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A 'Devil' of a Blu-ray Deal

Paramount Home Media Distribution has given Best Buy a number of exclusive Blu-rays of its catalog titles in recent months, such as the May 15 release of Road Trip in HD.

But an exclusive on the Blu-ray for a new theatrical title is much more unusual. Yet that’s the case with The Devil Inside, an early 2012 horror title with a modest box office cume for which the Blu-ray is available only at Best Buy, at $22.99. (Contrast this with Target, which didn't bother advertising the DVD version in its weekly ad circular.)

Best Buy also had a promotion to get $10 Fandango cash to see Battleship or Snow White & the Huntsman with purchase of the Blu-rays for The Kingdom ($7.99), Jarhead, The Mummy or The Scorpion King ($9.99 each). Furthermore, buyers could get a $10 Best Buy gift card with the purchase of any three TV DVD or Blu-ray titles at $14.99 or higher each.

Walmart offered the DVD of The Devil Inside at $14.96 with a bonus digital rental from its Vudu movie-streaming service.

Target offered a promotion touting USA Network shows on DVD, such as “Covert Affairs” and “White Collar.” The chain also had an exclusive DVD of Men in Black: The Animated Series — Season One at $14.99, which includes a $10 coupon for a ticket for the upcoming Men in Black 3.

A 'Vow' For Retail Savings

Movies based on books make for easy retail promotions, since the home video can be paired with the original source material for a nice gift set. For example, May 8 Target offered a $5 savings with the joint purchase of Sony Pictures’ The Vow on disc and the book upon which it’s based, which was priced at $11.99.

Otherwise, Target’s attentions were turned toward clearing inventory as part of a “Mother’s Day Gifts for All Budgets” promotion, touting DVDs at $5, $10, $15 and $25 price points.

In addition, Target is taking advantage of the buzz around The Avengers with a sale of several Avengers tie-in products, such as $12.99 DVDs of earlier films in the series, as well as action figures, T-shirts, branded soda and snacks and more.

Best Buy continued to push its Upgrade & Save program, which lets customers exchange a used DVD for a $5 coupon that can be used on any Blu-ray priced at $9.99 and above. The chain devoted a page of its weekly ad circular promoting catalog titles that, with the coupon, could be had for as low as $4.99, such as Apollo 13 and Casino.

Best Buy also highlighted some TV DVD titles with a section labeled as “Season Finales Are Coming,” encouraging shoppers to check out previous seasons of their favorite shows.

'Avengers' Assemble at Best Buy

With the theatrical debut of the new Avengers movie, Best Buy gave fans a chance to catch up by putting all five of the precursor films on Blu-ray for sale.

The Incredible Hulk was $9.99, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 were $14.99 each, and Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger were $24.99 each for the 3D versions and $19.99 for the combo packs. Shoppers could save an additional $5 with an Upgrade & Save coupon for trading in a used DVD.

In addition, Best Buy offered $8 Movie Cash coupons for the new movie with copies of DVDs of the “Avengers” animated series, sold at $11.99 each.

Target built a sales promotion around Disney titles that are heading back into “The Vault,” with Bambi and Beauty and the Beast offered at $14.99 on DVD and $19.99 on Blu-ray, plus an additional $5 savings when either title was purchased with another selected Disney classic (offered at the same prices) on DVD or Blu-ray, such as Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp, The Lion King or The Muppets.

The Q2 Catalog Crunch

With a dearth of new major theatrical titles heading to shelves, stores are focusing on clearing inventory.

Target went with a huge sale of Disney Princess merchandise, centered on the chain’s exclusive Blu-ray edition of The Princess Diaries at $14.99. The promotion included sales of the DVD and Blu-ray of Tangled and The Princess and the Frog, as well as Disney Princess dolls, books and video games.

Another promotion at Target involved a $15 discount with the purchase of two select TV DVD titles. Also, several recent DVD releases were offered at $14.99 each.

Best Buy revived promotions for its “Upgrade & Save” program, which lets customers trade in their used DVDs to get a $5 coupon that can be applied toward a Blu-ray movie $9.99 and up. As such, its weekly ad circular was filled with pages of Blu-ray sales for which the coupon could be used.

