The Muppets film, "Muppets from Space", released by Columbia Pictures in 1999. In 2000, Henson was sold to EM.TV & Merchandising AG for $680 million. However, EM.TV was plagued with financial problems and the Henson family re-acquired the company in 2003, with the exception of the rights to the "Sesame Street" characters, which had been sold by EM.TV to Sesame Workshop. Fourteen years after initial negotiations began, Disney acquired the Muppets intellectual property from the Jim Henson Company for $75 million on February 17, 2004. The acquisition consisted of the Muppets and "Bear in the Big Blue House" properties, as well as
The Muppets Primetime Emmy Award nominations during its run and won four, including Outstanding Variety Series in 1978. The success of "The Muppet Show" allowed Henson Associates to diversify into theatrical films centered on the Muppets; the first of these, "The Muppet Movie", was released in 1979. Following "The Muppet Movie" were "The Great Muppet Caper" and "The Muppets Take Manhattan", released in 1981 and 1984, respectively. Collectively, the three films received four Academy Award nominations. In 1983, Henson debuted another television series, "Fraggle Rock", which ran on HBO in the United States until 1987. In the late 1980s, Henson entered discussions