In 1994 and 1995 the Muppets and the National Hockey League (NHL) embarked on an epic crossover designated as "Jim Henson's Muppets Take the Ice". Although only five Muppet characters were featured in the promotion, specifically Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo and Animal, it none the less resulted with a variety of awesome Muppet collectables being made. At the core of the promotion were various illustrations of the Muppet characters playing hockey as well as Muppet versions of the team logos.
Initially the promotion began in 1994 with a set of hockey collectors cards that were sold in stores, and a series of pins that, according to Muppet Wiki, were given out for free at hockey games. At least two different Toronto Maple Leafs T-shirts were also made, one featuring Animal and one with Miss Piggy. Then in 1995 a set of plush toys were offered exclusively through Canadian McDonald's restaurants in conjunction with a major lottery game promotion.
McDonald's produced a series of TV commercials in order to promote the plush toys and the lottery game separately from each other. Kermit himself makes a brief appearance in the lottery game commercials, which were produced in both English and French. Clearly, cross marketing with the Muppets with the NHL made a lot of ch-ching for Jim Henson Productions!
The pin collection includes 26 pins, however there are two different versions of the Panthers pin (one is larger than the other and Animal is coloured differently, shown below) so technically there are 27 pins in all. About half of the collection is shown here.
Four very well made and detailed official NHL Muppets plush toys were sold at McDonald's in 1995. The Miss Piggy and Animal plush toys have plastic sculpted heads, while Kermit and Fozzie have fabric heads with plastic eyes and helmets.
Unfortunately a Gonzo plush toy wasn't made even though he is featured among the team logo illustrations for "Muppets Take the Ice". All four plush toys came with a removable plastic hockey stick. As Fozzie is the goalie he has a unique goalie stick. I've never seen this much detail go into a McDonald's promotional toy before or since. The names of each character were even sewn onto the back of their hockey jersey. The back view is shown below.
Despite the quality and detail that went into these plush toys, McDonald's restaurants ended up clearing out these plush toys for some time well after the promotion was finished. I don't know if this was because of a lack of consumer interest or if McDonalds over produced the toys by ordering too many, therefore flooding the market. These were commonly found at second hand stores for quite awhile in the late 90s and early 2000s, and today they are still somewhat easy to find.
Curiously, the Muppet NHL plush toys were promoted on the back of the game board flyer (shown below) at $3.49 each. However, there are two versions of the TV commercial on You Tube, one that says the toys are $2.99 and the other says $3.49, so the price seems to have been changed to $3.49 just after the commercial was initially released. Either that or the price was lowered to clear them out? Either way, perhaps this change in the pricing had something to do with why the toys did not sell as expected?
Despite how common these plush toys are I'm glad to have them in the collection because of how unique they are from other Muppet collectables. These NHL Muppets plush are some of my favorite Muppet collectables, and they are definitely among the better quality Muppet plush toys to have ever been made. I like Animal the best out of the series. It's nice that they gave him the extra detail of "torn" edges on his clothes and bare feet to match his character.
Here is the NHL Muppets contest game board flyer (front and back) that was given out free at Canadian McDonalds restaurants in 1995. This is a sticker game contest that was very much like the occasional Monopoly game promotions from McDonalds. The Muppet version of the HNL team logos were made available on stickers that were randomly attached to drinking cups and fries packages. A prize was won if a specific row of NHL Muppet stickers was filled in on the game board. Prizes included cars, $100,000cash, a suede jacket, rollerblades, and Crunchie chocolate bars.
This is the game board that I filled in, with only one sticker missing in each row. Darn it, so close! As you can see in the bottom row on the game board, one of the prizes was an "NHL Muppet Melton and Suede Jacket". These were limited to 1000 prizes.
Here are all of the extra stickers that I ended up with. The one on the bottom right corner is an instant win sticker for a Nestle Crunch chocolate bar that I never redeemed. So technically I did win something! LOL
Here's a closer look at how the stickers were attached to the cups.
The Miss Piggy McDonalds NHL Muppets fries container, front and back.
The Kermit McDonalds NHL Muppets fries container, front and back.
The Fozzie Bear McDonalds NHL Muppets fries container, front and back.
McDonald's staff also wore NHL Muppets promotional pins. There were four different pins, Kermit, Miss Piggy, Animal and Fozzie. I only have the Fozzie pin as they were not supposed to be given out to the public, but one of the employees thought it was interesting that I collected Muppets and gave me theirs. There was also a very cool large cardboard store display for the NHL Muppets plush toys. I tried to reserve it but unfortunately that was out of the question. Nuts!
And lastly the paper bag! Front and back view.
Yes, I'm so obsessed with Muppets that even kept the paper bag!!! LOL
I also have this Kermit McDonalds sticker from 1995 which I assume was given out during the NHL Muppets promotion, but it shows Kermit skiing so I'm not certain quite how this would have fit in with the rest of the promotion. Above is the front and back view. I've also seen a similar sticker of Gonzo.