The Muppet Tour

Originally published January 23, 1998, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1262

It was a perfectly nondescript townhouse in New York City.

I stood there and scanned it carefully for a moment, to see if I was missing anything. Perhaps there was something small and hidden, something I wasn’t seeing. A flipper mark, perhaps, or a stained glass window with a bear in it. But there was absolutely nothing. It was quiet, understated, no markings of any kind whatsoever. You could have stared at it for hours and garnered nothing about the inside by the exterior.

I walked up to the large doors for closer inspection and found nothing aside from an advisory about where to bring deliveries. I didn’t even see a bell to ring to let them know inside that there was a visitor.

But I didn’t have to worry about it for more than a few seconds, because a buzzer promptly sounded.

It was at that moment that I noticed a camera lens focused directly on me. Clearly a monitoring system enabled those within to be alerted to the presence of someone at the door (which meant, I suppose, that any vampires who came by would be out of luck, what with not being able to photograph and all). I pushed open the door and went in.

To my immediate left was the first thing that tipped off the occupants of the building. It was a window display built into the wall at my left. There was Kermit the Frog as Santa Claus, struggling with a sizeable bag of ties while being aided by Rizzo Rat and company.

(I’ll never forget the time when I was talking to Shana about the Dustin Hoffman film, Hero, and I commented that critics had unfairly dismissed Hoffman’s performance in the film by saying it was simply a rehash of his Midnight Cowboy character, “Ratso Rizzo.” And Shana immediately said, “Ratso Rizzo? You mean like Rizzo Rat from The Muppet Show?” I felt like a complete dope. Character’s been around over a decade, and I never made the connection in all that time. But I digress…)

I walked into the main lobby of the place that had once been called Henson Associates, or simply HA! Henson Associates had been dissolved as a corporation, however, to be replaced by Jim Henson Productions, Inc., and thanks to the serendipitous meeting between myself and an employee there, I was going to get a guided tour of the legendary townhouse.

Rewind to an annual event called “New York is Book Country,” a public book fair held along Fifth Avenue. One year while there, I encountered a gentleman named Craig Shemin. Craig is an associate creative director and staff writer for Henson whose credits include, among other things, The Wubbulous World of Doctor Seuss on Nickelodeon (and anyone who has to deal with the “creative” bureaucracy of Nickelodeon certainly has my instant sympathies). I don’t recall off hand how Craig knew who I was—whether I was wearing one of my more conspicuous jackets, like the Babylon 5 or Space Cases jackets—or whether he just knew my face from a picture. But he was familiar with my work, and we shared a mutual “Your-job-is-so-cool” discussion. And in the course of it, Craig extended an invitation to come over, see the place, and do lunch.

It was a wonderful suggestion which I would have capitalized upon immediately, had I not then promptly misplaced his business card. Why? Because I’m the single most disorganized person on earth. Ask anyone. Ask the guy who came up with “Doc Savage Dragon,” whose name I misplaced, who then wrote a letter to me, and then I misplaced that freakin’ letter. I would quite literally misplace my head if it weren’t screwed on.

But recently, while making one of my occasional endeavors to clean up my office, I stumbled upon his card. (I also tripped over the Lost Ark, but we won’t get into that.) I had nothing in particular to do Christmas week, so I gave him a call, asked if he was free, he said sure.

And that’s how I wound up in a front lobby that had, to my left, a wall mural with assorted Muppets seated in a theater, along with a row of theater seats that served as a convenient waiting area for guests. Not that any guest would be inclined to simply sit around in that lobby. One can stand at the bottom of the stairwell and look up in wonderment at the sculpture that hangs from the ceiling, four or five stories up, all the way down to the lobby. A spiral-shaped sculpture that is an intricate design of tiny stairways and catwalks with tiny plastic representations of the Muppets walking around on them. Over the archway was a group of sculptures featuring Kermit and Fozzie and a sort of Greco/Roman styling. In a room off to my right was a large display case absolutely crammed with awards. Emmy awards, Oscars, Grammies, Cable Ace Awards, a plaque called the Fran Allison award and another called the Ollie Award (although, in a move designed to outrage clown puppets everywhere, there did not appear to be a Kukla award.)

Craig showed up in short order and brought me to the top of the brownstone in an elevator so that we could then work our way down in leisurely fashion. A fountain of information about the place, he informed me that the place had once been someone’s home, the domicile of a single rich gentlemen with a number of servants. Henson wound up purchasing the place back in the 1970s for the even-then bargain price of $400,000.

