Muppet*Vision 3D
| Muppet*Vision 3D | |
|---|---|
| Park | Disney's Hollywood Studios |
| Land / area | Grand Avenue |
| Type | 3D film show |
| Opened | May 16, 1991 |
| Closed | June 7, 2025 |
| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering / The Jim Henson Company |
| Duration | About 17 minutes, plus pre-show |
| Status | Closed |
Muppet*Vision 3D was a 3D film attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World, combining a film directed by Jim Henson with in-theatre effects, Audio-Animatronic figures and a live performer. It opened, as Jim Henson's Muppet*Vision 3D, on May 16, 1991, and gave its final public performances on June 7, 2025.[1] It is widely regarded as the last major Muppets project Henson directed, and the last to feature his voice as Kermit the Frog.
History
The attraction grew out of Disney's late-1980s courtship of the Muppets. Disney and Jim Henson were in advanced discussions for Disney to acquire the characters when Henson developed a 3D film for the new Disney-MGM Studios park, written by Bill Prady and directed by Henson himself. The film was shot in early 1990. Henson died on May 16, 1990, before it was completed; the acquisition talks collapsed, and Disney did not finally buy the Muppets until 2004. The show opened a year to the day after his death, with Henson's name in its title.[2]
The theatre stood in the park's backlot area, its neighbourhood changing names around it: first part of the Streets of America, then, from 2016, the centrepiece of a dedicated Muppets Courtyard, and from 2017 part of Grand Avenue. A second installation ran at Disney California Adventure from 2001 to 2014; the Florida original ran for 34 years, sponsored by Kodak until 2013.
In November 2024 Disney announced the show would close for a Monsters, Inc. land, with the Muppets instead taking over Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. On January 24, 2025, Disney set June 7, 2025 as the final day for the attraction and its neighbour PizzeRizzo.[3]
Experience
Guests waited in a prop warehouse, where a pre-show film showed the Muppets preparing the demonstration, ending with Sam Eagle's safety instructions — interrupted by Gonzo presenting what he claimed was Mickey Mouse, in fact Rizzo in mouse ears.
In the theatre, modelled on the Muppet Theater of The Muppet Show and flanked by Statler and Waldorf heckling from a balcony box as Audio-Animatronics, Kermit led a tour of Muppet Studios to demonstrate Muppet*Vision, the troupe's supposed breakthrough in 3D filmmaking. Fozzie Bear demonstrated cheap 3D tricks; at Muppet Labs, Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker accidentally released Waldo C. Graphic, a computer-generated sprite — the "spirit of 3D" — who escaped their control and spent the rest of the film bouncing around the picture, turning into vehicles, fireworks and, briefly, Mickey Mouse.
Miss Piggy's musical number, derailed by Bean Bunny's attempts to help — real bubbles fell into the auditorium as Bean worked the effects — ended with her dragged off on a water-ski rope. Bean, scolded by Sam Eagle, left the film altogether. The search for him brought the show into the room: Sweetums, played by a live performer in full costume, walked the aisles with a flashlight looking for him. Sam's patriotic finale, "A Salute to All Nations, but Mostly America," collapsed into a fireworks battle that wrecked the theatre — penguin orchestra, the Swedish Chef firing from the projection booth, apparent holes in the walls — before Kermit closed the show from a fire truck.
Closure
The final public day was June 7, 2025, after which the Grand Avenue Muppets area closed for the Monsters, Inc. redevelopment — a land commonly called Monstropolis — which keeps the theatre building for a new show and adds a suspended roller coaster themed to the film's door vault.[4]
Preservation was part of the closure discussion from the start. In announcing the closure Disney said it was exploring ways to preserve the film and other parts of the experience. In May 2025 Disney recorded the show at a dedicated cast filming event, described internally as an archiving project. In February 2026 Brian Henson, chairman of The Jim Henson Company, said the show had been recorded with virtual-reality cameras for a future release on Apple Vision Pro and other headsets, and that Disney had packed the attraction away in its customary archival manner. No return of the physical theatre show has been announced; preserving the film, retaining the physical elements and recreating the full in-theatre experience remain three different things, and only the first is confirmed.