ANSWERING MACHINE Hello. No one is available to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone. (Tone.)
(The phone comes into view, along with answering machine text.)
KEVIN Hey Dan, it’s Kevin. I’m taking off on a vacation for a week and I need someone to watch the channel while I’m gone. You can talk about whatever you want. I’ll even let you advertise for that Magic Candle Company you like so much. Just tell everyone to use the code 'Defunctland' for 15% off their order. Anyways. I’ll be back in a few days or like 11 minutes. Peace out. Bye.
DISNEY DAN All right! The Defunctland channel all to myself. And I know just what we’re gonna talk about. Roll the new intro!
(Applause is heard. Fade to a red curtain, which opens to a crude animation of Dan with a Kermit puppet, and Kevin with a Dan puppet. Kevin sees something falling from above and braces himself. The ‘Defunct Dan’ title screen crash lands on them, sending the puppets flying.) --- DISNEY DAN In August of 1989, Michael Eisner and Jim Henson announced an exciting new deal that was underway that would bring the Jim Henson Company and its many lucrative properties into the Walt Disney family. This included most of Jim’s original creations and franchises, like Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth…but most importantly, the Muppets. Not to be included in this deal, as they were owned by Children’s Television Workshop and not Jim Henson’s workshop, was Sesame Street and its colorful bunch of characters. The deal, valued at approximately $150 million, also included a special creative services consulting contract for Jim Henson that would last fifteen years, keeping him on board the Disney company to create more Muppet films and head up new park projects.
Negotiations between the companies lasted for nearly a year, with Jim being the leading force behind making the deal happen. It was during these negotiations in early 1990 that Disneyland’s president, Jack Lindquist, came up with an ambitious publicity stunt to celebrate the Muppets joining Disney. At the time, Disneyland was celebrating its 35th anniversary with a massive event. Festivities ranged from new parades to a full-length special that aired on NBC. During the television special, to further highlight the upcoming deal, Miss Piggy made a surprise appearance in a skit starring her and Gonzo, following a storyline where she attempted to replace Cinderella.
(Footage of the skit in question. Cinderella is pulled off by Gonzo disguised as a Cast Member.)
CINDERELLA Oh, young lady, will you please tell them to start the parade without me?
GONZO Let’s go.
PIGGY Oh, do not worry! I’ve got everything under control! (beat) Ye-heah!
DAN The event and special were heavily promoted throughout the year, and very few people across the country weren’t aware of the iconic American theme park’s anniversary by the end of the campaign. Lindquist considered the celebration a success, and began thinking of other, year-long events to celebrate in between the five-year anniversaries. It wouldn’t be long until he had come up with an idea. He began to wonder, ‘what exactly do Mickey and Minnie do on January 1st of 1991, after partying nonstop for a solid year for the park’s 35th birthday?’ It was in early 1990, as the Walt Disney Company was finishing negotiations with Jim Henson to finally acquire the Muppets, that a tiny spark of genius hit Jack Lindquist for his next big one-year event.
But to better understand how incredible this idea was, you need to first understand the man behind it. For those of you unfamiliar with the long and amazing career of Jack Lindquist, he was easily one of the greatest marketing minds to ever be employed by Disney. His career with the parks started Day 1 in 1955 as a consultant for Kelvinator, one of Disneyland’s earliest sponsors. Just two months after the park opened, Jack received a call from management looking for recommendations for a new marketing manager in the park. Jack recommended himself, and he was soon offered the job of Advertising Manager for the Disneyland Resort by Walt Disney himself. He would continue to rise in the company until his retirement in 1993.
During his time with Disney Parks, he pioneered promotional techniques that have since become industry standards, including things like off-site advanced ticket sales and the “safe, hardy” event space for high schoolers seniors called Grad Night. Jack also helped pioneer one of the staples of Disney Park events: the anniversary celebration. When the Olympics were being held in Los Angeles during the summer of 1984, it was Jack who realized that the event would overlap with the 30th anniversary of the park - and while a 30th anniversary typically wasn’t anything to celebrate, Jack dreamed up a marketing campaign to celebrate the occasion all year long. The event led to a three million guest increase in park attendance that year alone.
(1985 promotional video.)
LINDQUIST Every 30th guest, every 300th guest, 3,000th, 30,000th, 300,000th, 3 millionth…are gonna win prizes, and they’re really super presents. Everything from Disneyland passports to…we’ll be giving away about four hundred General Motors cars - 1985 Chevies, Pontiacs, Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and Cadillacs - during our birthday year.
DAN But perhaps Jack Lindquist’s greatest achievement for marketing theme parks was his help in creating this iconic moment.
(NFL Post-Super Bowl ad circa 1980s.)
FOOTBALL PLAYER I’m gonna go to Disney World!
DAN With Jack’s mastery of commercial tie-ins and big, year-long park celebrations, he took the news of the Muppets joining the Disney company and ran with it, cooking up one of the coolest publicity stunts ever conceived for Disneyland. Jack’s initial pitch was simple: Mickey, Minnie, and the whole gang of Disney characters had just spent a full year celebrating the 35th anniversary of Disneyland, and obviously, they were exhausted. And what do you do when you’re exhausted after working really hard? Well, you take a vacation, of course. But who’d man the ship while Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto, and the whole gang were away? Well, you know who: the Muppets.
