The reason the many muppet characters like Kermit, Miss Piggy, and Fozzie Bear were barely in the special was because Disney made muppets studios film the special in April (after the Covid shutdown) which is usually when Sesame Street films. Many of the Puppeteers like May Vogel, Eric Jacobson, Peter Linz, David Rudman, Brian Henson, Alice Dinnean and Jlianne Buescher. They usually tend to film the muppets shows and movies during the late summer and early fall to avoid the scheduling conflicts with Seasme Street. They were given 17 days to film, and many of the seasme street and Muppet puppeteers were only able to film for about 7 or 8 days. Dave Golez (Gonzo) and Bill Barretta ( Pepe) were the only puppeteers that were able to film all 17 days.
Really? I've never heard of that before, but it honestly makes a lot of since. It feels so rushed, and that pretty much confirms my suspicions. I'll have to do some more reading on it! Thanks for sharing!
I both liked it and thought it was… lacklustre. I adore the muppets, and Gonzo is my favourite muppet of all time, and I love the haunted mansion. I loved the references, I genuinely laughed at a lot of the jokes, the music was great, but even with all that it still felt… cheap. It felt rushed. It felt like they wanted to do a haunted mansion special and needed a gimmick to be able to have a HM special, so they shoved the muppets in. It absolutely could have been better if some more muppet love was put into it. A lot of the characters felt like they were there just to be a reference to the ride. I did enjoy it, I had a good time, but there was also a lot of disappointment.
you're so right about the medium shots. they really made it feel like a made-for-tv special (similar to Wizard of Oz ). one thing that I additionally took away was that scene with Piggy and Kermit - are they back together now? the current state of their relationship has been intriguing me for a while but this special left me so confused.
Muppets + The Haunted Mansion have been my favorite things EVER Muppets help me through my LGBT identity and stuff and I draw fanart/write fanfics of them to let out my vents. The Haunted Mansion is just something that helped me through difficult times and it makes me hella happy to see whenever I go to DisneyWorld There’s issues in MHM but they aren’t too serious imo and this special is definitely my favorite special. At many moments I was like “IS THIS FOR KIDS???” But then I remembered Muppets was never for kids lol
That is COMPLETELY VALID! Again, this is all my opinion and everyone is allowed to like what they like. I have quite a few friends who really enjoyed the special. Also, the muppets are LITTERED with pieces of the queer experience. I actually have an entire video essay analyzing Gonzo through a queer lens. So I totally get what you mean! Thanks for watching!
I really liked the special, but i should say I’m biased because of my passionate love of the haunted mansion. Seeing people/muppets playing characters from the ride gave me so much joy. And *spoiler * Kim Irvine’s cameo gave me life proving that (to me) they had a love for the history of this ride. The muppet stuff was definitely weaker, but i had fun.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I don't know the haunted mansion ride very well, but disney definitely does. It makes sense that that aspect would be more tied together. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I enjoyed it. While not perfect, I thought it was a step in the right direction from where they were with Muppets Now and stuff. Bill Barretta was doing a lot of heavy lifting for this (performing, writing, and executive producing) vs previous creative teams for ventures that didn’t really feature the performers. I think this is what needs to happen to get the Muppets back on track and hopefully Disney is backing off a bit and will continue to let the Muppets run themselves a bit. We went to Disney a couple months ago so it was more obvious how much they really walked you through the ride scenes-and I don’t mean that as a negative. It kind of felt like an Easter egg filled love letter to both. The only ghost you actually see for more than one scene on the ride is Constance, so getting one and done cameos didn’t really bother me. It’s got its flaws, but just some little changes that have happened fairly recently like mostly consolidating Jerry and Richard’s old characters to one core performer each and the tone with Dancing in the Moonlight and Mr. Blue Sky (just released on the Muppets RU-vid channel) give me hope. Side note, because I cannot flip away to check your previous episodes to see if you’ve talked about it, but if you haven’t spend the $10 and watch Muppet Guys Talking. So worth it. Bring tissues.
I LOVED this special but I must admit, what I love more was that this is the closest thing we’ve come to an actual muppet production since the movies from the 2010s. This really could’ve been something so special, but like you’ve said, it is just not getting the attention it deserves. Not in its production or execution, and that does make me sad. But I’m hopeful that this inspires more specials like Christmas carol that we know and love!
