Planning

 I am going to loosely follow the standard essay structure as I feel that for my essay, the short history of the muppets ownership at the Walt Disney Company all needs to be covered in some way as it all flows in a story like way, especially ver the last 10 years where The Muppets have had the most prominace at Disney. 

I want my essay to flow like this: 

A brief introduction/summary previous history between The Muppets and Disney. Discussing the failed 1990 acquisition of the Jim Henson Cmpany by Disney. As well as briefly mentioning the troubled 90s for The Muppets, due to the deaths of Jim Henson and Richard Hunt. 

I then want to talk about the buyout of the Muppet and Bear in the big blue house prperties, 14 years later in 2004. Which leads into my queston, How Disney killed the Muppets? 

I want to talk about early projects, well the only early disney/muppet project in Muppets Wizard of Oz and how it failed to be a strong opener for disney and then discuss the development of the Jason Segel Muppet project which became The Muppets. 

I want to discuss the surpise success that The Muppets had, both critcally and financially which lead to Disney wanting to capatilise on this success with a follow up- Muppets Most Wanted.

Muppets Most Wanted did not do as as well as The Muppets both critically and finacially. And i want to discuss the reasons to why this might be before going on to talk about the third and final major project of the 2010s, The Muppets tv show for ABC 

I want to talk about the development and hype surrounding this show and then how and why it ultimately failed, talking about the poor reviews and awful ratings which lead to shows cancellation after only one season in 2016. 

My penultimate paragraph will discuss the firing of Steve Whitmire in 2017 and the reasons why he was fired after nearly 40 years with The Muppets, as well as briefly discuss the live shows in London and LA. 

Finally I will sum up my argument and discuss whether or not Disney killed the muppets.