Disney's Muppet Babies Get Real!

Disney's Muppet Babies are now actual Muppets! 

No, they have grown up to be their adult selves yet, but they are now actual puppets as opposed to 3D animated characters. 

Executive Producer Tom Warburton with the Muppet Babies puppets

The Muppet Babies puppets were created for a series of shorts that be available every Friday beginning today through Aug. 1 on Disney Junior’s YouTube page.

Entertainment Weekly sat down with Muppet Babies Executive Producer Tom Warburton to talk about the shorts and how they came about. 

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Where did this idea come from?

TOM WARBURTON: Well, there’s always a little gap in between seasons and I thought, “How can we do something fun with the Muppets, with the Muppet Babies in between seasons while kids are waiting for the new episodes?” And I thought, “What if we…” Of course, I’ve always wanted have real Muppets with these characters, so I came up with this idea of them interacting with real kids and I talked to Matt Danner, my co-producer and supervising director, and he’s also the voice of Kermit. I said, “What if we did this?” And he has an adult Kermit puppet sitting on his shelf. So we got the five-year-old niece of one of the production assistant and we went to the park and just shot on my iPhone a little skit of going like, “Hey, I saw you go down the slide. I really looks fun, but I’m scared. Can you show me how?” And the girl goes down the slide and then Kermit goes down the slide. It’s down and dirty. We shot it in half an hour, and then I went to Disney and showed it to them and they were like, “This is great. We have to do this.” Then we had to go through the process of budgeting and scheduling and, on top of all the production we’re already making. And we did it. It was a 3-day shoot and every day my heart was just exploding with how cool it was to see the Muppeteers work with our characters. This has been a dream come true.

The puppet versions are all performed by the Muppet performers and voiced by the cast of the show.

You can watch the first short below:

Click here for the full interview. 

Madame Alexander Muppet Puppets!

The Madame Alexander Muppet puppets are now available!

If you recall our coverage from Toy Fair this year, the highlight was the Madame Alexander booth who showed off their Muppet puppets and dolls. 

Well, it seems the puppets are making their way to stores. Amazon has the best deals we've found so far. You can use the links below to order. 

Kermit

Miss Piggy

Animal

Fozzie

From the press photos it looks like Kermit and Animal were tweaked from the prototypes for the better, while Piggy looks relatively the same and poor Fozzie once again gets the shaft. Not that he looks bad now, but the prototype was just slightly better. 

As a reminder here are the originals shown at Toy Fair:

The dolls aren't yet available, but we expect them to be released soon.

FAO Sale

Toys R Us is having a 25% off sale including the recent Muppet puppets. It appears to be in store only, but if you haven't picked yours up yet, this might be a good time. 

FAO Muppet Puppets!

Just Play and FAO Schwarz have teamed and released an FAO Exclusive set of Muppet puppets. As a hole, the likeness are not as good as the recently unveiled Madam Alexander line (refer to our Toy Fair coverage), though they are still pretty good. Each can be found at FAO and Toys R Us locations as well as online through FAO at the links below.

Animal

It's not the best Animal puppet that's been released (that title is still held by Fisher Price's 1978 version) but far from the worst ,and I think this may even rival Madam Alexander's.

Fozzie

It's hard to make a decent Fozzie plush, sometimes they're all just terrible and sometimes it's a mater of the individual plush itself. Take a look at the photos below of the actual puppets in the store.

The first resembles the promo shot which it's odd eye placement and frumpy mouth:

 Now look at this one:  

Simple tweaks like correct eye placement and the nose slightly above the mouth make a world of difference.You'll have to dig through them to find the Fozzie that looks just right. 

Gonzo

The worst offender of Individuality syndrome in this line is Gonzo. Not because some are wildly better then others, it's that they seem to get worse and worse. In the selection I saw, his eyes got further and further apart, many had bald spots on his head where the fabric wasn't sewn properly, and his mouth was sucked in on the sides. Again, you'll have to dig through and compare for yourself.

Kermit

Luckily, our favorite frog was fairly consistent throughout. Simple yet effective. Much like the real Kermit himself.

Miss Piggy

This Piggy puppet is one of the best I've seen in awhile. She's actually gives the Madam Alexander version a run for her money, through the MA's version's hair and outfit put them at the top of pack. 

Which ones's your favorite?