My Week with Muppets Online
by Kynan Barker
June 17-21, 2002
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Muppet Fandom eats itself: This week, Deputy My Weeker Kynan Barker writes a column for a Muppet website about Muppet websites. If you're a Muppet fan, it's possible that this infinite regression may actually cause you to implode. If you're not a Muppet fan, then the world is more mixed up than you thought.
Corporate.com
Monday, June 17
In previous My Weeks, I have sat, in judgement, high atop my own personal Mount Criticism, proclaiming my opinions on such topics of import as Sesame Street CD's, and Sesame Street videos. It was easy enough to pretend to be an expert on CD's and videos, because, well, everybody kind of is these days. But the world wide web is different. In cyberspace, I don't know nothin' about nothin'.
Here's an actual example from My Own True Life of how switched-on and intuitive I am about the internet: I pitched an online Flash animation series to a multimedia production company the day before the dot-com bust. The company in question literally fired half its staff twenty minutes before I got there. And I pitched my series on paper -- I didn't even think to stick Post-It notes to my laptop screen and pretend it was a Power Point presentation.
So, here's a secret between you and me: This week, in order to appear more like a web expert (or "webspert"), I'm going to just make up my own jargon (such as "webspert") and largely muddle through. And don't worry, I want you all to know that before I start criticizing any websites, I've just taken a bottle of Windex and a clean damp cloth to the walls of my glass house here at Tough Pigs.
Incidentally, today I'm meant to be writing about Henson.com. Did you notice how much time I spent just now, patently not writing about Henson.com? It was all to avoid opening with this paragraph here:
Things I hate about Henson.com: It's slow. It's full of bad Flash design. It's too commercial. It's never updated. It's difficult to navigate. It's full of glitches. It has an Enter page, like maybe I didn't really mean it when I typed in the address, and they're giving me a chance to reconsider. It plays music at you and makes weird little beeping sounds. And, worst of all, it doesn't even pretend to be fan-friendly.
There. I've said it. If this were a movie, I'd be the character who sat meekly through all the family arguments, never breathing a word, until suddenly blurting out a big tearful rant, right in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, causing everyone to fall horribly silent, except for an elderly character actor who chokes on a piece of turkey. I'm played by Seth Green, let's say, or Tobey Maguire. And the scene would end with Craig Allen, the head of Jim Henson Interactive, quietly putting down his napkin, clearing his throat, and walking pointedly from the room.
I'm sorry, Craig. I didn't mean to be so harsh. You've done other things that are really cool. The Digital Performance System -- that really rocks. And Muppet Race Mania -- way to go. And MuppetWorld... well, let's not talk about MuppetWorld. If it helps at all, you're played by Tom Hanks.
But here's the thing -- it doesn't matter that I hate Henson.com. It honestly, actually doesn't, because I'm not the audience for Henson.com. The fans don't matter there, and Craig knows that. When I said it was corporate, and not fan-friendly, I summed up the point of the website, which is to give Henson a presence online and make them look like a living, breathing company. The site is actually an online press kit -- it's a message to other businesses, potential buyers, TV networks: "Here we are, this is what we've done, this is what we're capable of doing, and hey, look how much we spent on graphic design."
The Henson.com that would make me happy, that would make all the fans happy, would be like an online version of Jim Henson: The Works -- detailed episode guides, behind-the-scenes photos, full to bursting with information, fun, downloads, screensavers, features, creatures and hidden treasures. It would be updated weekly, if not daily -- and it would be free, all free!
But, duh. That's just not feasible. Not for Henson, not for any comparable production company. The web just doesn't work like that. It never did; it's just that for a long time everybody acted like it would one day, and spent huge amounts of time and money on really ambitious things (like MuppetWorld, and the old Henson.com), which fooled the fans into thinking we deserve that kind of thing, all the time and on demand.
Some corporate dot-coms still play along -- Star Trek's official sites are a good example, and advance hype sites for big event movies, but they're in a whole different category. Henson.com doesn't need to compete with stuff like that. And it doesn't need to try to please the fans. As you'll see tomorrow, we do a pretty good job of that on our own.
