Brian Henson, Jerry Juhl, and the rest of the Jim Henson Company were initially hesitant to proceed with the project since this would be the first Muppet movie without their creator. But as Henson recounted at the retrospective panel, eventually everyone came around to Katzenberg’s idea.
“[My dad, Jim Henson,] really didn’t know where to go with the next Muppet movie. And then, of course, having him no longer with us, we don’t even have him thinking, ‘Wow, what are we going to do next with the Muppets?’ We were really scared and careful. And what we realized by really embracing ‘A Christmas Carol’ and really creating a whole new world that wasn’t our world, but has the Muppets, was the fact that we could do something very fresh and different. Then we really fell in love with it.”
It’s great that they did because Christmas wouldn’t be complete for generations of fans without an annual viewing of “The Muppet Christmas Carol.” And now with the definitive version on its way to the Mouse House’s streaming service, it can actually be watched the way it was intended: on a TV (or any of your devices) and with the song “When Love Is Gone” to make everything make sense once again.
The new and improved version of “The Muppet Christmas Carol” will premiere on Disney+ on December 11, 2022, exactly 30 years after the movie’s first theatrical release.
