The Betesh Group - no, we hadn't heard of them before, either - has for the past few months been putting out a line of
Muppet Babies toys. The line is being sold under the "Toy Play" company banner. Among other items in the line-up, they have a set of 10-inch plush dolls that are modeled after Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, and Gonzo.
The kicker, and the reason that TVShowsOnDVD is telling you about them, is that each one of these toys are sold with a 30-minute DVD which contains a full episode of a
Muppet Babies episode!
We apologize that we can't tell you which episodes are available to go with these toys, or even if there's more than one episode if you buy different toys. Readers have actually been tipping us off about this situation for a LONG time...January, in fact! Since then we've repeatedly asked The Betesh Group AND their PR company for more information on the toys, and the episodes included, but we were never supplied with it.
So now we are throwing this out to you, the fans of the show. Go get 'em! These are for sale in-stores at chains such as Target, Toys R Us, and Shopko. You can also get them from Amazon.com for $15.99 each. Here are the links you can use, and it helps support TVShowsOnDVD by doing so:
But wait, there's more! Fall 2004 will see two more entries in this line-up of toys: Animal and Rowlf. Rowlf is definately slated to also contain a bonus
Muppet Babies episode DVD, and we presume that Animal will, too (even though mention of it is omitted at The Betesh Group's website). Here's a look at them:
Will there ever be a chance to own
Muppet Babies episodes on DVD without having to buy some toys first? We're not sure. What we DO know is that in mid-February, the Jim Henson Company sold all rights to this show, and other
Muppets TV series (except for ones they didn't own themselves, like CTW/Sesame Workshop's
Sesame Street) to none other than The Walt Disney company. You can read more about that
here. We don't know what Disney's DVD plans are for these properties; they're probably still sorting it all out.
So for now we can surf on over to Amazon and order these lovable plush toys to cuddle, and watch some DVDs along the way. Stay tuned, and we hope to have more about this whole thing...from more of you fans, if nothing else! Speaking of fan support, our thanks to readers who alerted us to this for the past few months: David Pierce, Christian Malta (who reports that he saw these dolls advertised in a TV commercial!), and someone who simply identified himself as "Dave". Also to be thanked is Joel Swaan, who sent us the heads-up about the Henson/Disney deal.
Be sure to tune in to the TVShowsOnDVD news section tomorrow, and we'll talk about the latest tidbit we've heard about which might affect
Fraggle Rock's chances of coming to DVD.
**UPDATE** It looks like we have an episode list after all! A post on the Home Theater Forum last night eventually led us to
this post at the MuppetCentral.com discussion forum, where a poster calling themselves "Dr. Bombay" quotes an e-mail reply they got from The Betesh Group in response to the episode question:
That was a direct copy-and-paste, so any title or grammar errors don't originate with us. We've linked each of those titles to what ought to be the proper episode descriptions at TVTome.com, for your convenience. There was no word yet on which episodes would be the Animal and Rowlf figures in the Fall, but the poster promised to ask Betesh about this later on.
Finally, getting back to the
Fraggle Rock item, you can find our news post about that right
here.