Craig knows all this. And he's okay with it. Right, Craig? You can come back to the dining room now. Dianne Weist is about to serve dessert.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Fans.com
Tuesday, June 18
Yesterday, I had a few words about Henson.com. Some feelings were hurt, voices were raised, maybe one or two things were said in the heat of the moment. But ultimately, it was a civil, adult affair -- and, luckily for me, it was also distinctly one-sided. Henson, like all good media companies, leaves the criticism to the critics and never enters the fray. So I could have really gone to town on them, and I still wouldn't be in much danger of getting a rebuttal from the offices of Jim Henson Interactive.
But today, I'm breaking all the rules. I'm not just biting the hand that feeds me, I'm biting everybody else who's here for a feed. Today, it's open season on Muppet fan sites, and I expect to cop some heat. All the standard disclaimers apply: The opinions of this piece don't necessarily reflect the management; I reserve the right to make broad, sweeping generalizations with no basis in fact; and the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the square of the other two sides. Ready?
Here's how I see it: Right now there are four major players in the Big Muppet Fan Site stakes, give or take. They are: Bill Sherman's site, the rec.arts.Henson+Muppets newsgroup, the news and discussion site Muppet Central, and the quirky, flamboyant, eccentric and cranky Tough Pigs. (There are, of course, many others, but if I keep mentioning everything I'm leaving out, today's column will be entirely parenthetical.)
Bill Sherman's Muppet site is a giant, hulking mass of archeological web space -- it hasn't been updated in years, but it contains the sum total of all world Muppet knowledge up until about 1997. It's the Dead Sea Scrolls for Muppet fans. It'd take at least a month of really concerted pointing-and-clicking to actually get through it all. Go check it out. I'll see you back here in July.
The newsgroup, rec.arts.Henson+Muppets, is like the Muppet Jedi Council, sitting slightly apart from the general fan community, giving answers to all who seek them and otherwise largely speaking to each other in hushed tones. The answers they give to those who seek them are, almost invariably, "Statler" and "Waldorf." Got a question? Make a pilgrimage and ask nicely. (Hint: Waldorf's the one with the mustache.)
Phil Chapman's Muppet Central was my first introduction to real, hardcore fandom. Until I discovered the site and its discussion board, I was content to be a normal guy who wrote TV comedy, was a bit keen on Muppets and probably had a few too many Gonzo dolls on his bookcase. Then I stumbled across MC, and there, I realized were People Like Me. Soon, I discovered vast archives of news articles, press releases, interviews, reviews and lists -- so many lists -- of merchandise and collectibles. And a discussion board, where People Like Me could talk about Muppets just as much as we darn well wanted to. It was great fun. For a while.
So here, because you've all been waiting, are the things that bug me about Muppet Central. Either Phil is talking down to us, or it's actually intended for eight year olds, because the editorial style, such as it is, is banal beyond belief. Which I guess is kind of okay, because the content, such as it is, is generally brief and functional, so maybe I just get bored by trite sentences and bad syntax. The site is overly focused on corporate news, which again might be forgiveable since there's so little else going on, but I mean, gee, that's a lot of finance for a site about dolls. The Muppet Central discussion board, in its original format, was unwieldy and sprawling and often sub-literate -- a list to which, thanks to its current format, you can now add "impossible to navigate."
But the real problem is: Muppet Central has no Soul, no Personality. It's merely the sum of its parts, which are all flawed, in just the regular kinds of ways. Those flaws might be bearable if the parts added up to one identifiable Whole. Then you could say, "That's okay, I still love it, because it's Good Ol' Muppet Central." But there is no "Good Ol' Muppet Central" -- it's like the difference between the world's biggest hard drive and the world's biggest library. The hard drive might be handy and comprehensive, but I'd rather hang out in the library, with a bit of dust in the atmosphere, and even a few spiders.
Let's assume the library is Tough Pigs. There's a librarian -- a cranky, formidable librarian with a heart of gold, a couple assistant librarians who don't seem to do much other than help to keep the desk tidy, plus -- and here's the important part -- the non-fiction section is confined to one small shelf in an unmarked room, while the fiction department is sprawled out over three floors, and all the books are funny.
