The Muppets the Muppets film and television library. Exceptions included the "Sesame Street" characters, which were previously sold to Sesame Workshop; the "Fraggle Rock" characters, which were retained by Henson; and the distribution rights to "The Muppets Take Manhattan", "Muppets from Space", and "Kermit's Swamp Years," which were retained by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Following the acquisition, Disney formed The Muppets Holding Company (later known as The Muppets Studio), a wholly owned subsidiary responsible for managing the characters and franchise. As a result, the term "Muppet" became a legal trademark of Disney; under license from Disney, Sesame Workshop continues to use the term
Muppets Tonight the show's human guest star) interspersed with some sort of crisis occurring backstage. Some of these introduced in "Muppets Tonight" went on to appear in later Muppet productions, particularly Pepe the Prawn, who has become a regular. Among the regular sketches are: The show ran from 1996 to 1998. There were 22 episodes produced in two batches. 13 episodes were ordered by ABC, though only ten of them were run in the 1995–96 TV season. The program was then purchased by the Disney Channel, which ordered a further nine episodes and aired these along with the three episodes ABC did