Also, a counterpoint to your point about this special being for kids- I didn’t really feel like that when watching this! My adult-self still thoroughly enjoyed this. Yeah there were points that were a bit cringe- but I can’t even remember them. I think a part of the whole “for kids” feeling just comes from growing up. But if you can set that aside, I still think that this is very all-ages friendly
Selling it as Gonzo in the haunted mansion would have better so when you just have the cameos of the other muppets it wouldn't take away from it. Hopefully fans watch it and they get more time and money to make better ones. I liked it
I've noticed that recently Gonzo has become the taking head for the muppets and Kermit has taken the back seat. I'm guessing it's because Dave Goelz it's the last of the original cast. I've also think that Disney plays it too safe with the muppets. (Though the same can be said of everything else they've done lately.)
As a casual muppets fan and a haunted mansion fanatic I genuinely enjoyed this. I feel there were many references to the haunted mansion that some people may have not understood, and that may have dragged it down
I know absolutely nothing about The Haunted Mansion - in fact, I didn't even know it was a thing that could have pop culture references made about it and that people could have specific knowledge about lol. The special fell very flat for me and I just found it very boring/disappointing and lacking substance. It's really interesting to learn that I was missing a lot of the references! I definitely understand how that would make a big difference. I still don't think it would be what I hope for in a Muppets special, but it would have at least landed a little better for me I'm sure!
I'd love if they gave Muppets a mini series like Star Wars Visions. Doesn't have to be a gimmick. We love the characters and just wasn't stories with them in it. This feels like it was, start to finish, 3 months to make (I'm sure it took longer but still).
I do agree that the ending felt rushed and weird. There were no stakes, then suddenly there were and suddenly it's resolved. It was hard to get invested in the plot. And the CGI candles bother me every time I watch it. But I also love it because Muppets and Disney Parks are two of my special interests, so it still makes me happy.
I don't know why it took me this long to see your review, but you're the first person who pretty much felt the same as I do about a lot of it. Yes, that whole thing about Gonzo's fears did come out of the blue and got resolved as quickly as it was brought up. Yes, all the other characters besides Gonzo and Pepe were heavily underused. Yes, the plot was weak. Yes, there was sooo much cgi that it killed a little bit of the Muppet magic. But like you, I also liked the Stamos jump scare (I could sense it coming but it still got me) and the aging Gonzo puppet.
I feel like it's important to understand that they didn't just have the Muppet fans to cater to, there is a really large (and profitable for them) Haunted Mansion fandom, and there's a lot they had in it that was very important to that fandom! I reccomend watching a ridethrough before watching it, and if you want further context, Offhand Disney has a lot of good videos on the Haunted Mansion! I really loved this movie personally 💜 I started doing virtual tour when my disabilities started getting bad, watch a lot of amusement park videos n such to pass the time. The Haunted Mansion is one of my favorite dark rides because I got to ride it once as a kid 💜
I agree with every single one of your points. Like all of them 100% The entire time I was thinking, how come they can't do ghosts right now when they did it so well in a Christmas Carol almost THIRTY years ago? This just felt like those old cheap christmas specials like letters to santa. Only thing is I'm now an adult, I can't enjoy it without seeing its flaws. The cgi makes the world look fake, I can't use suspension of disbelief to make the world feel real to me. It also ruins the "spooky" stuff as you know something is gonna happen whenever you see an actual physical object for once. My favourite part was the old Gonzo puppet. It was very well made. I started noticing inconsistent feathers on the mirror gonzo, gaining my attention, which paid off. But sadly because of the lack of build up to that scene the scene fell kinda flat. They didn't utilise it to its full potential sadly. Which is a shame as it felt like it was the only thing they put a lot of care in besides the songs. They didn't even do the celebrity cameos right this time, the entire point of the cameos is the interaction with the muppets. Now they just shoved almost all of them in one scene with eachother behind a green screen, such a waste. And yeah, the songs were kinda fun, not that memorable, but they tried. But in the end they mostly felt like filler as they were often the only place we would see those characters pop up. They enter for a song and leave when they're done. And honestly the new Kermit voice still hasn't grown on me. It just doesn't work for me. That aggressive kermit on the Internet sounds more like the real deal than this one. In the end I just feel like disney simply has no idea what to do with the muppets. Every now and then they come with something that works. Mostly the covers/parodies of songs in my opinion. Also the first muppet movie was pretty close to what we were used to with Jim Henson. Shame the most wanted movie threw all of that out of the window by calling all the events a movie and thus non canon, classic it was all a dream scenario. But really, the muppets just feel like a ghost 👻 (pun intended) of their former self. You look at them and you think, yes, those are the muppets. But stare at it for a while longer and they start to feel different. Less depth, more like caricatures of what they once were. Idk. Also am I the only one not buying the dynamic between Gonzo and Pepe? Whatever happened to Gonzo and Ritzo?