Things that bug me about Tough Pigs: The web is full to bursting with dull, pointless, soul-destroying pages called "This Is My Website" that are all about the person who's made it, because those people all assume that some vague, unnamed Audience will be interested in whatever happens to interest them. Tough Pigs is Danny's version of "This Is My Website." It's all about him. (Even my parts.) It's entirely egocentric -- a vanity project. And we're a part of that. We're only here to validate his unconventional lifestyle. Just because this particular "This Is My Website" happens to be entertaining, doesn't make it right.
A fish smells from the head. If Danny's like the coolest kid in school -- bear with me while I gracefully switch metaphors -- then the Tough Pigs discussion board is like his Scooby Gang. Not much happens without his lead. If he's away from school one day, everybody else goes to play with different friends. It's nobody's fault, that's just what happens with a strong personality.
And, finally -- Danny's not just cranky. He's cranky and proud of it. He will never be happy. He openly had a love affair with Play With Me Sesame, and then, with no provocation at all, compared it unfavorably to Joanie Loves Chachi. There's just no pleasing this SOB. He is a relentless crank machine, and when he's finally dead, I am convinced he'll somehow find a way to come back and complain about Jack and the Beanstalk one more time. We might like him, but the Muppets, frankly, were safer without him.
I'm out of space (or, as we say in web jargon, "bytes"). But basically, this is why we don't need Henson.com, and Henson.com doesn't need us. Between these fan sites and a bunch of other, smaller, more specific pages I'll be talking about later in the week, we've got the fan situation covered. Henson just has to look into maybe someday making some more Muppet stuff for us to talk about, and everyone'll be happy. Except Danny.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Kids.com
Wednesday, June 19
So you're three years old, and consequently, you're a Sesame Street fan. Sesame Street is over for the day, and you haven't had enough Muppets. Trouble is, there's only so many times your parents can stand watching CinderElmo, and your Sesame Road tape melted in the car's tape deck, and you've filled up all your Bear in the Big Blue House coloring books, and you've lost your Sesame Baby Big Bird, it's two hours until the next repeat of Play with Me Sesame, and you live in America so you can't watch The Hoobs -- so what do you do?
Until very recently, there was nothing you could do. You were out of options. Trapped in a world beyond hope, without any Muppet-based entertainment, until, conceivably, the next morning, when Sesame Street would be on again. But now, thank the sweet merciful Frog above, there's one last option: Websites for kids. Finally, you can visit Sesame Street, Bear in the Big Blue House and Play With Me Sesame "virtually." As opposed to watching them on TV or video. Because... Um. Never mind.
Of course, if you're reading this, then you're not really three years old. Which brings us to the first problem when it comes to websites for kids: Kids can't use them without Mom or Dad's help. Hey, maybe that's not such a big problem; I mean, learning should be a caring, sharing experience for the Whole Family, so it only makes sense that kids need assistance navigating to a website, and then finding the right part of a website, and then figuring out whether you're really at the right part of the website, and then for Frog's sake how to work the damn thing, and -- hold on, now Mom needs help too.
Well, that's okay, there are plenty of other, non-Web based things for you to do while you wait for her to stop muttering under her breath -- you could do some coloring, or do a little dance, or match up pairs of... Wait, I've found another problem. If you're a kid, there's very little you can do online that you can't do just as well, if not better, in the Real Live World. It's just that online, it's themed. (Of course, that hasn't stopped Microsoft Solitaire from being the most popular computer game in the world ever. And think of the time you've saved every day by not having to shuffle and re-deal manually. That's money in the bank, my friends.)
But let's ignore those fundamental problems for a while, and pretend that websites for three year olds is actually a feasible idea. And let's also assume that somehow, by a miracle combination of effort, luck, and technical support, a child actually finds his or her three year old self in front of, let's say, SesameStreet.com.
For starters, good luck. For some reason, the Sesame Street interface is really, really small. Normally, with products for little kids, all the important parts are made bigger, sturdier, clearer. Picture books are bigger than normal books, with large print and big pictures. My First Learning Computer has big bright buttons. Duplo blocks are bigger and harder to swallow than regular Legos. But Sesame Street's website bucks the trend and only uses the half the screen. Maybe it's better for the environment; they're saving pixels for future generations. Whatever. It's also Flash-based, and slower than it should be, and really seriously not intuitive.
