From the vault: Talking ‘A Muppet Family Christmas’ with Henson biographer Brian Jay Jones
It's the greatest Christmas special ever — but you can't watch it on Disney+ or any other streaming service. Here's our conversation from 2022 diving into the mystery surrounding this classic.
This chat originally ran in the Dec. 12, 2022, edition of Popculturology. I’m republishing it here as a standalone article for this holiday season. Once again, my huge thanks to Brian Jay Jones for spending an evening talking A Muppet Family Christmas and Jim Henson with me.
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I adore A Muppet Family Christmas. It was my first entry into the world of Jim Henson. My mom taped it off TV, and our family would watch it on VHS year after year after year. Now, you can watch several bootlegged versions on YouTube.
Why YouTube and not streaming or Blu-ray, you ask? Surely, someone could be making money on this thing.
A Muppet Family Christmas, in its original form with all its songs and characters, does not exist on any official streaming service or physical media.
Brian Jay Jones was kind enough to chat with me about that last week. If you’re not familiar with Brian’s work, he has written several biographies, including ones on Washington Irving, George Lucas, Dr. Seuss and — most importantly for us here — Jim Henson. (It’s fantastic and you should check it out.)
We talked about how we watch Muppet Family Christmas, why there’s no official version available and what the special might’ve meant for Henson’s future had he not passed away. We talked for an hour and a half about so much more than this Christmas special.
As such, this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Bill Kuchman: Everyone, especially this past week since it’s the 30th anniversary, talks about Muppet Christmas Carol. But to me, A Muppet Family Christmas — that’s my Muppet movie. And I think that’s actually how I was first introduced to Muppets.
Brian Jay Jones: I actually came to Muppet Family Christmas late. I have to tell you I actually came to Muppet Family Christmas, I think, when I was writing the bio.
My Christmas production was always [Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas]. That’s why even when we come down to those contests over what’s the greatest Christmas special, when it gets down to Emmet Otter and Muppet Family Christmas — as well it should, in my opinion — I have to give the edge to Emmet just because of the nostalgia thing. But I love Muppet Family Christmas. I think it’s probably [Jim Henson’s] finest hour.
Bill: I love that cameo toward the end. I feel like Muppet Family Christmas had a special place for him. He died in 1990. Obviously he had no idea he was near the end.
Brian: There’s something super cool and a little eerie that he makes an appearance in that one. The gang’s all here. Jim makes his appearance. And then we lost him kind of shortly there after.
“I can’t attest to how important [Jim Henson] thought it was at the time, but I think the fact that he appears in it gives us an indication of that.”
— Brian Jay Jones
Bill: One of the lines that got me is, “They certainly seem to be having a good time out there, Sprocket. I like it when they have a good time.”
Brian: It’s great. I choked up watching it again last night. It gets me every time.
Bill: In your book, this whole special boils down to two pages. Do you have any idea how this came together?
Brian: No. I love that kind of stuff. I don’t remember there being anything in the files on it at all really … I should maybe go back and search his interviews at that time. Maybe if I go back and look, I might find something there where he talks about the origins of that.
Bill: To me, [Muppet Family Christmas is] the Avengers of the Jim Henson universe.
Brian: To me, it’s the DC/Marvel crossover. It’s everything. It’s every universe colliding in there.
Brian: There’s something so cool about when they go to the door for the carolers and you see Ernie and Bert bounding in. They’re all sitting there, and Grover is sitting behind somebody he shouldn’t be sitting behind. It’s such a cool moment. And it really makes me wonder who had that “wouldn’t it be awesome if?” idea there.
Bill: The rights issue is the big thing here. Disney+, you have all that Disney money. But in reality it’s not just Disney that has this problem. This is a Henson production and everything has gone in different directions now.
Brian: I always wonder with this stuff, like when The Muppet Show was in limbo and we were all debating would it ever be on Disney? I don’t actually know the math on this, but I constantly say the rights issue on something like for Disney is a fucking rounding error.
I’m sure Sesame, especially with HBO’s involvement would be like, we’re fine. You’ve got dispensation. I would really think between Disney, Henson and Sesame, they could pull this off. I don’t know why it’s impossible. We all seem to think it is. I seem to think it is. I don’t see it happening. I don’t why it wouldn’t though.
Bill: People do love this movie. The YouTube bootleg that I watch every year now has 1.4 million views … But for some reason, no one cares enough to flag it for copyright violations?
Brian: That is amazing. It makes me wonder if there’s a nod and wink on it. Remember at the end of Mystery Science 3000, they’d say keep circulating the tape?
Bill: For a special that obviously mattered to Jim Henson, that matters to so many people, this is the way we watch it? This version, it actually ends, as the credits are rolling, with a plug for the evening news —
Brian: The dead baby?
Bill: With keeping a dead baby alive. A doomed baby! Why is this how we’re watching this?
Brian: It’s still underground even though it’s out there for everybody to see on YouTube. Watching it with the commercials. There are some people out there I see who say “I have this on VHS,” but I don’t know if there was ever a complete version on VHS.
Bill: I don’t think so. You can go on Amazon right now and buy an official DVD of it. It’s like fifty dollars. It has the wrong version of Miss Piggy on the cover.
The “official” cut is also has different opening titles and is missing the “Sleigh Ride” musical number with Fozzie and The Snowman …
Brian: Which is like the best part. One of the best parts.
Bill: The Muppets Baby section is cut out. And I think the songs at the end are gone too.
Brian: It just doesn’t make any sense.
“[A Muppet Family Christmas is] a gift from above. It landed here for all of us to enjoy. We don’t know where or why or how.”
— Brian Jay Jones
Bill: I don’t know if it’s one of those things where no one cares, or it’s just not a priority for Disney and Henson?
Brian: Yeah, I don’t know. It could be that it’s not a priority. Now apart from the jurisdictional issues with the characters, it’s the music issues. And I always think, it’s the Disney Company. How hard is it to clear songs? Christmas songs are in things all the time.
Bill: I think if Disney were to say: “Henson, HBO, we wanna make this right. We wanna put this out there for real. How much would we have to give you?,” they could make it happen.
Brian: I would love to see them figure something out. Again, I can’t attest to how important Jim thought it was at the time, but I think the fact that he appears in it gives us an indication of that. Especially since it did come out so close to his death when you get that magical moment.
Bill: This is one of the all-time Christmas specials, and unfortunately with Jim being gone, he didn’t make it to this era of everyone really showing affection for it.
Brian: This is probably that era when he’s trying to figure out how to get back into TV. … When you’re going through the archives, there’s a lot of stuff on what became the Jim Henson Hour. That was where a lot of his energy was going into, getting back on TV.
It’s like Jim was like, how do we get back on TV? What do we do really well on TV? Well, we do The Muppet Show really well, we do the Fraggles really well, we do Sesame Street really goddamn well.
So you put those all together. This is what we do. It’s almost his love letter to television in a way, as well. It could be that this is him practicing — if we get back on TV, this is the kind of fun shit you’re going to get out of me.
The problem we’ve got, Bill, is I’m no help on the big question you’ve got. Why? We don’t know yet. It makes me want to go back and look.
Bill: That just goes back to the core of [Muppet Family Christmas]. It exists. People know it exists. People love it. But we don’t know how it came about, we don’t know why we can’t get it now.
Brian: It’s a gift from above. It landed here for all of us to enjoy. We don’t know where or why or how.
A huge thanks to Caitlin, my wife, for giving this interview an edit and a second set of eyes.