Muppet*Vision 3D

Muppet*Vision 3D is an attraction at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disney California Adventure.

Premise
The show is a 3-D film featuring the Muppets. Due to the use of Audio-Animatronics, a live full-bodied Muppet and other similar effects, the show is sometimes referred to as Muppet*Vision 4-D.

The film was directed by Jim Henson and written by Bill Prady. Post production was handled by Frank Oz due to the untimely passing of Jim Henson in 1990.

Queue
Before being seated in the theater where the film is shown, the queue winds through Muppet Labs, home of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker. The audience passes several office doors featuring outlandish job descriptions, then enters a large room filled with Muppet "props" and boxes with silly labels. Muppets greet the visitors from television screens suspended from the ceiling, interacting with one another at times. The audience is repeatedly reminded to take a pair of 3D glasses from several containers around the room before entering the theater, which is modeled after the theater featured on The Muppet Show. Muppet Vision is the only Disney 3D theme park film currently playing which actually calls their glasses "3D Glasses" (in It's Tough to Be a Bug!,, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience and Mickey's Philharmagic, they are called "Bug Eyes," "Safety Goggles" and "Opera Glasses").

At Disney's Hollywood Studios, there is a sign to the right that says "key under mat." If you lift up the mat, there is an actual key screwed into the ground. The key may also be found at Disney's California Adventure, but it is on the left hand side of the preshow hallway.

Also at the Disney's Hollywood Studios, if you happen to look up to your left hand side in the large pre-show room filled with Muppet "props", you will encounter what appears to be "a net full of jello." This was actually meant as a play on words reference to former Disney Mousketeer Annette Funicello.

At Disney's California Adventure, the queue is different in that it features a cast member at the turnstiles handing out the glasses individually and the "hallway" scene from the Disney's Hollywood Studios queue is replaced with a "courtyard" filled with various props. In the Spring of 2008, the queue was replaced with an eating area for the Award Weiners restaurant in order to prepare for the major construction project. The original "Disaster Effects" storage area still remains, but many of the spoof movie posters were removed. Many of the original props from the queue were moved to the post-show area outside the exit doors

The Show
Muppet-Vision 3D introduces Waldo C. Graphic, the world's first computer-generated Muppet, who actually originated in The Jim Henson Hour's MuppeTelevision segments. Waldo is "created" by Bunsen and Beaker during a demonstration of three-dimensional imagery, but proves uncontrollable and wreaks havoc throughout the remainder of the film, especially when the ending patriotic number by Sam the Eagle is reduced to shambles.

Aside from the Muppets on-screen, there are also a number of in-theater Muppets, mostly animatronic, that interact with the show. Statler and Waldorf heckle the show from their traditional balcony, an orchestra of penguins rises into view from the orchestra pit to underscore the show and the the Swedish Chef "operates" the film projector from the booth above and behind the audience. Bean Bunny leaves the film at one point after being blamed for ruining several scenes (mainly Miss Piggy's musical number) and Sweetums, who is a live full-bodied Muppet, comes out into the audience to search for him after having already done so on the screen.

At one point in the show, there appears to be computerized bubbles blown, although, if the glasses are removed, there are real soap bubbles. At the end of the show, the Swedish Chef tries to destroy the now out-of-control Waldo, who has destroyed the film and is all alone on a blank screen, by firing a gun at him. After missing several times (shooting holes in the screen and even the theater wall in the process), the Chef resorts to using a large cannon. This "blows-up" the theater, leaving a (projected) hole in the main screen, as well as "revealing" some bricks and sheet rock throughout the main theater.

Trivia

 * The attraction was planned to have an adaption at Disneyland during the Disney Decade (The plans for the ride's location was Main Street, U.S.A., then at Mickey's Toontown), but was scrapped until 2003, when it opened in the Hollywood Land section of Disney California Adventure.
 * Wayne Allwine preforms the voice of Mickey in a small cameo at the end of the show.