Time out to set the scene: Basically, it's a cartoon version of the Street set, and in front of you, along the bottom of the screen, are little icons of all the major Muppets' faces. Each face takes you someplace different. Oh, there's also Elmo's World, which a different icon, somewhere up above. And there's a whole bunch of things to click on over on the Street sign to the left as well. And some things kind of embedded in the set, too. Confusing, perhaps, but also -- EXCITING! Let's explore! I'm going to click on... um... Ernie!
Okay, here's an idea. If you design a website that's supposed to encourage "exploring," something should happen when you click on things. That sense of adventure is really seriously curbed when a kid's first curious, impulsive click on a random icon is followed by a minute of counting while the next Flash animation loads. I'm bored.
Let's try bearinthebigbluehouse.com instead. There's an "Enter" page -- oh, I forgot to complain about Sesame Workshop's Enter page, and I wish I had, since it's so overloaded with junk, and the "go to Sesame Street" button is actually, literally, scientific-textbook teensy, but never mind, it's too late to go back and change it, so what was I talking about? Bear. Right. It takes too long to load. And the "activities" are, um... well, they're downloads of PDF files. You click on them, you wait, you open them with Adobe Acrobat, you prin them out, and then you color them in. And I guess the logical conclusion would be to scan the pictures and admire your finished work on your monitor. It's a cute enough site, but I can't see actual kids enjoying it.
And so, on to Play With Me -- oh, wait. One more thing about the Sesame Street site. What is it with Sesame Workshop and cartoon Muppets? The Sesame page is all about the Muppets -- but it's all cartoons, even the static pictures. Muppets, Muppets everywhere, but not a trace of fleece. It's like they had a meeting with two proposals on the agenda: One, that the Muppets should be the icons and flag-bearers of the Street, and two, that they give Bernie's brother-in-law some animation work. And bingo, Animated Muppets. The dumbest idea ever. (And I saw Rob Schneider's The Animal.)
Right. The Play With Me Sesame website. Take it away, three year old Kynan:
The website? Is like really cool? And fun? Cause you get to play all the games? And when you wait for the real games? There's like other games to play? So you don't get bored? And Grover dances! And I watch him dance for too long, and I forget to click on anything, cause it's like totally fun watching him dance, again and again? And again!
Praise just doesn't come much higher than that. But just to completely ruin the magic of a virtual three year old praising the site in a purely innocent way, allow me to comment that Play With Me Sesame's website is exactly like a Bizarro World SesameStreet.com -- It's entirely Flash, but it's also entirely charming, and it feels like the show, because the characters are all there, not just animated versions of them, and they interact with you, and there's no waiting time, and it's kid friendly. And, my friends, Grover dances.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Nubbin.com
Thursday, June 20
For the uninitiated, the world of fandom is a strange one to come to grips with. Most people don't spend any of their actual spare time thinking about Muppets. They might watch, they might enjoy, but once it's over, and Zoot plays that last note on the sax, they just don't have brain space devoted to it. And when one of these people -- let's be honest with ourselves, and call them Normal People -- when they become aware of the existence of Muppet fans, their world changes. They have to adapt to the idea that for some reason -- unknown and unknowable to them -- we actually do spend spare time thinking about Muppets. And arguing about them, and fretting about them, and bidding on auctions for ceramic statues of them. And whatever.
So, that's weird. But if they look closer, they may begin to notice subgroups. There are Collector Fans, and Non-Collector Fans. There are Fraggle Fans and Sesame Fans. There are Detail Fans, who know the difference between recording dates and air dates, and have a list of all the guest stars' birthdays. There are Lip-Syncher Fans, who grew up playing with puppets, and sometimes find themselves subconsciously lip-synching to a radio song, without even being aware that their hand is moving. There are fans of individual Muppeteers.
Somewhere in the world, there is even a Jack and the Beanstalk fan.
It gets to the point where you start finding subgroups of subgroups of subgroups, until everything's categorized and subcategorized down to a nubbin. And that's when it gets interesting. Today I'm going to look at those specialist fan sites, the nubbin sites.
