zwolanerd

The big news this week is that Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion and that there will be a new Episode in 2015.  Nobody thought George Lucas would ever step away from the helm, and everybody’s pretty fired up at the possibility of the franchise having some good life left in it.  There’s a lot of speculation about who will direct and where the story lines will go from here.

All of this speculation, though, ignores the biggest question: Will we finally see The Muppet Show Season 4 released on DVD?

See, back in 2004, Disney bought The Muppets.  Some of us Muppet fans were worried about it, but it has so far been okay.  (I’d go so far as to say that last year’s Muppet movie was fantastic, even.) In August 2005, the first season of The Muppet Show was released on DVD. Season two  was released the following August, and season three in May of 2008. Four point five years later and we still don’t have seasons four or five!

Episode 17 of season four starred one Mark Hamill, as both Luke Skywalker and Luke Skywalker’s cousin “Mark Hamill.”  C3-P0, R2-D2, and Chewbacca also showed up, and a good time was had by all (except for would-be guest star Angus McGonagle, who gargled Gershwin).

Speculation has it that season four has been held up because George Lucas is notoriously prickly about licensing Star Wars (though it would be hard to tell that based on some evidence). Or maybe GL was worried someone would recognize Yoda and Fozzie sounded an awful lot alike.

Since Disney now owns both Star Wars and The Muppets, perhaps we will finally see season four on DVD instead of fuzzy YouTube bootlegs or old VHS tapes people sell at garage sales.

As Fozzie would say, I can bearly wait to find out.

Tags: Muppets, Star Wars

Written by: Mark