This month's The Muppets movie tries to reverse decades of brand mismanagement.
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THE FAULTTHE
FIX
Selling out Some fans balked in 1996, when their beloved Miss Piggy started shilling for Baked Lays, and then again in 2006, when she appeared in a Pizza Hut commercial to sing suggestively about "Cheesy Bites." Kermit's bizarre Ford Escape Hybrid ads didn't fare much better.
starting fresh The Muppets takes place in the real world, just as Henson intended. And fun, character-driven story lines abound: Miss Piggy, for example, starts the movie as a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, and Animal is in a clinic for anger management.
Overextending the brandTheme-park rides! Baby clothes! A Muppified version of America's Next Top Model! For decades, no possible extension was too off-brand for Henson's franchise, which made fans wonder if its ever-changing owners knew what made the Muppets special at all.
focusing on the funny Though some corporate tie-ins are inevitable (see: a line of Kermit the Frog kicks from Adidas), the modern Muppets promote themselves on YouTube, where their cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" has logged more than 22 million hits.
selling to kids Muppets movies have long been rated G--an odd choice for a group whose '70s TV gig contained an episode titled "The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence." And Tim Hill, who directed 1999's Muppets From Space, was best known as a writer on SpongeBob SquarePants.
courting to grown-ups The Muppets touts an edgier PG rating, for "mild rude humor," and coscreenwriters Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, who penned the R-rated hit Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The laundry list of buzzed-about cameos--Jack Black! Mila Kunis! Zach Galifianakis!--doesn't hurt either.
The Great Muppet (Financial) Caper
1989 Disney agrees to buy the Jim Henson Co. for a reported $100 million; deal falls through after Henson's sudden death. 2000 German media group EM.TV buys the Jim Henson Co. for $680 million. 2001 EM.TV sells rights to Sesame Street characters to Sesame Workshop, a New York-based not-for-profit, for $180 million.
2003 EM.TV sells the Jim Henson Co. back to the Henson family for $89 million. 2004 Disney buys the Muppets for $68 million.
Everett Collection (Sam The Eagle, Kermit The Frog, The Muppets, Spongebob Squarepants, The Muppet Christmas Carol); Jack Abuin/Zuma Press (Jack Black)
A version of this article appears in the November 2011 issue of Fast Company.