dailynewsnblog
Following the success of 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol, the next theatrical outing for Jim Henson’s beloved characters was Muppet Treasure Island, a loose adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel. Arriving 30 years ago, on Feb. 16, 1996, the movie was a lot of fun and brought with it plenty of pirate-themed tie-in merch, like a fantastic set of McDonald’s Happy Meal toys as well as a so-so game computer game.
Developed by Activision, the Muppet Treasure Island game was a point-and-click adventure game that basically took you scene-by-scene through the movie. Each stage featured a backdrop with live-action Muppets and/or actors from the movie doing something funny or giving you instructions, while you clicked around, searching for various artifacts or playing brief puzzle games.
While the game is a bit sleepy by 2026 standards, it received praise from the likes of PC Zone and Entertainment Weekly at the time, with the latter saying, “There are literally hundreds of point-and-click computer games for kids, but I can’t think of any that match the depth, ingenuity, and humor of Muppet Treasure Island.” Plus, it’s impressive that all the Muppet performers, plus two major stars from the movie — Billy Connolly and Tim Curry — participated in making new scenes just for this game. Even more importantly, Activision’s Muppet Treasure Island was the beginning of a sincere (if failed) effort to finally make Muppet games that didn’t suck.
Prior to 1996, the Muppets had had only two real video games (not including a handful of educational games). The first was Pigs in Space for the Atari 2600, named for the old Muppet Show sketch starring Miss Piggy. It consisted of three minigames that were simply unimaginative knockoffs of Space Invaders, Frogger, and River Raid. There was almost a second Atari game called Miss Piggy’s Wedding, but it was never released.
Then came 1989’s Muppet Adventure: Chaos at the Carnival, developed by Hi Tech Expressions as a computer game. (It was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990.) Yet again, this game consisted of fairly predictable minigames, like Kermit going down a river in a tube and Gonzo flying around in a spaceship. If you completed all four of those, you’d unlock a side-scrolling platformer where Kermit saved Miss Piggy. Honestly, beyond some cute sprites of the Muppets, there wasn’t much to this game.
In 1994, the Jim Henson Company launched Jim Henson Interactive — and with it, a mandate to get the Muppets into the video game space. The first two ventures came in 1996 with Muppet Treasure Island and The Muppet CD-ROM: Muppets Inside and I must admit a real soft spot for the latter. While I objectively know it was not a “good” game, per se, as a Muppets-obsessed kid, I played this for hours on end, even though it was really just a bunch of minigames based on game shows like Name That Tune and Hollywood Squares, plus various puzzles where you unlocked clips from The Muppet Show. In retrospect, I know that these were fairly lame and uninventive, but I do want to show some love for the Doom knockoff where you played as the Swedish Chef and you fought giant vegetables with various kitchen utensils.
2000 brought about the first Muppet console games since Chaos at the Carnival — in fact, three arrived in the same year. The first was Jim Henson’s Muppets, a Game Boy Color game where you played as Kermit or Animal and traveled through time to save the other Muppets in different eras. Most reviewers panned the game at the time, with IGN calling it a “badly-botched license game” with “wretched gameplay.” Another game was Playstation’s Halloween-themed Muppet Monster Adventure, a Spyro-like game where you played as Kermit’s nephew Robin (an odd choice) and needed to rescue the other Muppets from permanently becoming Monsters.
If you’re noticing a pattern here, it’s that, up until this point, every Muppet game is either a collection of mostly dull minigames or a game where one Muppet rescues another Muppet. With the latter, nothing about sending the Muppets on rescue missions really feels like the characters. As for the former, minigames can suit the Muppets, and some have been fun here and there, but none have been good enough to prove that the Muppets are even remotely viable video game characters.
Which is why I think Muppet RaceMania is deserving of some praise.
Coming later in 2000 for the Playstation, Muppet RaceMania was a clunky kart racer that failed to make much of an impact, but I think it’s worthy of attention for being the first Muppet game to get the characters while also finding a game format that suits them. The game gave you 25 different Muppets to race with, each with their own car and 34 different stages. The game featured an admirable degree of variety, and the cars were all fun representations of their characters: Gonzo flew around in a spaceship while Rizzo the Rat drove a cheese wedge with wheels.
In the same way it’s fun to plug Marvel or DC characters into a fighting game, giving a kart racer to characters who are all about humor and personality may seem basic, but it does work. Also, the fact that the Muppets were all sitting down in these karts looked more natural for characters where you rarely see their lower halves. Yes, NextGen called Muppet RaceMania “A substandard kart racer” and that’s certainly true, but Jim Henson Interactive was at least on the right track here.
2002 brought about the dull Game Boy Advance game Muppet Pinball Mayhem, which basically just featured pictures of the Muppets on various digital pinball machines. Then there was 2003’s The Muppets: On with the Show!, which was just another batch of mini-games, some of which they’d even done before. That was followed, the same year, by Spy Muppets: License to Croak, a forgettable action game where Kermit was a spy.
Fortunately, there was some thought put into 2003’s Muppets Party Cruise, effectively an attempt to do Mario Party with the Muppets. While, yes, this was just another bunch of minigames, there were a whopping 30 of them, as opposed to the five or so featured in most other Muppet games. They also allowed you to play as six different Muppets and wander around the cruise ship the games were set on. The game failed to make many waves (wocka, wocka) but it had real personality and was a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, this was the last Muppet game before Disney bought the characters in 2004.
When Disney bought the Muppets, it was clear that presenting the characters in video game form was not a priority; after Jim Henson Interactive put the Muppets in about a dozen games in eight years, Disney did nothing with them in the video game space for a full decade. Finally, in 2014, the company released The Muppets Movie Adventures for the Playstation Vita. The sidescroller featured a handful of Muppets playing through levels with different movie themes, like Kermit in a pirate level and Animal in a western-themed level. While the gameplay was a step up from Muppet games of the past, the game was criticized for its short play time and rudimentary gameplay.
And, aside from a handful of timekiller apps for mobile phones like Animal Drummer, that’s been it for Disney’s Muppet video games. Despite having tons of video games for all kinds of properties under its umbrella, Disney has neglected the Muppets, which is something most Muppet fans feel the company has done for the majority of the two decades it’s owned them.
In fairness, if the history of Muppet video games can illustrate anything, it’s that the Muppets are a difficult bunch of characters to put onto a video game successfully. Adventure games have usually failed to capture their personality while games consisting of mini-games tend to get their personalities right, but generally stink as games.
Plus, even I’ll admit that getting a good Muppets video game shouldn’t be a top priority for Disney’s plans for the characters, as it’s much more important to reestablish them on TV and/or film first. Fortunately, Disney did a fantastic job with the new Sabrina Carpenter Muppet Show special, which may very well lead to a new series.
Perhaps, once they get that rolling along, maybe its designers can start to think about a new Muppets video game. For their Muppets to get their flippers wet, I might suggest an upgraded Muppet RaceMania to start things off.