BTW, what even is disney thinking. The muppets work great, if not best when doing parodies. And now that they're with disney, they have all of these ips at their disposal. They can do the disney version of all the princess movies, Alice in wonderland, Peter pan etc. They can do marvel superheroes, star wars, avatar (blue people one). They can even do pirates of the Caribbean. But they aren't doing any of that. The only thing that came close to a modern parody that Muppets mocumentary, which was basically a parody of the office. But since that's already basically a parody on documentaries of its own it becomes a parody of a parody, which just doesn't really work. It feels very forced. It really just feels like disney wanted muppets just to have it. Meanwhile the Jim Henson Company is doing amazing work with the dark crystal but had to cancel the show because of the high production costs. The world can be cruel like that I suppose. One has too much money they don't know what to do with everything they own. The other wants to do so much with what they have but can't do it because they lack the funding.
The entire special felt so oddly polished to me, i love the first movie so much cause it all felt so beautifully home made. I know the polish is what to expect with Disney but still. I agree with the music, the best song was Dancing In The Moonlight, i have had it stuck in my head since i watched it. Im also so used to Miss Piggy getting more than 2 outfit changes per film. So just seeing her at the party and in the orb felt sad. I miss the Muppets made for EVERYONE instead of mostly for kids. I enjoyed it, but im going to keep coming back to Muppet Treasure Island or the Original Movie more than Haunted Mansion
I used to be creeped out by tKing Prawn andsome other muppets and Imagined a cyclops muppet watching me over my bed when thinking about sleeping without a cover, but now while I'm not a ginormous fan of the muppets I kinda want to get into ventriliquisim, make my own puppets, and I enjoyed the special.
I know I'm a month late, but I'm just discovering your channel and seeing this. I've been disappointed in my beloved Muppets for a long time now, but the biggest thing with this was having it at the same time that a different Disney Haunted Mansion movie (sequel? remake?) is happening just made it all feel so much cheaper. It used to feel like their specials were more about picking stories that had good opportunities for the characters to shine. This felt like trying to find a way to shove the characters into a marketable commodity. I would have loved a Muppets Halloween special -- even with a similar premise -- that was built around the Muppets rather than awkwardly forced cameos.
I first saw this while my parents and I were spending our road trip to Texas to celebrate my nephew's (A.J.) first birthday along with my niece Cecilia in 2021 and yet had a swell time watching it during that Halloween along with the Mickey Mouse Short Lonesome Ghosts (which was the inspiration for Ghostbusters); plus I also went with my sister and brother in law to see that Ghostbusters (the 1984 classic) movie at there local movie theatre!
i loved it, quite a lot. me and my younger sister watched it on halloween. i loved the musical numbers, especially life hereafter. there was definitely a very limited budget, which is pointed out in the special. it seems like disney's been cutting funding from the muppets since the show on abc kinda flopped. (which sucked because that show was excellent.) i also really wish rizzo was there. i miss the little guy.
Ok I’m giving this video a thumbs up early because I want to hear your thoughts but I haven’t seen this yet and I’m trying to log back into my account so SAVING THIS FOR LATER
Too many Humans.... I think the Muppet show got it perfect.... the number of humans in that episode should be 1. I will say I did choke up a bit seeing Ghost Ed Asner, and realizing that that was probably his last performance.
Yes, but I haven’t been to Disney since I was pretty young. I remember a lot of the characters and general concepts of the ride, but not enough to state any opinions on how well this special captures the spirit. That’s why I mostly talked about the muppet aspect. Cause that’s what I know
I dont want to sound too negative but I saw haunted mansion and muppets and I wanted to love it but I couldn't! And with the CGI I'm scared its gonna get worse because Disney CGIs so much stuff because it gets done faster then sets with less money and unions :( !! I would love to see more effects tho! ^-^ Also as like a side thing: I think it would have been funny if they had like unused muppets like Digit (I think the name is!) In the gravestones ^-^
As someone who LOVE the Muppets and LOVES the Haunted Mansion I liked the special. I think the only part that kinda fell flat for me is I thought the bride scene drug on for a bit too long. And to be fair it was a lot more creative and loved than the Eddy Murphy one. That's a low bar but still.
