The Muppets Take Manhattan The Muppets Take Manhattan The Muppets Take Manhattan is a 1984 American musical comedy drama film directed by Frank Oz. It is the third of a series of live-action musical feature films starring Jim Henson's Muppets with special appearances by Art Carney, James Coco, Dabney Coleman, Gregory Hines, Linda Lavin, and Joan Rivers. The film was produced by Henson Associates and TriStar Pictures, and was filmed on location in New York City during the summer of 1983 and released theatrically the following summer. It was the first film to be directed solely by Oz (who also performs Sam the Eagle,
The Muppets Jimmy Dean on "The Jimmy Dean Show". In 1966, Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett began developing an educational television program targeted towards children and approached Henson to design several Muppet characters for the program. Produced by the Children's Television Workshop, the program debuted as "Sesame Street" in 1969. Henson and his creative team performed and created several characters for "Sesame Street" during the years that followed; Henson waived his performance fee in exchange for retaining ownership rights to the Muppet characters created for the program. "Sesame Street" received critical acclaim, and the Muppets' involvement in the series was touted