The offices were an amazing combination of nostalgia, invention and whimsy. Over in one corner was a Christmas tree sculpture composed entirely of Kermit the Frog toys which had decorated the hallway in previous years. Feeling that equal time was in order, a Kermit menorah had also been crafted. Everywhere assorted toys and Muppet-oriented decorations sat at people’s desks, and there were pictures of Muppet performers (please do not call them puppeteers) or pictures or more murals or newspaper clippings that gave the office a feel of living history rather than just someplace that people went to work. Rather than the sterile working environment so typical of workplaces these days, there is a good deal of antique furniture, or handcrafting ranging from furniture to sculptures.

One of the highlights was Jim Henson’s office. Although other top company executives now use it from time to time, I got the distinct impression that it’s still conceived of mostly as a shrine to Henson. Along one shelf is a bound set of every single script for The Muppet Show. Framed behind the desk is a stained glass window which was created in two stages. The upper section of the window was made first, and features Bert and Ernie. The second, lower half was constructed at a later date, and has representations of Henson and Frank Oz beneath, performing their respective characters. On the wall was a paper-sculpture moose head, which Henson had originally purchased for someone else until the intended recipient explained that he wasn’t interested in having it, telling Henson that it seemed far more like something Henson himself would want to have. Henson apparently agreed.

Everywhere I looked, there was “neat stuff.” In the conference room, a throne from Dark Crystal was set up in a corner, while Muppet penguins sat nearby and chattered with one another. One wall had the original poster art from Laybrinth hanging on it. As we walked and looked around, Craig brought me up to speed on the next Muppet-oriented film from the Henson stable, which apparently is going to be a Muppets-in-space themed. The script hasn’t been settled on yet, although if I had my druthers, I’d want to see Swine Trek: The Motion Picture, because I could sure get behind the big-screen debut of Pigs in Space, couldn’t you? Still, I did like one notion being bandied about, which was that the Great Gonzo, going in search of his roots (since no one really seems to know exactly what Gonzo is), discovers that he is, in fact, an alien. It makes an amazing amount of sense really. Don’t know yet what direction they’ll go in, but one hopes/assumes they’ll be up to par with the previous Muppet filmic efforts.

Craig also screened for me a couple of Muppet efforts he’s worked on. One involves the fact that Animal (the berserker drummer of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem) is apparently the new mascot of the Olympic Sledboarding team. In the course of the video, which features VJ Kennedy (impressively straight-faced and efficient), Animal demonstrates his enthusiasm and such useful board tactics as slamming it into one’s head repeatedly like something out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He also showed me a charming short piece featuring Miss Piggy winning an award about “Women in Toys.” Piggy claims she is “unable to attend” due to her latest starring role—until an annoying Assistant Director (played by Craig!) shows up and demands to know why she’s not back with the coffees.

As we were heading out, I was fortunate enough to run into Jim’s widow, Jane Henson. We chatted for a very short while and I got to make a complete idiot of myself by asking her to pose with me for a picture. Craig then brought us over to the Muppet workshop some blocks away. This time, in front of the extremely non-descript warehouse-type building, one actually gets a clue. At the bottom of the front door, in the cement, is a set of telltale flippers. According to Craig, it was somewhat nip and tuck getting the imprint in to stay, since the determined concrete pourers would keep seeing flipper marks and troweling them over.

The Muppet workshop is a dazzlingly impressive place, and yet unimpressive, all at the same time. You see scraps of cloth, unfinished Muppets, foam rubber, all of that, and it look most uninspiring. But look over there, it’s Kermit himself, in a Santa outfit. And there’s Animal, exhausted from his sledding experience, apparently ready to catch a cold. Hanging from the ceiling were Big Bird’s legs (with cutesy slippers on.) From another ceiling was the lower half of Bear, who will reside in Bear in The Big Blue House, a new series on Disney.

And the entire cast of Seuss was there as well. We covered several floors, and from there moved on to the relatively deserted studio of Seuss, where everyone is waiting to find out if the show is going to be picked up. Nickelodeon drove Craig and his associates nuts (so what else is new) by suddenly informing them, out of the blue, that they had decided the core audience was under six, so the stories should be scaled down to avoid confusion.

There were Muppets in pieces, there were Muppets in drawers, Muppets in latex molds, Muppets in plastic wrapping. And yet somehow, even seeing them “off-duty,” they just never lost the magic for me.

Such is the legacy of Jim Henson.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)