I found the movie to be awful. I love the original Muppets and even when Brian Henson took over, he was able to write them with the same balance of serious tone and good comedy but Disney sucks and doesn't know how to use them properly. It actually might be good if nobody watch their Muppet stuff unless it gets good. Maybe they will sell it off to another production company who actually knows what they're doing. The original music in this movie was tone deaf, the plot was weak, the horror elements were weak. I was really looking forward to this movie because I really think the Muppets can pull off more fun adaptions like A Christmas Carol and I thought horror was a missing direction they could have gone in. Do a Frankenstein or Dracula adaption with the Muppets but the horror tone needs to be taken seriously and modern Disney is terrible with consistent tone and storytelling. It drives me crazy. I liked the recent Haunted Mansion for the most part but the problems that movie does have is once again with the tone and ruining moments and atmosphere with jokes. Some executive is saying people like to laugh and comedy sells, maybe it's a response to the dark tone that every Hollywood held onto after the Dark Knight, I don't know but with the Avengers they realized comedy sells better and they have been putting it into every movie since even when it's not appropriate. So Disney is a plague on itself. Just doing all the wrong things because they are chasing trends, their movies have no soul any more and that's why a lot of them are failing. I don't want Disney to fail, I want them to learn that fun stories don't come off an assembly line. You can't just insert opposing elements into a story and expect them to work.
Yaaa it's true. I WANT to like the new muppets so bad, like I'm not going to spit at new content but. Could be better. And this is coming from someone who actually really loved muppets wizard of oz 😆
i think this would have worked better if they had used rizzo instead of pepe (rizzo has a more "scaredy" personality, and is the perfect anchor for gonzos more... daring/careless personality) SPOILERS: the last third when pepe shifts from scared to wanting to "chase ghost tail" was out of the blue and like the rest of the film, it was unfunny and any joke they made was over explained. this really felt like a rushed job to put something halloween-themed on their platformand slap a familiar name to attrack audiences (not to different from their dreaded life action remakes). if we compare this it with any other muppet media, I'd say you weren't harsh enough
i think that this movie would have been better if the Muppets wear dared (all the Muppets) to go in i think that the Muppets are better all together they be going though it together and showing ganzo that you aren't alone and wean he is alone in room 999 thats wean his weakest . there would have been more room for jokes and the plot might have gone smoother. (we didn't need the magician )
You were not too harsh. The special was cheap and done without care for the characters. Thank you for pointing out the CGI sets and flat unimaginative camera angels! Details matter. It's what separates excellence from mediocrity, well-rounded entertainment from kiddie fare. If this and Muppets Now is the best Disney can do, I'd rather The Muppets just fade away. This slow pecking to death is worse. One question. Why were Kermit and Piggy in the Haunted Mansion as ghosts when we see them alive at the costume party? You can't have the Muppets play themselves and other characters in the same story.
i’m glad this special exists, but god did it feel flat :/ i hyped it up wayyyy too much bc i love the muppets and halloween, and at the end i just felt let down
As a lifelong Muppets fan, I still fully believe that they died when Jim Henson died. Every single project since Jim's passing has been one awful mess after another. The humor just isn't there, the different voices simply don't work for the characters, and their attempts to incorporate current slang and pop culture just falls flat. Muppets Haunted Mansion is simply another example that proves my point. It isn't funny, it isn't clever, and it isn't memorable. The only positives about it are how well it incorporated parts of the long-loved Disney Haunted Mansion into it. Other than that, it's a waste of time.
I hate to say it but I completely agree with you. I’m glad that Disney is trying to introduce Muppets to younger generations but for me, I’ve been let down by every Muppet production I’ve seen since 1990 and this was no exception. Once Jim and Richard were gone, the heart and soul of The Muppets was gone as well.
I liked it but it didn't feel like the muppets, nothing was practical and that sucked because the ride is all practical so it wouldn't of been hard to take two practical things and put them together. Also I still don't like Kermit's new voice actor it's not my Kermit it sounds like the Russian version of him from muppets most wanted but he's spent a little time in America and it sucks
Fun fact! Matt Vogel, Kermits new puppeteer, is actually the same puppeteer who played Constantine (Russian Kermit) in Muppets Most Wanted. That’s probably why their voices sound similar.
