Surprised I haven’t seen any sort of preservation for the series before now, figured I may as well give it a go.
Muppet Babies, like many cartoons aired during Saturday mornings in the 1980s, lacks any official release. Both Muppet Babies and Alvin and the Chipmunks (my last preservation project, also on the site!) will likely never get releases, as they’d have huge copyright hurdles to leap through. This is where I’d like to step up the plate, and offer a definitive Muppet Babies experience!
What exists online seems to be a (nearly) complete set of episodes, albeit in pretty mediocre quality. Mediocre video is something that could be gotten around, but audio can only be repaired to a certain point. I’ve acquired everything I’ve been able to find, and I’m still sorely in need of quite a lot of upgrades.
On the upside, I do have a batch of episodes from the first three seasons with perfectly useable audio (pulled from Playhouse Disney UK during the early 2000s); those episodes are as follows.
104 - Raiders of the Lost Muppet
105 - Scooter’s Hidden Talent
106 - Case of the Missing Muppet
107 - Eight Take Away One Equals Panic
108 - What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?
112 - From A Galaxy Far, Far Away
113 - Good Clean Fun
201 - Once Upon An Egg Timer
203 - Fozzie’s Last Laugh
204 - The Great Cookie Robbery
205 - Out of This World History
206 - Snow White and the Seven Muppets
207 - I Want My Muppet TV!
211 - The Muppet Museum of Art
212 - By The Book
301 - Pigarella
302 - The Best Friend I Never Had
305 - The Muppet Broadcasting Company
307 - Fozzie’s Family Tree
310 - Treasure Attic
311 - Around the Nursery in 80 Days
312 - Fine Feathered Enemies
313 - Muppet Goose
315 - Of Mice & Muppets
401 - Muppetland
There are also four episodes officially available on DVD:
107 - Eight Take Away One Equals Panic
110 - Gonzo’s Video Show
202 - Piggy’s Hyper Activity Book
308 - The Daily Muppet
The quality on these is pristine, and won’t be needing any work. This leaves quite a lot of episodes in need of upgrades; I will be attempting restoration on the best VHS-sourced episodes I have available, but even those could stand to be quite a lot better. There are also a few episodes that only seem to exist in shorter (around 2 minutes of cut footage) syndicated runs:
101 - Noisy Neighbors
404 - Where No Muppet Has Gone Before
418 - Nanny’s Day Off
504 - Is There A Muppet In The House
713 - Nice To Have Gnome You (only copy I’ve seen to found was pulled from a retail VHS, which looks to have been edited on the tape program to include an incomplete start)
I feel like the odds of finding upgrades for episodes neccesary and completing the syndicated episodes are pretty good? The show aired, uncut, on Nickelodeon for 8 years (1992 - 1999), where they showed every episode outside of the final season (which could use upgrades, but the only shot there is original CBS broadcasts or international airings), so my hope is to find more Nickelodeon broadcasts (I do already have a few). I’m also looking to find Spanish and German broadcasts; I know captures of them exist, I have 80/107 episodes in Spanish, and I’ve seen dozens of clips from German captures (via Junior), so I’m hopeful more things will become available soon.
There are also a handful of episodes available on retail VHS, some of which I do have. I’m going through sources now to see exactly what I still need to get a capture of, I’ll have an update on that soon.
I’ll update this with any developments, which hopefully won’t be a dreadfully long wait!