In 2005 Disney released Season 1 of The Muppet Show on DVD. In 2007, Season 2 was released. In 2008, Season 3 got it’s turn. And in 2864, we might get to see Seasons 4 and 5 of The Muppet Show released to the public – if we’re lucky.
We know that music rights are currently the main hold up on the release of these last 2 seasons. Also, according to Martin Baker, part of the issue has to do with the audio, as the original backing tracks were wiped, meaning that any song from these episodes only exists in it’s full music-vocal form, making any type of remixing or corrections almost impossible.
But we here at The Muppet Mindset are people of action, and we’ve decided to bring you some of Seasons 4 and 5, right here on the site.
While we do not advocate internet piracy and copyright infringement, it’s hard to ignore that a lot segments from these unreleased episodes are online. Today we’re bringing you just a few of the clips from the first Season 4 episode!
Episode 1 – John Denver
Whatnot’s sing ‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’
John Denver sings ‘Garden Song’
The Swedish Chef tries to make squirrel stew.
Some Muppet pigs sing ‘The Happy Wanderer’
Miss Piggy and Kermit argue about their habitats
John Denver sings ‘Grandma’s Feather Bed’
The Muppet Mindset 
“part of the issue has to do with the audio, as the original backing tracks were wiped, meaning that any song from these episodes only exists in it’s full music-vocal form, making any type of remixing or corrections almost impossible.” …and yet the sound quality on the songs were really a non-issue on the season 4&5 episodes that were released beforehand on Time-Life….
I’m just going off what I heard at Martin’s talk last week
To me, I don’t think those seasons would be released that year. We’d all be dead by then, you know?
How did I now just found this out?
D.W. McKim makes a point. 9 Season 4 episodes and 12 Season 5 episodes still exist with the backing track via the Time Life DVDs and the 1994 TV masters COULD still exist. All they have to do is make audio composites. Looking in the ITV vault wouldn’t hurt either (mind you, Synapse found a print of Creepers, the US version of Dario Argento’s Phenomena in the New Line/Warner vault and they don’t even have the rights anymore, so anything’s possible).
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