These aren't just sites that some kid threw together back in the mid-90's when it was cool to just make a website in your spare time. [ Editor's note: Um, it is still cool to make a website in your spare time, isn't it? Just checking. ] These aren't slapdash efforts hidden somewhere in Geocities or Tripod with text saying "I like the Muppets Show. Some of my favorite character is Kermit. Here are some quotes [ COMING SOON ]." These are sites by people who really, really care. And they are alarmingly specific.
Nubbin sites for Muppet performers: There's a Louise Gold site. There's a Richard Hunt site. There's a Caroll Spinney site. There's a site which, for no readily identifiable reason, provides documentary evidence of Muppeteer cameos.
More Nubbin sites: There's a site for Fraggle Rock. There's a site which effectively time capsules all that is glorious about Sesame Street in the seventies. There's a site all about the many international versions of Sesame Street. There's a site for Janice, because she may be a puppet, but by gosh, she's a babe.
But this is possibly my favorite Nubbin site of all. For its obscurity, for its specificity, and for its level of detail, I award the Tough Pigs Nubbin Site of The Week to... This MuppetVision 3D site, made by a 22-year-old kid who not only saw MuppetVision 3D a whole lot more than the recommended dose of, say, maybe three times, but also took notes. (Taking notes at Disney World is one thing. But doing it with 3D glasses on, well, that takes something special.) I love that he thought of doing this, I love that he could then be bothered actually doing it, and most of all, I love that he did it in the sheer blind Nubbin hope that somewhere out there lurked somebody who might want to actually read it. Frog bless you, MuppetVision 3D Nubbin man.
There's no need to actually review any of these. Most of them are small, many are incomplete, and -- due to a lack of resources or just the scarcity of available information, a natural consequence of their very nubbinosity -- some don't really tell you all that much. But the point is, they're trying to exist. Like those incredibly primitive life forms you sometimes hear about which live inside volcanos, or so deep under the sea that they have no access to light, heat or reliable long-distance operators -- they've evolved against the odds, defying the laws of probability, mainly through sheer bloody-mindedness. And they're a symbol, my friends, of the endurance of fandom, through good times and through bad.
There are plenty of other hardcore fan communities out there -- your Star Trek, your Buffy, your Simpsons, your Stargate -- and they, too, produce major-league fan sites and little league Nubbin sites, tiny microcosms of obsession, but there's one important difference: All those shows are still on the air. Muppet fans, well, from time to time we've kind of run on our own steam. Sure, we'd all love it if we didn't have to -- I'm sure Henson would love it too -- but it's nice to know that when push comes to shove, we can keep the dream alive.
And that's a testament to the power of the dream as much as it is to the power of the fans.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Geek.com
Friday, June 21
Okay, let's talk about Star Trek. The original five-year mission o the USS Enterprise was cut short after three years due to dwindling ratings. (You always hear about things dwindling, but have you ever actually caught something mid-dwindle? I'm sorry, it's been a long week.)
The series would have been cut even shorter, at the end of the second season, if not for a massive letter campaign organized and executed by Star Trek fans. The Fans saved Star Trek. And suddenly, the landscape changed, and the Fans became a much more significant part of the Cult TV equation. They weren't just Nielsen numbers anymore, they were an actual entity, a force to be reckoned with. And not just reckoned with, but encouraged, enticed, and rewarded. The Fans saved Star Trek, and now Star Trek had to keep hold of the Fans. Making the product was now only part of the process.
Star Trek quickly became very, very good at fostering and maintaining that fan relationship. Public appearances, conventions, auctions, fan clubs, newsletters, merchandise -- and at this early stage, it wasn't just a money-making machine. It was an end unto itself, a recognition of the circular nature of the entertainment business, and Cult TV in particular.
Why were they so good at this, so quick to embrace it? Because the people who made Star Trek were geeks, and they weren't afraid to embrace their geeky fans. The process has become slicker now, more commercial, but even now, Star Trek's unique open-door policy on script submissions is testament to the fact that they still rely on the contribution of individual fans, and aren't terrified of leaving at least one door open for the occasional geek to slip through.
Now, let's talk about Muppets. As Muppet scribe Jim Lewis says, "Miss Piggy is a pig in a dress, and her whole life is a denial of that undeniable fact." And that's true of the folks at the Jim Henson Company, too -- they're grown-ups who play with puppets, but their corporate-image website is a denial of that undeniable fact.
