Muppet Show Sketches Missing From Disney+ 

THAT makes sense.

@Connor Reynolds disney doesn't have the rights to big bird and so on nor FRAGGLE rock, labyrith and dark crystal. brian henson still has those rights.

the brooke shields also had a "music problem" so THE WHOLE episode was removed :(

@@dgm2485 I would assume that Jim Henson was a stand up guy, and if you created for him you got at least partial ownership of your creation. This could be for both original characters and song/scripts. We are so use to any creation being property of a corporation, we sometimes forget that there are real people who not only deserve credit, but compensation for their efforts and most importantly, ownership of their creation, at least until copyright expires (which is a whole other issue you can blame Disney for). It can be frustrating for us who just want to enjoy the work and don't care about this stuff that goes on in the background, but it is worthwhile.

@@dgm2485 - Old standards are often under copyright… ever notice how infrequently you hear “Happy Birthday to You” sung in a movie? Well, that’s because you gotta pay the owners of that song a mint if you use it! But also, even if an artist appearing on a show performs a song original to that show, if that artist at that time was under contract to a different movie or TV studio, music publisher, or what-have-you than the studio producing the show, the rights to _that performance_ of that original song might revert to the performer’s label over time, rather than to the show’s producers. So the show may own the song, but the performer’s label may own that performance a year or two after the show’s first airing. The show producers could probably re-air it, but not before paying again, and many studios are just penny-pinching misers. And sometimes it’s not even in the artist’s own hands, depending on what kind of contract they signed. This stuff is headache-inducing: negotiating a guest appearance from someone under contract to ten different studios and labels and publishers is complicated today as it is, but negotiating the rebroadcast rights is even worse… and in the 1970s, the most sophisticated home media most people would’ve heard of was super-8 film. VCRs and such were in the near-future, but boxed DVD sets or streaming platforms weren’t even a rumor yet: the idea of someone owning a copy of every episode of a show simply wasn’t on anyone’s mind… so no one would’ve imagined asking an artist appearing on _The Muppet Show_ to grant the show perpetual use of a performance. Even airing reruns in syndication was pretty new, so most likely a show would’ve negotiated a one-and-done to secure a performance from an artist. Today this stuff still remains a headache. In the UK, for instance, there are very generous laws about using pop songs for really cheap in tv shows during those shows’ initial airings, so quite often a show like _Skins_ will have a really spectacular soundtrack when it first airs on… uh, was it C4…? but anyway, if you watch the show on Netflix today, the producers couldn’t afford those songs for international broadcast or even for repeat broadcast, so much of the soundtrack is replaced with some really anodyne-sounding EDM-ish bleeps and bloops… and it’s just not the same. That said, without copyright artists wouldn’t get paid! Or, in theory, copyright protects artists: lots of old blues singers mistakenly signed away the rights to their work, often by being swindled, so the blues standard you hear on CD may’ve made an old dentist in Florida really rich and put all his kids AND grandkids through college, but the artist who wrote it likely died homeless and penniless. But the problem there is swindlers, not copyright. Or for instance, the moment David Bowie died, the label who handle his catalog decided they would no longer pay Robert Fripp for Fripp’s work on the track “Heroes,” simply because the current category under which Bowie had insisted Fripp be paid - featured performer - didn’t technically exist at the time the track was recorded. So the day after Bowie died, his label went all cheapskate, and now Fripp has to sue to be paid properly. Speaking as an artist, copyright is good… but artists often need better legal representation, and redress for past injustices. But it’s better for there at least to be a chance you’ll be paid for your work, rather than its being used forever without your permission. But yes, it sucks when a company like Disney can’t sit down with other copyright holders and figure something out. Disney are notoriously cheap when it comes to paying artists, though. They could probably afford to buy the rights to all these performances, if they felt like it. They just don’t. Sorry for the lengthy explanation, I hope at least some of it cleared things up for you.

talk to the Animals

It’s like they don’t see the problems their making

all they have to do is just keep buying the rights to everything and that stops being a problem

Just imagine if Mickey Mouse, Superman, and Batman were public domain as they should have become. But the US government changed the laws for big companies. Copyright is to protect the artist, not companies a century later.

@@Paulafan5 I mean you're right but you're also wrong.

@@KairuHakubi how, exactly? I quite agree with the previous commenter's opinion.

In that case, please keep us posted as these cut scenes get restored to the episodes on DisneyPlus. They’d better also add the Brooke Shields and Chris Langham episodes soon as well!

Honestly, it's just a relief to hear that the reason those episodes are unavailable is due to licensing issues.

Any updates on the missing songs getting restored?

