JHC and HIT establish worldwide distribution and production venture

[Phillip Chapman]

Big news from the folks at Henson. We now know what will be happening to their other properties like Fraggles, Hoobs, Faffner, Mother Goose and more.

http://www.muppetcentral.com/news/2004/040104.shtml

Let us know what you think.

[BoyRaisin2]

>>The Jim Henson Company, an established leader in family entertainment for nearly half a century, is recognized worldwide as a leader in puppetry, animatronics and computer graphics.<<

About time their press releases say that.

>>Headquartered in Los Angeles with offices and production facilities in New York and London<<

Still?

Wow. So HIT, who incidentally were rumored to be interested in buying JHC in 2001, will distribute and finance the Henson stuff? I guess that sounds good. There's still this nagging in the back of my head that wishes Disney was doing it, but that's irrelevant.

Disney and HIT missed the auction, but both lucked out now. Hopefully soon, we'll all reap the benefits.

[AndyWan Kenobi]

I find this encouraging. I'm glad they're forming partnerships to distribute such classic properties and develop new ones.

[MuppetQuilter]

I'll be interested to see the new Frances show-- I loved those books when I was a kid.

I think this is good. Disney wouldn't have made Fraggle a priority-- not with the entire Muppet catalog-- this could well mean Fraggle will be coming to DVD in the next few years....

[Phillip Chapman]

Yeah, what I like about this is that HIT will probably do more with these properties than Henson ever could. JHC had a difficult time selling their best property, "The Muppet Show"; much less smaller ones like "Fraggle Rock". Apparently, HIT is paying a nice sum to own all the TV and product distribution rights for these properties so they will be doing something with them.

I thought it was interesting that they got "Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas", even though it features Kermit, now property of the Walt Disney Company. You would think by the release that Emmet was a series not a one-shot special.

[BoyRaisin2]

Yeah, and they probably got "The Christmas Toy" as well because it's pretty much the same situation.

And I bet you, if "The Muppet Musicians of Bremen" didn't have the word "Muppet" in the title, Henson would have kept it too, for Kermit is the only major character in there.

[Drtooth]

So we'll get Fraggle Rock on DVD eventually... please Phil tell me this is not an April Fools!

[ScrapsFlippy]

YAHOO!

Although I was afraid this was an April Fools Day joke at first.

--Scraps

[Luke]

Yeah, its great news indeed. There are a lot of ex-Henson people at HIT so thats great, and they do seem to have been on a buying spree of late so are definitely on their way up. I think the one criticism people in the media have of HIT is that they do tend to over-expose properties where they work them so much the bottom falls out of them for a while after but i'm sure now they have a lot more brands and things that should happen less. I wouldn't immediately jump on the DVD re-release bandwagon, that isn't HIT's style but i'm sure it will happen at some point.

Actually the nice thing about this for Fraggle and Hoobs is that Jocelyn Stevenson who wrote for the shows is HIT's Senior Vice President of Global Creative Production now. I know the plan is just to produce new properties rather than revive old ones but would have been nice if Hoobs could get some new specials or something. Also of interest to people on the new production side will be the fact HIT have their own animation studios - HOT.

[Drtooth]

Agreed! I wouldn't say "OMG!!! There are going to be DVD's of Fraggle Rock! My prayers have been answered" just yet! But anything is possible. We could see them, we could not, but at least we have a little hope on the subject.

Hopefully this will also mean they could bring the Hoobs (in some form) to Americia.

[beaker]

Its comforting to know that the remnant corpse of JHC is still able to do some deals...my how Ive been wanting to see Hoobs...not to mention see that a new generation is exposed to Fraggle Rock. I stillsay HIT stands for Henson International

[Chad Kermit]

I had no idea that Emmet was not part of the Disney deal. I guess I was thinking they had all the specials. I knew of course about the other shows and films not going to Henson. Could this mean we may be seeing a line of Emmet toys and Christmas related products? I hope they can market Emmet to become more of a well known Christmas classic. It's better than some of the Rakin and Bass productions. Looks like all of the Henson properties will be milked for all they are worth. That's a good thing of course.

Chad

[Luke]

I think this will be like the EMTV thing though - more emphasis on Europe than America. If you look at HIT's current stuff, Thomas is probably the only one they have really developed well overseas. Angelina and Bob do ok over there, Barney hasn't been handled that well since they got it although it was already doing ok in the states and i would guess you guys aren't familiar with Pingu. Hopefully adding Henson to their portfolio will help change that but they do seem to have always been a UK company with international ambitions rather than a worldwide company.

[Whatever]

Originally Posted by Drtooth

But anything is possible.

Have you been taking lessons from Ken?

[King Prawn]

This is great news, I scrolled to the bottom first to make sure it wasn't an Aprils fool joke. Anyway I am surprised to see Emmett on that list but if you think about it if they edit the first few seconds (which they will have too) which has Kermit in it the rest would not really have anything to do with the Muppets ( ).
Like the rest of you I don't want to get all excited about FR DVD's and stuff like that but I can't help myself. I doubt they'll remake FR so now that they own them what else is left for them to do than to market them: DVD's, toys and stuff like that. I'm really excited and happy about this. Had the Muppets not been sold to Disney I would have been dissapointed but since it seems like they are all moving around I'm happy to see where they've gone.

I actually thought they were gonna fade away slowly, that Henson would continue making new projects but forget about these old ones. I just hope FR finally gets the respect it deserves.