| Muppet*Vision 3D | |
| Disney's Hollywood Studios | |
| Land | Streets of America |
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| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Attraction type | 3D Show |
| Opening date | May 16, 1991 |
| Capacity | 584 |
| Sponsored by | Kodak |
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| Muppet*Vision 3D | |
| Disney California Adventure Park | |
| Land | Hollywood Pictures Backlot |
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| Designer | Walt Disney Imagineering |
| Attraction type | 3D Show |
| Opening date | February 8, 2001 |
| Capacity | 574 |
| Sponsored by | Kodak |
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Muppet*Vision 3D is an attraction found at Disney's Hollywood Studios, part of the Walt Disney World Resort, and at Disney California Adventure Park, part of the Disneyland Resort. The attraction opened at Disney's Hollywood Studios (then Disney-MGM Studios) as Jim Henson's Muppet*Vision 3D on May 16, 1991 and on February 8, 2001 at Disney California Adventure.
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The show is a 3-D film featuring Jim Henson's 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. It was directed by Henson and written by Bill Prady. The show is also notable for being the final Muppets project to be released for Henson, as the attraction opened after his death in 1990.
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, all featuring outlandish job descriptions. Guests then see half of a motorbike protruding from the wall above, with a hole in the shape of Gonzo. Guests then enter a large room filled with Muppet "props" and boxes with comical and humorous labels. Above guests' heads are sets of three television monitors, in which several short snippets of comical adventures take place with the Muppet characters. This serves as the preshow.
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 depicted on The Muppet Show. Muppet*Vision 3D along with Captain EO are one of two Disney 3D attractions currently playing which actually calls their glasses "3D Glasses" (It's Tough to Be a Bug utilizes "Bug Eyes", Star Tours: The Adventures Continue refers to them as "Flight Glasses", Toy Story Midway Mania calls them "Carnival Games Goggles", and Mickey's Philharmagic calls them "Opera Glasses"). However, the glasses are sometimes referred to as "3D Safety Goggles", foreshadowing the "dangerous" experiments guests will be visiting.
At Disney California Adventure, the queue is different only in that it features a cast member at the turnstile 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. The queue winds around a fake "set", blending in with the rest of Hollywood Pictures Backlot. The preshow room there includes a scrolling LED monitor known as The Official Time Clock which displays various messages and jokes (including references to Elvis and The Mickey Mouse Club) while counting down to showtime.
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 postshow area outside the exit doors.
Muppet*Vision 3D introduces Waldo C. Graphic, the world's first computer-generated Muppet, who also appears in The Jim Henson Hour. Waldo is "created" by Dr. Honeydew 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 audio-animatronic, that interact with the show. Statler & Waldorf heckle from a balcony near the screen, an orchestra of penguins rises into sight to perform, and 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), and Sweetums, who is a live full-bodied Muppet, comes out into the audience to search for him having already done so on screen.
At one point in the show, there appears to be computerized bubbles blown, and real soap bubbles blow from the ceiling. At the end of the show 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), the Swedish 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, revealing what's on the "other side" of the screen — guests at a Disney Park.
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