe? Well, we all know what happened next.

Nick, Scott, and guest Jason Hammons dig deep into the history of the Dark Universe in a sprawling and definitive episode of FRANCHISOGRAPHY

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Seven years after The Mummy Returns, Universal Pictures was finally able to resurrect the franchise with a third adventure, but they would do so with some key members absent: Writer/director Stephen Sommers would be replaced by The Fast & The Furious director Rob Cohen (Sommers would remain as an executive producer.) and more infamously, fan favorite Rachel Weisz would opt not to return for a third film and would be replaced by Maria Bello. Add in a drastic change in locale and it was beginning to look like THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR would be a very different outing for this unexpectedly beloved series.

Nick and Scott are back on the same page this week as they try to make sense of this unfortunate misfire on an explosive new episode of FRANCHISOGRAPHY.

No guests! Just vibes!

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Patreon Associate Producer: Matt Bennett & Mark Ybarra