Muppet*Vision 3D

Queue

Pre-show area as it appeared at Disney California Adventure.

Before guests are seated in the theater where the film is shown, they go through the queue, which winds through "Muppet Labs", home of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker. The audience passes several office doors, all featuring outlandish job descriptions and spoof movie posters featuring the Muppets, including The Bride of Froggen-Schwein, The Pigseidon Adventure, and SuperBeaker II. 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, where the pre-show featuring several Muppets is shown.

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, is one of two Disney 3D attractions which refer to the 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 "3D Game Glasses", 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 was different in that it featured a cast member at the turnstile handing out the glasses individually and the "hallway" scene from the Disney's Hollywood Studios queue was replaced with a "courtyard" filled with various props. The queue winded around a fake "set", blending in with the rest of the Hollywood Land district. Guests also saw half of a motorbike protruding from the wall above, with a hole in the shape of Gonzo. The pre-show room there included a scrolling LED monitor known as The Official Time Clock which displayed 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 provide more seating for it. The spoof movie posters were removed, now in their place are real movie posters promoting current and upcoming films from Walt Disney Studios. The original "Disaster Effects" storage area remained until January 2015.

Constantine, the villain from Muppets Most Wanted, was added to the pre-show at beginning of March 2014 to advertise the new film. In Disney's Hollywood Studios, as of December 2016, Constantine no longer appears and the pre-show is reverted to its original 1991 form.

Plot synopsis

Main Theater in Disney California Adventure.

The show begins with Statler and Waldorf in their usual box putting on the glasses, and heckling the audience. A penguin orchestra rises up. They tune and play a fanfare, which leads into the opening. Gonzo appears behind a door and pushes a stick labeled "3D" towards the audience. Kermit the Frog appears and welcomes the audience to Muppet*Vision 3D. He then gives the audience a tour of Muppet Studios, where many of the Muppets are preparing for segments in the show to follow the tour. Many 3D effects are performed at this point by various characters, mainly Fozzie Bear. This includes a noisemaker, a can of springs, and a flower that sprays water. Kermit then takes the audience to the Muppet's top secret laboratory where he explains that they hired scientists from all over the world to come and work there. He then says, "Unfortunately, none of them showed up." He then introduces Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant, Beaker.

The show re-introduces Waldo C. Graphic, the world's first computer-generated Muppet, (who first appeared in The Jim Henson Hour.) Waldo is "created" by Dr. Honeydew and Beaker during a demonstration of three-dimensional imagery but proves that he is uncontrollable and wreaks havoc in the lab. Dr. Honeydew tells Beaker to use the lab's inflatomatic to deactivate Waldo. He does so, but instead of being deactivated, Waldo explodes into smaller versions of himself and says that he can start his own football team. Dr. Honeydew then tells Beaker to use the lab's vacuum cleaner to suck up all the Waldos, but also accidentally sucks up the entire lab. All but one Waldo is sucked up and realizing he's free, shape shifts into a taxi cab and drives away.

Kermit then reappears and apologizes for the delay since the lab was "sucked up". Fozzie returns and attempts to demonstrate his flying pie but it malfunctions and hits him in the face. Kermit then says, "Fozzie, that's terrible." Fozzie then replies with, "You're right. It needs more sugar." He walks away, and Kermit introduces Miss Piggy's musical rendition of "Dream a Little Dream of Me". Bean Bunny attempts to assist Miss Piggy by using various props to add 3d effects. These include a butterfly on a fishing rod, a bee on a fishing rod, and bubbles blown from a bubble maker. To add the realism, real soap bubbles are blown from the ceiling. Miss Piggy gets annoyed and tells him to knock it off. Bean then gives her a rope, explaining that it's for the water skiing finale. A toy boat pulls Miss Piggy into the pond and gets her wet. Sam Eagle enters the scene and sends Bean away before he ruins the film more. He leaves and meets Waldo and together, they leave the film. Gonzo sees Bean and Waldo leaving and gathers the rest of the Muppets to help him look for Bean. Sweetums (who is a live full-bodied Muppet) comes out into the audience to search for him having already done so on screen. With help from the audience, he finds Bean on the other side balcony, across from Waldorf and Statler. He explains why he ran away and agrees to stay if he can help in the finale. The Muppets decide to let Bean shoot off the fireworks.

The finale begins with a toy soldier marching band playing patriotic music. During their performance, Waldo bounces on their heads and one of the tuba players gets his head stuck inside. To make matters worse, since he cannot see, he runs into people and causes them to fall down. Sam then tells Bean to shoot off the fireworks. To show off, Waldo shape shifts into a rocket and zooms around Miss Piggy, who is dressed like the Statue of Liberty, and accidentally tears her skirt off. Waldo then plummets into the penguin orchestra, causing smoke to rise. Sweetums reappears and puts out the fire with water, which infuriates the penguins and they decide to retaliate with a cannon. After Sweetums tells the audience to duck (in which Waldo briefly transformed into a literal duck), the penguins fire their cannon and hit the projector.

The Swedish Chef, who is operating the projector, then tries to destroy the now out of control Waldo, who he believes destroyed the film and is now all alone on a blank screen, by firing a gun at him. After missing several times (shooting holes in the screen, as well as the theater wall), the Swedish Chef decides to use a cannon. This causes an explosion as the theater blows up, tearing a hole in the screen, as well as "revealing" some bricks and sheetrock throughout the main theater, and revealing what's on the "other side" of the screen: guests at a Disney Park. Kermit then appears on the back of a fire engine through the hole to apologize for the delays. He then bids the audience a final farewell and the curtains close. Waldo appears one last time and shape shifts into Mickey Mouse so that nobody would recognize him. However, he shape shifts back to his true form as a vacuum sucks him up. Bean comments on what a cute ending the show was as the curtains on his balcony close. Waldorf asks Statler what he thought of the show. He asks Waldorf if they have time to go to the bathroom before the next shows starts. He replies with, "We can't you old fool. We're bolted to the seats." Then the curtains on their balcony close and the show ends. A cast member then thanks the audience for coming to see the show and tells them how to exit properly, while reminding them to return their 3D glasses into the bins outside of the theater.

Aside from the Muppets on-screen, there are also a number of in-theater Muppets, mostly audio-animatronic, that interact with the show. Statler and 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.