Also, Best Buy offered $10 Fandango cash to see A Five-Year Engagement in theaters with the purchase of select Universal Blu-ray catalog titles offered at $12.99 each ($7.99 with the coupon).

The new DVD of the recent Titanic miniseries caused a bit of confusion among patrons at a Costa Mesa store who thought it was supposed to be a re-release of the James Cameron version. It just goes to show that movies share titles sometimes and it helps to keep an eye out for exactly what you want to buy.

Some 'Impossible' Exclusives

Retailers laid out the red carpet for the disc debut of Paramount’s Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol with several promotions and exclusives.

Best Buy offered special one-day pricing for the title on its April 17 debut, offering the DVD for $16.99 and the Blu-ray for $19.99. Getting into the spirit of the franchise, Best Buy’s ad declared that “limited-time pricing … will self-destruct end of day Tuesday.”

Best Buy’s Blu-ray of the film was an exclusive edition with more than an hour of bonus content not found on the wide Blu-ray release.

Walmart’s exclusive went in the opposite direction, with a bare-bones DVD edition that offered no bonus material.

Target offered an exclusive DVD four-pack of the “Mission: Impossible” films for $29.99.

Other exclusives at Target included a 10th anniversary Blu-ray of Disney’s The Princess Diaries at $19.99, and Universal’s Necessary Roughness: Season One (which won’t go wide until June 5), also listed at $19.99.

Best Buy offered as an exclusive Syfy channel’s Alphas: Season One, also from Universal, for $29.99.

Titanic Post-Easter Sales Abound

Target's historical Titanic boxed set

In a very slow week for new releases, retailers focused on sales to clear out post-Easter inventory.

The only promotion on new releases was at Best Buy, which offered $10 off the joint purchase of the 3D versions of Summit’s The Darkest Hour and The Three Musketeers.

Best Buy’s catalog sales included a selection of DVDs at $4.99 each, “Blu-ray on a Budget” with select titles at $7.99 (Spaceballs, Bull Durham, Species, etc.) and $9.99 (The Hangover Part II, Ghost, Miracle, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Terminator) each; sales of DVDs of animated TV comedies such as The Simpsons: The Thirteenth Season, Family Guy Vol. 8 and American Dad Vol. 6 for $14.99 each and Archer: Season 2 for $16.99.

Target promoted a few new DVDs to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, with documentaries ranging from $14.99 to $19.99 each. The retailer also presented a selection of catalog DVDs at $10 each, such as Sherlock Holmes, The Green Hornet and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.

Easter Specials Dominate

Best Buy's Disney Easter Bag

With most of the hit family titles hitting in March, the second quarter got off to a slow start April 3, with only two new releases, War Horse and We Bought a Zoo, getting any real retail attention.

Instead, most displays were geared toward Easter sales.

The biggest one came at Best Buy, which offered a free felt Easter bag with the purchase of two Disney Blu-ray combo packs for a total of $35. The selection included The Muppets, Cars 2, The Lion King, Lady and the Tramp, Winnie the Pooh and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Best Buy also offered a selection of more than 150 family DVDs for as low as $4.99, and the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2 3D Blu-ray for $9.99.

For We Bought a Zoo, Best Buy promoted a free zoo ticket.

Walmart had exclusive DVD titles such as the animated movie Animals United: Adventure in Africa for $12.96, and Bending the Rules, starring WWE Hall of Famer Edge and Jamie Kennedy, for $14.96.

The Long, Strange Journey of The Muppets

It’s easy to view 2011’s The Muppets, recently released on DVD and Blu-ray, as some sort of “return” for the popular characters. It’s not that they had really gone away in the past few years, but they haven’t been in the spotlight as much as they had been during the heyday years of “The Muppet Show” (1976-81) and the first few Muppet movies.

In fact, with $88.6 million domestically, The Muppets became the highest-grossing Muppets film, just 12 years after the previous theatrical release, Muppets From Space, earned just $16.6 million.