In the weeks leading up to the 35th anniversary celebration drawing to a close, full page ads would begin appearing across the country featuring a message from Kermit the Frog offering to step up and help hold down the fort while Mickey and friends took their much-needed time off. And come January 1st, 1991, when Mickey packed his bags and set sail to some place warmer for a year, the Muppets would move into the park and…well, the typical Muppet chaos would ensue. For a full year, Disneyland would be taken over completely by the Muppets, and they would turn the place upside down.
In total, the year-long Muppet takeover event would consist of eight major changes to the park.
First, the Muppets would take over the park’s entrance marquee, modifying it their own charming way with a makeshift sign overlay covering the word ‘Disney,’ leaving it to read ‘Muppetland.’
Then, just inside the gates, the iconic Mickey Mouse flowerbed just below the train station would be ripped out and replaced by an equally large Kermit.
Inside Main Street, the iconic Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln would be replaced by the newly produced Muppet-Vision 3D, which had just opened in Walt Disney World’s Disney-MGM Studios park a year prior.
Over at New Orleans Square, Animal would be set loose inside Pirates of the Caribbean, where he would chase the damsels in distress found in the pillaged town scene.
Back in Fantasyland, Miss Piggy would take over in It’s a Small World, replacing Cleopatra in her Egyptian throne.
Finally, and perhaps the most notable change supposed to happen during the Muppet takeover, the Matterhorn would be repainted Kermit green from top to bottom.
But the changes didn’t just stop at modifying existing attractions. The park would also feature two brand new parades. ‘Here Come the Muppets Parade’ would feature approximately ten oversized, inflatable balloon versions of the Muppets being rolled down Main Street on floats similar to the Party Gras Parade that ran for the 35th anniversary, likely reusing a majority of the already made and rigged float bases with new character balloons retrofitted on each. The second parade, ‘The Muppet All-Star Motorcade,’ would be a much more intimate experience when compared to the massive balloon floats in the Here Come the Muppets Parade. Here, the Muppets themselves would be in various vehicles and would drive through the parks, singing live, offering an real, up-close moment with each of the actual puppeteered characters, something never seen before.
Then, finally, at the end of the year-long takeover, all evidence that the Muppets had ever been in the park would be removed. Animatronics would be taken down, parades packed away, Matterhorn repainted back to its original color…except for the Muppet*Vision 3D, which would have found a new, pseudo-temporary home in the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln space.
The event would have been crazy and ambitious, to say the least. It’s difficult to imagine a Disney park without Mickey in it. But the concept’s uniqueness was a bit of corporate synergy that would’ve been too good to pass up. It’s also important to note that the Muppets were a much more lucrative property in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s than they currently are today, so the publicity stunt would’ve most likely excited a majority of audiences. Plus, Muppetland would’ve concreted the Muppets as part of the Disney family. Such a major event would’ve made it known that the Muppets had a new home, and Disney had a new imaginative ally with Jim Henson on board.
The event would finally end on New Year’s Eve of 1991, where Mickey and Minnie would return as special guests, kicking off the next year-long event that would lead to the opening of the newest land: Mickey’s Toontown. But sadly, the end to this story isn’t as fun as its beginnings.
On May 16th, 1990, the sudden and unexpected passing of Jim Henson changed everything. The world mourned the death of a creative genius, and with Jim gone, the deal that was so close to being completed suddenly hit a major roadblock. The Henson family, feeling with the mixed emotions of grief, decided to pull back from the merger despite Disney and its lawyers pressuring them to move forward. Imagineers continued to move forward with the plans to retrofit the Lincoln Theater into the new Muppet experience, and teams continued to work on the various Muppetland takeover events.
But ultimately, the deal did not work out. By this point in the process, a significant amount of time and money had been put into developing and producing Muppet content for the parks, particularly the new Muppet*Vision 3D attraction. Disney was determined to get some sort of rights and access to the Muppet brand, and after six months of lengthy court battles and tons of bad publicity on both parts, an out-of-court settlement was eventually reached.
The Disney company was left with an extremely limited and short 18-month contract for the Muppets in the park, and after 18 months, they would have to renegotiate. The contract only allowed them to use Muppets in the 3D attraction, as well as a stage show in MGM Studios titled ‘Here Come the Muppets,’ a nod to the previously canceled parade. Jack Lindquist was forced to abandon his plan to promote the park with the Muppets for a full year, but he quickly rebounded with a new cross-promotion with…baseball cards. Remember, it was a much, much different time.
The Muppets property would eventually be sold off to a German television company, which quickly suffered a stock collapse, forcing them to sell the Muppets back to the Henson family for a significantly smaller sum of money. Years later, in 2004, the Henson family would finally agree to sell the Muppets to Disney, where they continue to live on today in various forms throughout the park. And while we might never see the Muppets take over Disneyland, at least they are still producing fun new content with the company today.
(Clip of the Muppets Present…Great Moments in American History show at Liberty Square.)
MUPPETS Hooray! Great moments in history The ride of Paul Revere Great moments in history You saw it all right here!
(The video is suddenly put on pause.)
KEVIN Hey, Dan, I’m back. How was the channel while I was gone?
DAN It was great! I learned so much. For instance, did you know that Sammy Davis, Jr. died on the same day as Jim Henson? (Cutting back to a newspaper clipping shown earlier.)
KEVIN No, I had no idea. How many candles did you sell?