TVSquad

It's hard to believe the live-action-meets-puppeteering sci-fi series Farscape is a decade old, but that's the occasion that brought Brian Henson and stars of the show to Comic-Con International Friday to announce a new complete series DVD set.

As unveiled to a full, if partially groggy Comic-Con crowd during one of the day's first events, the DVD collection will include every episode of the show, more than 90 minutes of extra footage and 29 episode commentaries.

Henson joined series creator Rockne O'Bannon with stars Ben Browder and Claudia Black to unveil the comprehensive set of the show Henson repeatedly referred to during the panel as "psychotically ambitious" because of its mix of live-action, muppet technology, and then-state-of-the-art visual effects.

It looks like the Muppets will be back again for Christmas. The NBC television special will star Whoopi Goldberg, "The Sopranos" alums Tony Sirico and Steve Schirripa, "Harry Potter" regular Richard Griffiths and Madison Pettis as well as your favorite cast of colorful characters created by Jim Henson.

I'm a huge fan of the Muppets, but the passing of Jim Henson did somehow lessen the franchise. The stuff they've produced since has been hit-and-miss. I liked Muppets Tonight and It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, but most of the other stuff (especially the theatrical films) have fallen flat.

I do hope that Jason Segal and Nicholas Stoller will be able to breathe new life into the franchise. I did enjoy Forgetting Sarah Marshall (particularly the puppet musical), but I'm not sure how well that translates to the Muppets. My fingers are crossed.

How dare Jim Henson leave us all like this! I'm sorry. I still haven't gotten over it.

The Jim Henson Company has acquired the rights to John Chandler's The Skrumps. The company plans to create projects for both the Web and television with the quirky little monsters, including an animated program for television that will utilize the Henson Digital Performance Studio that allows puppeteers to manipulate CG characters in real-time.

The company has also added some new characters to the mix, such as Wishbone, lead singer of the band Grumblebelly, and Raisins, his adoring fan. You can see a music video featuring the characters on Yahoo Kids, as well as some video blogs. The new project is executive produced by Brian Henson, Lisa Henson, John Chandler and Craig Bartlett, creator of Hey, Arnold! Bartlett will also be a writer for the new project.

Based on the videos, I think little kids will probably love The Skrumps if they don't already know about the line of toys and books. The "real-time" animation technique is also interesting, if not somewhat limiting when compared to traditional animation.

Every child of the '80s that had HBO shares an idelible memory from that time period... Shannon Tweed's breasts from Hot Dog: The Movie. Somewhat less indelible, but pretty memorable in its own right, was the Jim Henson series Fraggle Rock. Now comes word from the folks at the Henson Company that a full-length feature film version is in the works, written and executive produced by none other than Ahmet Zappa.

In the movie, Gobo, Wembley, Mokey, Boober and Red finally leave the underground world of Fraggle Rock and go into what the Hensons call "outer space", otherwise known as the outside world. In fact, they'll actually interact with (gulp) human beings (what are the odds that one of them is going to be Kelly Ripa?). Zappa is involved to not only help write the screenplay, but the music for the movie, as well. No word on a title or release date just yet.

Hey, remember a while back when I mentioned a new talk show was being developed by the Jim Henson Company that wouldn't feature the classic Muppets but rather a whole new set of characters? Well, shortly after I mentioned that, a little more information came to light about the series, but I must have been distracted by something shiny, because I forgot to mention it here. So, if you'll forgive my brief bout of amnesia, I'm here to tell you that TBS has expressed an interest in Late Night Buffet (which is said to be geared towards a more "mature" audience). The partly-improvised show would be part of the network's late night block of shows. A pilot episode has been ordered, but that's all that is known so far. The show will feature a host named Augustus Pfiffle and his sidekick Delbert Kastle. Thanks as always to Muppet News Flash.

Muppet Newsflash, always a great source for Muppet news, is reporting that, yes, there will probably be a movie based on Jim Henson's HBO series Fraggle Rock, and, yes, Brian Henson will probably be directing it. However, don't expect to see it until 2007 or 2008, and even that's a little iffy. While he admits they're planning on making the movie, Henson also acknowledges he may have jumped the gun in announcing it, since the studio has other projects they're already immersed in, such as the sequel to The Dark Crystal, titled The Power of the Dark Crystal. Henson has also said that the Fraggle Rock movie will not be a continuation of the show, but will still focus on the "unchanged" relationships between the characters. In that respect, it doesn't sound like it would be all the different from the Muppet movies.