Trivia / The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland

• Box Office Bomb: Budget: $26 million. Box office: $11,683,047.
• California Doubling: Whereas the previous movie was filmed in Toronto (resulting in people from Fraggle Rock working on the film), this film was shot in Wilmington, NC, at the EUE/Screen Gems facility (partly owned by Sony), filming back to back with Muppets from Space (and accordingly, several puppeteers more well-known for their work with the non-Sesame Muppets, such as Bill Barretta, Steve Whitmire, and Dave Goelz, all puppeteered in this film as well).
• Creator Backlash:
  • Almost immediately, Children's Television Workshop regretted taking part in the film after early screenings of the film's rough cut proved that the film's target audience was scared of Huxley and legitimately worried about Elmo. Scenes featuring Ernie re-assuring Bert and the audience that everything will be okay were hastily filmed in New York months after production on the film wrapped but in CTW's eyes, the damage was already done. They deemed the film unsuitable to their standards, did the promotion they were contractually obligated to and have since distanced themselves from the film — which seldom comes up in any Sesame retrospectives and even barely comes up as a conversation topic within the Henson fandom.
  • As if to drive the point home, Elmo, in an appearance on The Tonight Show where Elmo (participating in a rap version of the Sesame Street theme) says "Elmo tries to avoid Grouchland at any and all costs!"
• Creator Cameo: According to Matt Vogel (who performed a goat in the scene where several forest animals are fleeing from the humongous chicken), the donkey screaming, "CHICKEN!" was played by Brian Henson, who served as an executive producer for the film.
• Creator Killer: The failure of both this and Muppets from Space (which was released three months earlier) badly damaged The Jim Henson Company's film division, Jim Henson Pictures, and prompted Columbia Pictures to back out of its joint venture with the company.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Despite doing well on home video, the movie has never been released on Blu-ray (though it is available digitally). It is still in print on DVD, but it has never been officially reissued on it; as a result, it still uses the same master and box art as its original 1999 release, almost two decades after Sony's home video division dropped the Columbia TriStar name the said release is still credited to.
• Kids' Meal Toy: It got a set of Arby's toys to promote the movie's release on home video.
• Milestone Celebration: This movie came out roughly a month before the show's 30th anniversary.
• Prop Recycling: If that Bug looks familiar, it’s because he was also on a short-lived series of shorts called Panwapa, where he was named Bill (albeit about a decade or so after the film was made).
• The Other Darrin:
  • Rather briefly, during Mr. Johnson's cameo at the beginning, while still performed by Jerry Nelson, David Rudman's voice was heard for a split second before going back to Jerry.
  • As had been established a few years prior and would continue until the latter's passing, Matt Vogel puppeteered Big Bird to Caroll Spinney's voice in scenes that featured both Big Bird and Oscar.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Wikipedia's article for Freeform's 25 Days of Christmas listed the film as part of the non-Christmas movies that the block aired. There's no evidence of the film having aired on the network, and it's likely that whoever made the edit confused the airing for the airing of Elmo's Christmas Countdown on the main ABC network. The entry mentioning the film's airing wasn't removed until 2021.
• Vindicated by Video: Much like the first Sesame Street film, Follow That Bird. Parents felt it wasn't worth the money taking their kids to see Elmo on the big screen when they could see him on television for free, not to mention personal issues CTW had with the film, and the movie coming out when Elmo was experiencing backlash among viewers because of his popularity. It nevertheless did very well on home video and premium cable channels.
• What Could Have Been:
  • An early idea was to have Elmo lose his ball down Oscar's trash can, and not his blanket.
  • Several scenes were deleted before release (but still wound up in a storybook); these included more scenes of the Sesame gang locked in jail, Huxley preparing for bed with "his" blanket, and per Carroll Spinney, several scenes involving Oscar.

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