One of the charms of the new film is the way it reintroduces characters that haven’t been seen in years, or even decades. Like a blast of nostalgia taking us back to a simpler time in our lives, The Muppets reminds us that the things we love may not always be the priority in our lives, but they never really go away.

Even so, it’s not as if the Muppets we all know and love always existed. Jim Henson and his creative collaborators took years to craft the characters, seeing what worked and what didn’t, to create a brand that is now every bit as recognizable as Mickey Mouse and the Disney toons, or Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes.

As we see in the new documentary Being Elmo (on disc April 3 from Docurama), for example, Elmo wasn’t always the biggest star of “Sesame Street,” but had been a background puppet long before Kevin Clash took over the character and transformed him into an international sensation.

A lot of critics, many of whom may not have been paying attention to the Muppets the past few years, have noted with a tinge of regret that some of the character voices in The Muppets seem different, and it’s true that Kermit doesn’t seem as energetic as when Henson did it. But this Kermit voice isn’t exactly new; he’s been performed by Steve Whitmire since 1990, shortly after Henson died.

However, it should be noted that Henson’s own Kermit voice changed considerably as he was developing the character. Kermit debuted in 1955 on “Sam and Friends,” a sketch-based TV show Henson and his wife, Jane, put on for the Washington, D.C., area. Kermit, not classified as a frog yet, was more of a lizard-type creature and lacked his distinctive pointy collar and frog-like hands and toes. Henson created Kermit to experiment with the way hand movements could be used to manipulate the visual emotions of the character.

In the 1960s, however, the best-known Muppet was probably not Kermit, but Rowlf the Dog, thanks to a stint as a sidekick on Jimmy Dean’s show from 1963 to 1966. Rowlf got his start in a Purina Dog Chow commercial before that. (Henson, of course, gained a lot of exposure for the Muppets through his Wilkins Coffee ads in the late 1950s). Now, Rowlf is best known for being the troupe’s resident piano player.

As the Muppets rose to prominence in the 1960s, Kermit began to be referred to as a frog, such as when Johnny Carson introduced him as Kermit the Frog on the 1965 New Year’s Eve episode of Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.” The Kermit puppet was redesigned into its current look in 1968 for the TV special Hey Cinderella! (which didn’t air until 1969). This Kermit appeared on the “Sesame Street” pitch reel in 1969 (which also featured Rowlf, though only Kermit would become a regular on PBS’s new kiddie show; it's available on the Sesame Street: Old School Vol. One DVD).

According to Henson, Kermit’s frog status wasn’t set in stone until the 1971 TV special The Frog Prince, which also introduced Kermit’s nephew Robin and Sweetums, the big, hairy brutish-looking Muppet left behind at a used-car lot in The Muppet Movie and The Muppets (in the latter film, he’s the Muppet who answers the first pledge call for the telethon).

“Sesame Street” and TV specials such as The Frog Prince, which fell under the “Tales From Muppetland” banner, and others such as 1970's The Great Santa Claus Switch were the primary source of Muppet entertainment before “The Muppet Show” came along in 1976. (Many of these Muppets specials haven’t been released on home video, so a DVD compilation would make a nice addition to a Muppet fan’s collection).

In fact, Henson conceived of “The Muppet Show” as a more adult-friendly series, in response to the way “Sesame Street” had caused the Muppets to be associated with children’s fare.

The subsequent success of “The Muppet Show” would divide the Muppet world into the “Sesame Street” Muppets and the “Muppet Show” Muppets, with only Kermit hopping between them. Other side groups of Muppets would still pop up, such as those from “Fraggle Rock” in 1983, the adult-targeted “Land of Gorch” sketches from the first season of “Saturday Night Live,” and the characters from Henson’s 1980s films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, to name a few.

