Muppets (including The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock)

NORM said:
These will be better than Palisades. Palisades had very limited articulation.
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Granted, the Muppets themselves don't really do too much other than raise their arms and move their head, so I never thought of them as needing advanced articulation - and I was fine with the articulation not impacting the sculpt as often happened then.

If they scale well there are definitely a few characters that could be improved in terms of being on model. Palisades got to most of the characters I would ever want - Mahna Mahna and the Snowths would be great to have, and maybe Veterinarians Hospital (which was next up when the line ended if I recall).

Palisades had some great playsets but never got a true stage with orchestra pit and opera box for Staler and Waldorf, and I doubt NECA would get to that either. Need to try to build that.
 
fac said:
Granted, the Muppets themselves don't really do too much other than raise their arms and move their head, so I never thought of them as needing advanced articulation - and I was fine with the articulation not impacting the sculpt as often happened then.

If they scale well there are definitely a few characters that could be improved in terms of being on model. Palisades got to most of the characters I would ever want - Mahna Mahna and the Snowths would be great to have, and maybe Veterinarians Hospital (which was next up when the line ended if I recall).

Palisades had some great playsets but never got a true stage with orchestra pit and opera box for Staler and Waldorf, and I doubt NECA would get to that either. Need to try to build that.
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Diamond Select did do the opera box for S&W, but it's a bit harder to find than the re-release, which was just the two.

I wonder if, at least in terms of Muppets like Kermit, it wouldn't be better to do some sort of really durable bendy material for the arms. Kermit certainly does have elbows at times- or at least the impression of elbows- but because he's known for his floppy arm freakouts, I wonder if it wouldn't be more apt to do it that way. I'm trying to think- has NECA ever really done any sort of bendy appendage? I don't collect every line, but I'm struggling to even think of any of their capes that have bendy wire in them.
 
Palisades did bendy wire arms for Super Grover and they broke on most copies immediately, specifically, the wire tore through the soft plastic arms at the shoulders. I don't ever move mine thanks to that. I'd hope that NECA sticks to standard joints. Even if the arms need to be just a bit thicker to accommodate and be sturdy.
 
NORM said:
Palisades did bendy wire arms for Super Grover and they broke on most copies immediately, specifically, the wire tore through the soft plastic arms at the shoulders. I don't ever move mine thanks to that. I'd hope that NECA sticks to standard joints. Even if the arms need to be just a bit thicker to accommodate and be sturdy.
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Totally fair. I'd hope that bendy tech has improved in 20 years, but I honestly don't know. If it was made of something a little thicker, like whatever they use for the Hammond Collection tails, it might be doable, but I'd assume even that might wear down over time. Knowing NECA, it's always possible they may even just include a second pair of non-posable, but pre-squiggly freakout arms for Kermit.

No matter what, I'm excited to see whatever they deliver, especially if they dip into some of the movies too- Treasure Island, Christmas Carol, etc. Definitely do the classics first, but the odd movie fig here and there certainly wouldn't be turned away.
 
PanchaMaestro said:
I always thought all the first wave of NECA Sesame St should have been a half inch or so shorter. But that's me wanting them to scale with Palisades Muppets.
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I added some more comparison photos to the end of this album and noticed a few things. First, I now agree with you that the NECA figures do seem to be about half an inch taller than I would expect for the characters. In the full display, I don't notice enough for it to bother me, at least so far in the line. It will be telling how big they make Cookie Monster. If he is only slightly taller than Bert or even slightly smaller, then I think he will fit in with the rest of the display. If NECA makes Cookie and the other monsters bigger, then that could look off. I'd be happy if Bert is about the tallest figure, and the other humanoid figures are more Count's size. I think of Herry as more of Bobo's height where he's in-between hand and full body Muppets.

Second, it looks like the Palisades line had some scale creep. I don't think of Clifford as being as tall as Sam. Fortunately, Muppet heights are inconsistent, and the figures all look great together on the shelf.

https://imgur.com/a/dcWzOu1
 
Maybe even just a 1/4 inch too tall. That changes body mass so much. Like to match Palisades I would say Ernie's eyeline shouldn't be above Scooters. Now if NECA is going to outdo all the Palisades anyway ....

Who is the purple Muppet with curly blonde hair to the left?
 
PanchaMaestro said:
Maybe even just a 1/4 inch too tall. That changes body mass so much. Like to match Palisades I would say Ernie's eyeline shouldn't be above Scooters. Now if NECA is going to outdo all the Palisades anyway ....
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Agreed. Having Scooter isolated next to Ernie really shows the difference in body size beyond just height. So far, the difference between the lines hasn't been enough for it to bother me. I just hope the new NECA Muppets don't look too wonky next to the Palisades figures, and the future Sesame Street figures aren't all giants. I don't really want to replace most of my Palisades, and I would love for the Henson Muppet properties to all look good displayed together.
PanchaMaestro said:
Who is the purple Muppet with curly blonde hair to the left?
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That's Dolores (Trumpet/Trombone Girl). She's the first Palisades custom I made. I'm currently working on Annie Sue.
 
I don’t plan to integrate my Palisades figures with these. I want a whole new collection, one that scales with the NECA Sesame figures so far. I know it’s crazy, but I’m ready to move on from Palisades.
 
I probably won't directly merge the various Henson figures lines, so Sesame Street and Muppet show will be on different shelves/displays anyway - close to each other though, but I doubt the slight differences will be noticeable.

Even if NECA surpasses Palisades, I have too much affinity for that line to sell it...
 
Oh I don’t think I’d ever sell my Palisades collection. But I haven’t displayed it for 15 years. I haven’t had a reason to even dig out figures from the storage bin until NECA made these Sesame Street figures. I will always give credit to Palisades for what they did with that line. Sculpts, paints, accessories, PLAYSETS. The only area they faltered in was articulation, and only case by case. It seemed like the main characters got jipped the most, while peripheral characters got some PoA that could even hold up today.
 
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So when you guys are displaying your NECA Muppets and Sesame Street figures… you gonna include Earl and Baby Sinclair and the movie Turts? Or is that too far?
 
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