@TF2Fan101 That's not the case with the Chris Langham episode, which is missing due to his past conviction. The chances of that episode being released anytime soon are slim to none.

@@samp.8099 Stop being wrong! 😡

If Disney is serious, there should pay up. Nobody once half stepped material. I had no idea this was done.

@@saturncrush Sometimes it's far more complicated then that. Not all parts are willing too give licensing too someone like Disney. Some celebrities get very fickle about whom they let have rights to their work, name or even images of themselves.

@@FurlowT You have a point. Integrity matters. But so does a boat load of money. With where music publishing is going in the future every little bit helps. But I get it.

nobody cares about music licensing rights. We only have one life to live, we should be allowed to see everything as it was. This is why I have no qualms about buying bootlegs. gladly pay for legal releases of everything, people don't want to release them.

@@PotterPossum1989 Nobody cares about your personal likes or dislikes or beliefs. The entertainment industry has it's way of doing things, good luck changing it if think you could ever :P

Ironic that it wasn’t used for Spike’s episode...

Dang, that guy could sing!

Saw a “coming soon” sign for seasons 4 and 5 at Costco when I was 10-ish but never saw them appear.

Easier to milk people for far more on a streaming service. And consumers are masochistic enough to allow it.

Dammit why can’t Sesame Workshop just work with Disney to allow certain stuff to be used

@@mrcritical6751 (Ezekiel) Zeke Hamish Beckley: Yeah I mean seriously what kind of shmucks are they? Are they high?

@@mrcritical6751 don't you mean why can't HBOMAX work with Disney plus? Lol

HBO Max doesn't own Sesame Street, they just feature it under license from Sesame Workshop.

@@zekecasperanddeadpoolzgroovyst To be fair I'd probably refuse to cooperate with Disney out of spite for numerous reasons including how they tossed away Kermit's previous actor.

YES!

That could have been cut because Disney doesn't have rights for the Sesame Street characters. They are owned by CTW and are a separate group.

@@writerpatrick But Disney owns the rights to the Muppets, so doesn't that mean Disney should have the right to own Sesame Street too. Both since the. S.S characters are muppets and both them and Everyone on the Muppet show are Jim Henson Property.

Not quite. A chorus of the song when the Sesame Street characters come on stage was cut from the original. But, the Sesame Street characters still appear in the number's next chorus.

@@anthonyryan7348 disney owns most of the muppet properties, but all of the muppet characters on sesame street are owned by sesame workshop

We used to call that *public domain.* Sadly, copyright keeps getting extended, making public domain a virtually extinct concept.

WKRP in Cincinatti especially suffered from this.

@@kellynine7438 Can you share examples of WKRP censorship.

Public Domain was destroyed by Disney, got to love the irony there. But honestly if an agreement was made that allowed a piece of material to be put in a show that should not affect the ability to air that show in its entirety 10, 20, 30+ years down the track - unless of course the company that wanted to air the show wanted to short change the copyright holders or the copyright holders got greedy.

@@djm5687Censorship, no, but the show used popular music so extensively that once the licensing agreements expired, they had to start putting in generic filler music that ripped the soul out of the show. The first attempt at a DVD release had no licensed music, and the show suffered from it. A full set with most of the licenses restored did fiinally come out years later, but even that has a shelf life until those rights expire again.

Me too! Especially since they kept everything else from the Robin subplot that episode.

Yea! Probably some with copyright issues but hopefully Disney works it out soon

@@conceptcheeseentertainment Indeed

@Connor Reynolds I know right

@Connor Reynolds it probably took a lot of cutting through legal red tape to get what is currently on Disney+ so it makes sense some of the stuff couldn’t be cut through

@Connor Reynolds streaming rights and physical media rights are completely different things.

And it totally fit the Muppets to a tee! From the nonsense of the verse intro to the "Take me back to Vienna" interjection... it was total madness in a good way!

Funny how many of these cut songs were on the Muppet Show records.

I wonder if that scene was banned not because of ‘I’m Five’ but because of the few lines from ‘They Call The Wind Mariah’ at the very end of the sketch.

​@@RLucas3000It was definitely because of Mariah.

Because that would kill the payoff with the Vaudeville-style hook, I suppose.

@@haplessasshole9615 makes sense

They could have dubbed it with something else, maybe. They did that with the episode of Police Squad! in which Frank Drebbin goes undercover as a lounge singer in the VHS version.

be sure to back that video up! The next thing we need is for Disney of all people to take this down.😱

And the Spike Milligan episode is missing from Disney

@@rubberduck306 I think that's only the case in the UK

@Connor Reynolds I have no idea but I’m glad they didn’t

@@austinkozlowski3120 ok?

no licensing issues

Pigs in Space is A classic.