Do a Google search for Muppet news, and Henson.com doesn't even make the list. There are Muppets on the official Henson site, but they're commercial links -- the Kermit NASCAR logo, the Treasure Island DVD -- but if you click on them, you get sent immediately away from Henson.com. It's like they're saying, hey, if that's what you want, then get outta here, ya crazy kid. We've got Grand Company Visions to tell you about.
The secret is, most of the Henson people, like the Star Trek people, are geeks too. (They're people who play with puppets, remember?) Some of them are even proud web geeks: Rick Lyon, Allan Trautman and Karen Prell all have their own sites -- they're all really proud of the work they've done, and they're not afraid to look like geeks. Henson.com, on the other hand, is like the geek who got a makeover and ends up dating the class jock without anyone the wiser. Henson.com has taken off its glasses, shaken out its hair, put on some makeup and snubbed its asthmatic geek friends.
How does the Star Trek model fit in here? On Monday, I already talked about how the Fan Dream of the Perfect Corporate Website isn't feasible, because we want them to give us free stuff (episode guides, archive notes, on-set photos, whatever) and capitalism hasn't found a way to make free stuff pay yet. But what if Corporate.com teamed up with Fan.com?
What if there were some way that Henson could endorse and oversee a comprehensive Fan Geek resource, without actually spending any money on it? What if they teamed up with some genuine Fan Geeks, the kind of people who would be spending all their time running a site like this anyway, and started a website? The result would be Geek.com -- or, in fact, Kermitage.com. In theory, it's win-win. In practice, like everything, it's more complicated than that. At the moment, Kermitage promises a lot that hasn't been delivered yet, and it could do with a damn good text editor, but it is a really good idea, and a clever use of the corporate-fan relationship.
But Henson's got other things to worry about at the moment, like trying to make some damn money, so I'm gonna challenge the fans: I want more really good ideas like that. I want the Muppet online experience to be like the Star Trek online experience, where you can't turn around without tripping over another Seven of Nine site.
Why is the most famous Muppet site of all -- Bert is Evil -- not even a real Muppet fan site? Where are the countless rival semi-legal Muppet script sites? Where are the Miss Piggy biographies, the Electric Mayhem discographies, the Dr. Bob jokelopedias? Where is the "I Love Martin P. Robinson" page? Why aren't there any Pepe sites out there? Why can't I find a list of Kermit quotes? Where are all the Grover-lovers, the Fozzie-philes and the Mokey-monkeys? And why should I have to wait until Bear's core audience grows up and starts typing before I can start illegally downloading Tutter sound clips?
Here's what I want: The Kermit/Miss Piggy Rumor File. The Pip and Pop FAQ. The Many Faces of Fat Blue. Crazy Harry Explodes Your Screen. Animal: A Freudian Analysis. Jerry Nelson -- The Man, The Muppets, The Music. An Andy and Randy Eulogy. Sam the Eagle's Political Commentary. Beauregard's Domestic Cleaning Tips. The Continuing Adventures of Traveling Matt. A Pictorial Guide to Muppet Performers with Beards.
So, fellow doll wigglers, this is my Tough Pigs Challenge to you: Go forth and multiply. A strong web presence is the sign of a strong fan base -- and by doing your bit for the Muppet Fan Revolution, you'll only be challenging Henson to create bigger and greater achievements. (Imagine how much effort they'll have to put into blowing us away at the next Muppetfest once all the fans know everything there is to know!)
Go on -- be a geek. But don't do it just because I told you to. Do it because you love the Muppets, and you've got a unique take on them that just has to be shared with the world. (Oh, what the heck, do it because I told you to.)
And if you do a good enough job, and your Muppet Geek fame spreads far and wide, then Craig Allen might even come round for Thanksgiving dinner.
PS: In case you're wondering, my all-time, number-one, desert island Muppet fan
site that doesn't exist yet is the Pictures of Kermit the Frog Meeting B-List
Celebrities Page. If you make it for me, I'll give you candy. Here's a
sample to help you get started.
For more on making your own website:
My Week with Sesame Home Video