The Muppets (TV series)

The Muppets (stylized as the muppets.) is an American television comedy series that premiered on September 22, 2015 on ABC. Co-created by Bill Prady and Bob Kushell, the series is produced by ABC Studios and The Muppets Studio, with Randall Einhorn and Muppet performer Bill Barretta serving as executive producers alongside Prady and Kushell.

The series is set in Los Angeles and depicts the everyday personal and professional lives of The Muppets during production of Up Late with Miss Piggy; a fictional late-night talk show starring Miss Piggy and airing on ABC after Jimmy Kimmel Live!.The Muppets serves as a parody of other mockumentary-style series, such as Modern Family, Parks and Recreation and The Office, by employing the same single-camera setup filming style with the implication of a documentary crew filming everyone. The series stars Muppet performers Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, David Rudman, Matt Vogel, and Peter Linz in multiple roles.

Muppets Most Wanted

Muppets Most Wanted is a 2014 American musical comedy film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Mandeville Films, and the eighth theatrical film featuring the Muppets. Directed by James Bobin and written by Bobin and Nicholas Stoller, the film is a sequel to 2011's The Muppets and stars Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell, and Tina Fey as well as Muppet performers Steve Whitmire, Eric Jacobson, Dave Goelz, Bill Barretta, David Rudman, Matt Vogel, and Peter Linz. In the film, the Muppets find themselves unwittingly involved in an international crime caper while on tour in Europe.

Aside from co-writer Jason Segel, the majority of the production team behind The Muppets returned for Muppets Most Wanted including Bobin, Stoller, producers David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman, music supervisor and songwriter Bret McKenzie, and composer Christophe Beck.Principal photography commenced in January 2013 at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England.

Muppets Most Wanted had its world premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles on March 11, 2014 and was released theatrically in North America on March 21, 2014. The film grossed $80.4 million worldwide.

The Muppets

The Muppets are a group of puppet characters known for an absurdist, burlesque and self-referential style of variety-sketch comedy. Having been created in 1955 by Jim Henson, they are the namesake for the Disney media franchise that encompasses films, television series, music recordings, print publications, and other media associated with The Muppet Show characters.

Henson once stated that the term "Muppet" had been created as a blend of the words "marionette" and "puppet", but also claimed that it was actually a word he had coined. The Muppets debuted on the television program Sam and Friends, which aired locally on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. from 1955 to 1961. After appearing on skits in several late night talk shows and advertising commercials during the 1960s, Henson's Muppets began appearing on Sesame Street when that show debuted in 1969. The Muppets then became the stars of multiple television series and films, including; The Muppet Show (1976–1981), The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), and The Jim Henson Hour (1989). After Henson's death in 1990, The Muppets continued their presence in television and cinema with Muppets Tonight (1996–98), a series continuation of The Muppet Show, and three films, The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Muppets from Space (1999); the former two were co-produced with Disney, who sought to acquire the characters since the late 1980s. In 2004, Disney purchased the rights to the Muppets (except for the Sesame Street characters, which were sold separately to Sesame Workshop, as well as Fraggle Rock and other characters retained by The Jim Henson Company), and later formed The Muppets Studio; a division created specifically for managing The Muppets franchise.

The Beach Boys' Christmas Album

The Beach Boys' Christmas Album is the seventh studio album by the Beach Boys, released in November 1964. Containing five original songs and seven standards, the album proved to be a long-running success during subsequent Christmas seasons, initially reaching number six in the US Billboard 200 chart in its year of release and eventually going gold.

While leader Brian Wilson produced and arranged the "rock" songs, he left it to Dick Reynolds (an arranger for the Four Freshmen, a group Wilson idolized) to arrange the forty-one piece orchestral backings on the traditional songs to which the Beach Boys would apply their vocals. One single was released from the album, the original song "The Man with All the Toys" backed with the group's rendition of "Blue Christmas". "Little Saint Nick", a single which had already been released the previous year, was included on the album.

In 1977, the Beach Boys attempted to follow the album with Merry Christmas from the Beach Boys, but it was rejected by their label. The entire Christmas Album plus selections from the Merry Christmas sessions were later assembled for the 1998 compilation Ultimate Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Baby (album)

Merry Christmas, Baby, is the first Christmas album by Rod Stewart, released on 30 October 2012. The album has proved to be a top 10 success in many countries including the UK, US, Canada and Australia. It was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in November 2012 with over 1,000,000 copies sold in the US.

Critical reception

Merry Christmas, Baby received mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 53, which indicates "mixed or average reviews", based on 6 reviews.

Commercial performance

Merry Christmas, Baby debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 album sales chart, with first week sales of 117,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan, and spent a total of eight weeks in the top 10. With total U.S. sales of 858,000 copies in 2012 according to SoundScan, Merry Christmas, Baby was the best-selling Christmas/holiday album of the year. The album was also the year's fifteenth best-selling album in the U.S. according to Billboard and the ninth best-selling physical album in the U.S. according to the Nielsen Company's 2012 Music Industry Report.

Merry Christmas Baby

"Merry Christmas Baby" is an R&B Christmas standard written by Lou Baxter and Johnny Moore and originally recorded in 1947 by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers, featuring singer/pianist Charles Brown. It has been covered by many artists including Chuck Berry, Otis Redding, B.B. King, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Christina Aguilera, Melissa Etheridge, and Hanson. A version of this song, recorded by Bonnie Raitt and Charles Brown, is included on the Christmas album A Very Special Christmas 2, released in 1992.

Johnny Moore's Three Blazers was one of the hottest blues attractions on the West Coast when their recording of "Merry Christmas Baby" reached position #3 on Billboard's R&B Juke Box chart during the Christmas of 1947. Accompanying guitarist Moore for the recording session were bassist Eddie Williams, guitarist Oscar Moore (then of the King Cole Trio), and singer/pianist Charles Brown.

Covers