As “The Muppet Show” evolved, some characters carried over from the earlier specials, while most slipped into obscurity. For example, one of the prominent early-’70s Muppets was Thog, who first appeared in The Great Santa Claus Switch. He’s the big blue guy in the opening credits of “The Muppet Show,” and shares a dance with Mia Farrow in 1974’s The Muppets Valentine’s Show. Thog appeared in a handful of sketches during the five-year run of “The Muppet Show,” and popped up in the finale of 1979’s The Muppet Movie, but then disappeared for 33 years, finally showing up again in The Muppets.

The Muppets Valentine Show was one of two pilots for what eventually became “The Muppet Show,” with the other being 1975’s The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence. While Kermit would become the undisputed star of “The Muppet Show,” he is barely featured in either of these specials, gives a memorable turn in the “Froggy Went a Courtin’” sequence of The Muppets Valentine Show. In these days before Miss Piggy was created, Kermit’s love interest was Miss Mousey (probably because a mouse was whom the frog was courting in the old folk song). This sequence also features a great character named Big Mouse, who has never been used again. (Even the Kermit in this special doesn’t sound quite like “Muppet Show” Kermit yet).

Miss Piggy got her start as a generic pig puppet in the Sex and Violence special, but earned her name on the “Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass” show. She was meant to be called Piggy Lee, a takeoff on Peggy Lee, but it didn’t stick. Her early voice, performed by Jerry Nelson, was much different than the trademark sassiness provided by Frank Oz as the character fleshed out during the early years of “The Muppet Show.” (Even in early episodes, her eyes seem a lot rougher than what we’re used to today).

Another Muppet that grew from modest origins was Gonzo, who started as Snarl, from a group of monsters called frackles, in The Great Santa Claus Switch. In the hands of Dave Goelz, who still performs the character, the puppet became Gonzo the Great on “The Muppet Show,” the daredevil weirdo we all love today. Gonzo’s species became a running gag, and in 1981’s The Great Muppet Caper he was dubbed a “Whatever.” In 1999’s Muppets From Space, Gonzo is revealed to be an alien, which is alluded to in The Muppets when he reintroduces himself by saying “People of Earth!” (It’s interesting that Gonzo’s species would raise eyebrows since it seems most of the Muppets are some variety of unknown monster, as the Gonzo precursors had been).

Those Muppets that rose to prominence on “The Muppet Show” became the focus of The Muppet Movie and its follow-ups, which helped solidify their standing as the Muppets we know best today. The Muppets Take Manhattan, in 1984, included a sequence depicting several of the characters as children, inspiring the popular “Muppet Babies” cartoon that ran from 1984 to 1990. (Ironically, the most successful Muppet series outside of “The Muppet Show” used animation and not puppetry. I love Baby Rowlf's enthusiasm on the piano riff in the Muppets Take Manhattan version, though.) “Muppet Babies” probably solidified what is now considered the core group of Muppets: Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Rowlf, Animal and Scooter, although Bunsen, Beaker, Statler and Waldorf made appearances. (“Muppet Babies” introduced Scooter’s twin, Skeeter, as another female character, but she has never really appeared in grown-up form in any other Muppet project. And good luck finding “Muppet Babies” on DVD any time soon, with the obvious rights issues involving music and movie clips used on the show). When Walter symbolically joined the gang at the end of The Muppets, the five Muppets inviting him over were, fittingly, Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, Rowlf and Scooter.

If you think about it, "Muppet Babies" kind of invalidates the idea in The Muppet Movie that Kermit assembled the group on a road trip to Hollywood. It's also the third different origin for Scooter, who started on "The Muppet Show" as the nephew of the theater owner, but in The Muppet Movie is retconned as the manager of the Electric Mayhem band. That's why it's best not to think too hard about it.

Other Muppet characters would flirt with bouts of popularity in the 1990s. The Rastafarian Clifford, performed by Kevin Clash, first appeared on 1989’s short-lived “The Jim Henson Hour” and became the host of “Muppets Tonight” (1996-98), but then largely disappeared after that. (Clash performed Clifford on a May 1990 episode of "The Arsenio Hall Show" that featured Jim Henson two weeks before he died.)

After Henson’s death, the Muppet movies took a page from the early days, sticking the characters into adaptations of famous works. These include 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol, 1996’s Muppet Treasure Island, and the 2005 TV movie The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz.

