Sam and Friends - The Story of Jim Henson’s First Television Show

by Craig Shemin, Frank Oz (Foreword)

Long before Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, college students Jim Henson and Jane Nebel created a long-running daily local Washington, D.C. television program called Sam and Friends, where Jim developed his unique approach to comedy and introduced the world to a puppet named Kermit.

In this book, President of The Jim Henson Legacy and author of The Muppets Character Encyclopedia, Craig Shemin, explores the story behind Sam and Friends and creates an episode guide from surviving scripts and recordings.

Includes a foreword by longtime Henson collaborator Frank Oz, several complete scripts and more than 150 rare photos from The Jim Henson Company Archives.

Genres: History, Biography

604 pages, Paperback

First published September 24, 2022

Reviews

[Jason Presley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, in-depth look at Henson's early days. I didn't realize the scale of the appearances the Muppets were making in those very formative years. It is a shame more episodes have not survived, but that can be said for pretty much all TV content prior to the 1960s. We're often lucky any of it survived.

[Beth E · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book.
The first half of the book covers the history of Sam and Friends. It describes each puppet character. There are lots of pictures, as well as some skit scripts.
The second half of the book describes episodes of Sam and Friends.
This is a must-read for Jim Henson fans.

One of the things that I thought was interesting was how Jim adapted to changing mediums, such as television becoming color when he was used to working in black and white. He had even designed a puppet set in black and white at college which was influenced by his television work.

[Naveh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for every muppet lover! The only thing I took a star away for is the fact that 250 pages are just talking about the episodes in depth which got very repetitive

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An informative and interesting read

This look into Jim Henson’s first foray into to television is just really interesting. I recommend to anyone who loves Henson and the Muppets.

[Jifu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Between the detailed history that composes the first half of the book, followed by an exhaustive episode guide constructed off of every existing information source available (ranging from music playlists made Jim Henson to rescued audio recordings, you truly, genuinely couldn't ask for a more definitive work for all things Sam and Friends. The research and passion that Shemin poured into this labor of love shines through on almost every page.

If you're a Muppet fan, then this is an absolute must-read at the very least, if not a must-have for your home library.

Edit: A quick note - I've found that the episode guide (at least when reading about the various sketches that Shemin was able to document in detail) makes for wonderfully light bedtime reading to help relax and ease into sleep).