​@@armyofpets5547 Swine Version of Star Trek .😅😅😅

It doesn't, you don't understand why Fozzie gets his shades or why he's de-shaded!!

I know right

Plus, last I checked, the whole Brooke Shields episode is missing too. (Apparently because they sing "Off to See the Wizard" at the end, dressed up like the movie.) That was an episode I was specially looking forward to: the Alice in Wonderland theme worked out surprisingly well.

Which episode is that?

@@tulinfirenze1990 Season 5, Episode 6. After James Coburn, before Glenda Jackson.

@@DelGuy03 I meant, which episode was removed due to a guest star receiving criminal charges.

@@tulinfirenze1990 Oh. I wasn't the one who mentioned that, but it was Season 5 Episode 19: Chris Langham. He was a staff writer with a performing background, who was a last-minute substitute "guest star" when Richard Pryor backed out.

Yeah but that’s the one thing Jim Henson didn’t want to sell the character rights to

No

volumes 1 - 3 wish they released all 5 seasons

I doubt we'll ever get seasons 4&5

Well season 1 is better on streaming because of the cuts on that set. 2 and 3 are complete on the dvds those

Indeed, it seems they used the CBS reels of the Season 4 and 5 episodes not already restored for those Time Life “Best of The Muppet Show” releases. They might be able to get the UK scenes from ITV later, but we’ll see.

But the Disney+ episodes include the UK spots. Some of them might be missing, of course, but the majority are there.

Not so odd, considering how long that album has been out-of-print -- and that licensing music for an album or tv broadcast doesn't include home video rights.

Yeah. That Sesame Street bit is too good to be lost forever. That is the only thing I will ever agree with you on since you insist on being an asshole to literally everyone

@@dillonohlemiller9027 Stop being wrong about me and undo the edits in your comment.

@@dillonohlemiller9027 Is he? From what I've seen, he's mostly just defending Matt Vogel.

Screw copyrights!

STUPID they had to be cut is more like it 🤬

Disney doesn't own the Sesame Street theme song. In fact, they don't own anything Sesame Street. The only reason we see these characters on Disney+, is because they were pre-existing material. In case you didn't know, when Jim Henson planned on selling his company to Disney in 1989, he promised Joan Ganz Cooney that they would not get any of the Sesame Street characters in the deal (with the semi-exception of Kermit the Frog. They could only use him conditionally.)

@@yosefdemby8792 still, Disney is able to license multiple Beatles songs for the show, but not the Sesame Street theme song?

@@andrewwertz3335 Sesame Street is owned by Sesame Workshop, who has a working partnership with Warner-Media's HBO Max platform.

The music director for The Muppet Show isn't the Ray Charles you're probably thinking of.

I think some parts were edited out because they wanted it to be more "family friendly". I think the one song was edited out because there was a line about spanking in it.

@@Paulafan5 But i'm still glad that the DVD versions still kept some parts that were not "family friendly," and BTW, before these so-called SFX existed, some props includes fire explosion prop of Crazy Harry, gun prop for The Swedish Chef, and smoke, which somewhat can be dangerous, but luckily it didn't injure any puppeteers on-character.

And the ATV and ITC endcaps from both UK and US versions were both wiped out since the 1980s when Zoot plays his strange final note on a saxophone, especially the one on Disney+, as some random Zoot shots (especially the one used from Sax & Violence and some alternative 1980s shot) plasters it, German DVDs and the Disney+ version of Kaye Ballard's episode surprisingly kept the ATV and ITC endcap, (they only used ATV endcap from Kaye Ballard episode, despite being plastered when it was released on DVD.)

@@Paulafan5 Not true!

Yup, that’s “There’s a New Sound.”

Music licensing.

@@V-grandraccoon That, and one episode had a guest star who was arrested and convicted in 2005.

Neither is the Brooke Shields episode

It looks to be licensed by Universal Music Publishing Group. Music copyright is complicated and pre-1972 was often at the state level. Copyrights can be renewed (see Michael Jackson owned the Beatles catalog). I don't pretend to know all teh ins and outs but it does look to be protected. Remember, Happy Birthday was copyrighted until recently.

Most of them were the "extras" for the longer British runtime. They were also shown when the show aired on the now-defunct Odyssey cable channel.

@@EphemeralTao I miss Odyssey!

Na, some Kraut complained.

RU-vid not paying attention

Enjoy while it lasts...

@@kosmoboo that’s what I said! back this, video, up!

Season 1 of the Muppet Show is completely intact on Disney+