The most iconic 1990s Muppet is probably Pepe the King Prawn, who started on “Muppets Tonight” and had prominent roles in Muppets From Space and the 2002 telefilm It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. Pepe has a short scene in The Muppets practicing a dance routine with Miss Piggy. The lack of newer Muppets in The Muppets may stem from the filmmakers having grown up with “The Muppet Show,” which also explains the generous screen time afforded to great vintage characters such as Link Hogthrob. Another 1990s Muppet, Bobo the Bear, gets a bigger role in The Muppets, as one of Tex Richman's henchmen (joining another long-absent Muppet, Uncle Deadly).

Given the way the troupe has evolved, it will be interesting to see what becomes of Walter, the newest member introduced in The Muppets. (I for one, though, vote for more screen time for the Muppet hobos.)

Speaking of It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie, that movie is a fascinating artifact for a couple of reasons. First, it gives an It’s a Wonderful Life treatment to the Muppets, with Kermit witnessing an alternate reality in which he is never born, the Muppets never get together and Doc Hopper’s French Fried Frog Legs, the bad guy from The Muppet Movie, becomes a successful fast food chain. Second, a lot of its plot elements were revisited in The Muppets, with the group having to put on a big show to buy back their theater from a greedy developer.

But where the Christmas movie treated the material more as a personal conflict for Kermit, The Muppets smartly expands on the premise to explore the Muppets as a cultural phenomenon.

It’s kind of funny to think that many of the Muppet performers in these recent efforts re-creating “The Muppet Show” weren’t doing these characters in the 1970s and ’80s. Indeed, many of the characters are now on their second or third generation of performers, expertly keeping the spirit of the Muppets alive for generations to come.

Such change should not only be expected, but encouraged. The Muppets have their place in history, to be sure, but they also have their place in our hearts. And that’s a legacy that few entertainment franchises can ever hope to achieve.

Target Slims Down 'Casablanca'

Target's 'Casablanca' exclusive cover

Warner Home Video’s new Casablanca: 70th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray boxed set carries a hefty price tag but includes several souvenirs in addition to the film. Target, though, offered consumers the chance to get the movie and bonus features without the booklets and other trinkets in the set with an exclusive single-disc Blu-ray at $19.99. Target also had a DVD version, unavailable anywhere else, for $9.99. Target had the bigger boxed set for $39.99.

Another promotion at Target involved Fox’s new Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, with the chain offering $5 off when the film was purchased with a $14.99 BD/DVD combo pack of either of the first two “Chipmunk” movies. And Target’s copies of Hop all included printable Easter party kits.

Target also had as an exclusive Nickelodeon’s Victorious: The Complete Second Season, at $8.99.

Best Buy offered $8 coupons off the cost of a Wrath of the Titans theatrical ticket with the purchase of a $14.99 Blu-ray of Clash of the Titans, Troy or 300.

Lunch With 'The Muppets'

Anyone who has wanted to have lunch with the Muppets should head down to Best Buy, which is offering an exclusive lunch box with copies of the Blu-ray combo pack of The Muppets.

The included combo pack is the Wocka Wocka version with the film’s soundtrack for digital download, making the $27.99 in-store price cheaper than the $34.99 online price for the standalone version of the same combo pack, which isn’t offered in many stores. Best Buy further offers a $5 coupon from Disney at MuppetsCoupon.com/BestBuy, applicable toward the Wocka Wocka Blu-ray (and the lunch box).

Best Buy also has a free 7-inch bunny minion plush with purchase of Universal’s Hop Blu-ray, released on March 23.

Target offered a $5 savings with joint purchase of exclusive editions of both Hop and Despicable Me. Target’s Hop Blu-ray comes with wearable bunny ears.

For The Muppets, Target offered a six-episode “Muppet Show” sampler DVD with the Blu-ray of the new movie.

At Walmart, customers could get a set of four Muppets finger puppets with purchase of the Muppets Blu-ray/DVD combo pack (the verison without the digital soundtrack).