It’s time to stop the music. It’s time to dim the lights. After 34 years of running at Walt Disney World, the curtains are falling in MuppetVision 3D. The final day of viewing the presentation is Saturday, June 7th.
The attraction is closed to create a planned “Monsters, Inc.” space in the Grand Avenue area of Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park.
Premiered in 1991, the show is a special effect film enhanced by several animatronics, taking park guests on a tour of Muppet Studios, which prepares a gorgeous celebration with musical numbers, fireworks. Muppet-style chaos continues.
I tried to incorporate all the sights and gags of vision with fresh eyes to finally spin MuppetVision.
The first
MuppetVision Prehows has a stack of behind-the-scenes props and on-screen instructions to the audience who have been played for laughs. What’s more looming than anything is the Muppet-turned-Winning Jim Henson flag.
MuppetVision is widely considered to be the final major project involving Henson, who unexpectedly died of pneumonia in 1990. He was 53 years old.
Walt Disney Co. and Henson Associates were negotiating a merger, but after Henson’s death things got complicated with rights and merchandising lawsuits and reversals. (The Orlando Sentinel called these documents “strongly verbal”).
However, things were resolved in time for Muppet Vision to debut on May 16, 1991, exactly a year after Henson’s death.
Fast forward to Disney by 14 years under Chairman Michael Eisner and purchased the Muppets for the reported $90 million.
Salon to Sam
The show was packed with one-liners and the audience noticed they were responding with both cracks and guffers from characters in the booth, including Statler and Waldorf, and the characters who were jokingly courtesy of Fozzie.
But the enduring joke says that the musical finale is titled “salute to all countries, but mostly America.” It might hit differently in 2025, but it’s so Sam.
He then gives out a humorous little eek when Kermit the Frog tells Sam that he has to pack a “glowing three-hour finale” into a minute and a half. Sam may not be a star, but he may be the best supporting actor.
I can see Paris
MuppetVision may be the only place where you can see Miss Piggy underwear twice at a time. The audience is suddenly pulled behind the ski boat, so they get a full-on bloomer. Then the finale becomes Amac, and her Lady Liberty costume peels off.
It’s not bawdy. The skin is not displayed. This might be a relationship with humor. Or maybe everything is wrong for today. Or maybe it’s just a puppet. Pig doll.
Finally
In the final scene, after the confusion in the finale, Muppet Vision literally breaks down the fourth wall behind the stage of 3D gags that appear to stretch over the audience and Kermit (voiced by Henson) at the end of the Muppet Lab Fire Station ladder. Through the gape in the background, you can see the costumed character Pltune as if it were in a real theme park. There are also Mickey Mouse-shaped balloons. Back there, it’s the 90s.
What’s next?
Do you want to talk about longevity? Elsewhere in Orlando Theme Park that season, the “American Tail Show” was featured at Universal Studios, similar to the “Deep of the Deep” Underwater exhibition at Sea World Orlando.
The Muppets clearly still have a home in Hollywood Studios. The gang will be incorporated into a new version of Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster in the park, which has featured Aerosmith since its launch in 1999.
The reimagined Ride poster art showed characters such as Kermit, Piggy, Animals and other members, as well as characters such as electric mayhem in a convertible that includes license plates that read MUPP3TS.
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Original issue: 6:06am, June 5th, 2025 EDT
