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 Muppets appeared in television and print ads for the campaign and were featured prominently on the campaign's website. Disney has released numerous collector pins featuring the Muppets since 2004. These include Limited Edition pins, Hidden Mickey pin collections, mystery pin sets, 2008 pin sets promoting "The Muppets", cast lanyard pins, and assorted individual rack pins. Over 100 pins displaying the characters have been released overall. Since the late 1970s, numerous Muppet-related comic books have been released over the years. The first comic strips based on the Muppets appeared on September 21, 1981, in over 500 daily newspapers, just months after