Jesse Angelo, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily, has purchased the famous “Muppet Mansion,” according to The New York Observer. The property is named that because it was home to the creator of the Muppets, Jim Henson, for many years.

How much did Angelo pay? About $23 million, or almost as much as The Daily’s budget, the Daily Intel smartly points out.

It sounds like a lot of money, so that got FishbowlNY thinking, what could have possibly persuaded Angelo to sign the deed? We investigated for two whole minutes and finally came up with an answer: Angelo is getting a Muppet in his likeness as part of the deal.

Totally worth it, if you ask us.

In the near two weeks since News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch rolled out The Daily, everyone and their mother has offered up their opinion on the iPad-only newspaper.  Whether you are a fan of The Daily or not, one thing that cannot be denied is that The Daily is not resting happily after their debut, in fact editor-in-chief Jesse Angelo has sent out an edict to his editorial department asking them to ramp up their level of reporting.  Take a look at his full memo, courtesy of The Daily Intel, after the jump.

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The Daily finally launched yesterday, and today there will be about 4,374 articles about it. WWD has one of them -  a huge piece on The Daily’s Editor-in-Chief, Jesse Angelo, who just happens to be really good friends with James Murdoch. But nevermind that! The piece makes sure to point out how hard working Angelo was during his many years at the New York Post, and that he never looked like a rich kid:

‘He was this sort of gruff, archetypal tabloid editor,’ said former Postie and current Times reporter Tim Arango, reflecting on the first time he met Angelo at the Post’s watering hole, Langan’s. ‘He seemed like someone who has newspaper ink in his veins. He was smoking and all that. I had no idea about his background or anything, but he struck me as how I would have imagined the metro editor at the Post being like.’

Sounds good to us. Oh, and we need to mention this just because we loved reading it: Angelo’s mother co-wrote the theme song for Mr. Belvedere. Amazing.

Regardless of what Angelo (or his mom) has done before, he’s taking on a huge task with The Daily. Along with Angelo, the team behind the iPad paper is impressive, so they’ve got the talent. The only question is – will it work?

Jon Miller, Eddie Cue, Rupert Murdoch, Jesse Angelo

This morning FishbowlNY ventured to the Guggenheim Museum on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch unveiled “The Daily,” the company’s long-awaited iPad newspaper.

Joining  Murdoch on stage at the event were “Daily” editor Jesse Angelo, publisher Greg Clayman, News Corp. digital chief Jon Miller and Apple’s Eddie Cue.

We also spotted News Corp. COO Chase Carey and one of Murdoch’s sons, James Murdoch, in the crowd.

Playing around with “The Daily” you get a sense of just how much time, effort and money went into producing it. It looks slick, and the content is strong.

Murdoch says the company spent $30 million to develop it, and operational costs will run around $500,000 a week, as a result, he said the bar for “success” will be quite low.

As rumored, it will cost $0.99 a week, or $39.99 a year, with Apple’s new subscription billing system. You can try it out for free for two weeks starting today, with Verizon on board as the launch sponsor.

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Sasha Frere-Jones is adding some digital work to his already busy agenda.  According to NYT.com’s David Carr, The New Yorker‘s music critic will become the culture editor of News Corp.’s yet-to-be released iPad newspaper, The Daily.  Frere-Jones’s hiring has not been officially announced, however it has been confirmed by sources working with The Daily.

Frere-Jones has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker since 2004.  He is best recognized for publishing “A Paler Shade of White,” a controversial column that addressed race in hip-hop and indie music.  New Yorker editor David Remnick said Frere-Jones’s move is not uncommon and he expects the music expert to continue to contribute to his magazine:

“People who write here do all sorts of things — books, other writing — so he can do what he wants as long as the work here doesn’t suffer.”

Frere-Jones is the latest addition a Daily team that already has acquired Viacom’s Greg Clayman to lead business operations.  Mike Nizza of AOL and The New York Times and former New York Post editor Jesse Angelo have also signed on with News Corp.’s project.

News. Corp plans to launch The Daily before the year is out.  Not much other information has been revealed about the new digital paper, however Rupert Murdoch is believed to be directly involved in the venture.