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
The Muppets Studio under Senior Vice President and General Manager R. Russell Hampton, Jr. ABC, in October 2005, commissioned "America's Next Muppet", a script and five script outlines, but ABC was reluctant to green light "America's Next Muppet", and it never got out of the planning stage. Muppet Holding's new general manager instead licensed the Muppets out to TF1, a French television network, to produce "Muppet TV" in September 2006. In 2006, the Muppets Holding Company was transferred from the Disney Consumer Products unit to The Walt Disney Studios; with studio executives passing on oversight, the unit was placed in the special events