Muppet Babies: 30 years on

Back in 1984, when Frank Oz directed the third Muppet movie The Muppets Take Manhattan, it was immediately clear which part of the film audiences were going to like the most. A dream sequence saw Miss Piggy imagining growing up as a toddler with Kermit the Frog and all of the other major Muppet characters. It was just a whimsical musical number in the middle of the film, but everyone who worked on the sequence recognised its appeal - including Muppet creator and producer Jim Henson.

At the time Henson had already been bombarded with offers by American TV studios to produce an animated series based on his Muppet characters. He had always resisted, being fairly wary of the quality of such Saturday morning cartoons. With the Muppet Babies, however, he had an idea that intrigued him, and so he put together a deal with Marvel Productions and Japanese animation studio Toei to put together a series.

Odds'n'Sods: 6 May 2013

Monday afternoon links for you: some of these are a bit old, but they've been knocking around for a while waiting for me to put them up.

• The BBC has released details and publicity stills for The Musketeers, based on the Alexandre Dumas novels. This 13 episode adventure series airs some time in 2014, as does Atlantis, the BBC's replacement for Merlin. (link)
• Wired has a fantastic timeline of DC Vertigo, running from its foundation in 1993 right up to Fairest and Saucer Country in 2013. (link)
• Threadless are selling some awesome Iron Man tie-in t-shirts. They're geeky, and also artfully created. (link)
• Whereas this t-shirt over at We Love Fine is my favourite for the month, mainly because the Misfits' songs were better. (link)