A Forgotten ’80s Cartoon Delivered Iconic Indiana Jones and Star Wars Parodies – Now You Can’t Even Stream It
The 1980s were something of a magical time for entertainment, especially if you were a kid. Saturday morning cartoons not only still existed but were in their prime offering up a wide range of now-iconic shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Smurfs, and so many more. It was also a time when the media landscape was much less consolidated than it is now and that led one particular Saturday morning cartoon to do something truly ingenious, brilliantly combining live-action movie clips with animation to pull off perfect parodies of films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, even Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was brilliant, engaging, and fun for adults and kids alike but despite being one of the best cartoons of the era, you can’t stream it now — and you likely never will be able to.
Debuting in 1984, Muppet Babies was a truly unique series. The animated series, which ran for eight seasons and a total of 107 episodes, presented the beloved Muppets characters as animated toddlers living in a nursery where they were cared for of a woman known as Nanny. The series was met with universal acclaim for being educational and entertaining, as well as it’s animation and more, even winning seven Daytime Emmy Awards over its run. But what really made the series fascinating was how it incorporated live-action clips from popular movies as part of their own parodies and it’s because of that audiences today will never get to watch the cartoon again.
Complicated Licensing Rights Have Killed Any Hope of Muppet Babies on Streaming
It’s not really a mystery that the 1980s and early 1990s were a very different place in terms of the entertainment landscape, but people don’t often think about that when it comes to how that could impact streaming or even home release of classic favorites including Muppet Babies. The series ran in the days before the large-scale consolidation of various IP under specific corporate umbrellas and, at the time, that was good for the show. According to one of the show’s cartoonists, Guy Gilchrist, when it came to some of the specific films they wanted to use clips from, it was merely a matter of Jim Henson just asking his friends if he could use their things.
“Besides using the stuff that was in the public domain, like the silent stuff that we used in the dream sequences… Remember, the editing on that was incredibly wonderful. We used a lot of film clips from a lot of different things, including Raiders [of the Lost Ark], Star Wars, and all that,” Gilchrist explained at L.A. Comic Con in 2023. “Jim was very good with George Lucas. George came in and worked on Labyrinth with Jim and that was not their first collaboration. Their first collaboration was… they were across the street from each other. Jim was filming The Muppets and George was doing Star Wars across the street. Yoda didn’t work, so Jim, Frank, and Kathy Mullen fixed Yoda. Then, Steven Spielberg was also a very dear friend of Jim’s, and Jim fixed E.T. because E.T. didn’t work.”
That sort of friendship led to Lucas, Spielberg, and others being happy to give Jim permission to use clips from their projects when he asked.
“Back in those days, everyone loved us,” he said. “They loved Jim — would do anything for us. We didn’t fill out forms, requests, this or that. We basically did whatever we wanted to do with the blessing of all the studios. These days, things are owned by Disney, Universal…and there’s not the camaraderie at the creative level that we had in the eighties. That’s why, I’m sorry to say, you will not see the original Muppet Babies. And it’s the question I get asked the most. I had a lot to do with the Babies. I know how much you guys love the Babies and would love to have them back. But I don’t really know a way that will ever happen. It’s copyrights and trademarks and that sort of thing, unfortunately.”
In Theory The Rights Could Be Worked Out, But It Would Be Too Expensive to For It To Be Worthwhile
Now, complicated rights and licensing is something that can arguably overcome, but even though it could be done doesn’t mean it makes sense, from a corporate standpoint. Licensing for every individual live-action would span multiple entertainment companies, would each come with their own terms and fees, and could even potentially come with limitations about which clips were okay to use possibly leading to some alterations having to be made to episodes for streaming — we’ve seen that with music licensing in shows made before the streaming era, after all, including The Muppets. The cost of negotiating those rights and then actual costs associated with the licensing rights themselves would no doubt be very cost prohibitive. Streaming alone wouldn’t be enough to create value enough to make it a solid return on investment — and while you could suggest a physical media release would be profitable due to the nostalgia of the show, keep in mind that’s a different set of licenses and, likely even more costs involved.
Unfortunately, all of the costs and complications involved in making the streaming of the original Muppet Babies means streaming is never going to happen, but not all hope is lost. For fans who still have their old VHS recordings of the show off the television from back in the day, you can go back anytime. You can also sometimes find episodes on YouTube if you look. And, while it’s not the same, there was a Muppet Babies reboot that ran for three seasons that debuted on Disney Junior in 2018. That series kept much of the same original concept but featured a different animation style. It can never replace the original, but it is charming in its own way — and that one you can stream on Disney+.
