Jim Henson: The Biography

by Brian Jay Jones

“Machines should work; people should think.”

if CTW couldn’t secure Jim’s services, they’d be better off with no puppets on the show at all.

“TV is frustrating. It is an exciting art and communications form capable of contributing so much, but it just isn’t set up to do it. It’s geared to sell products—the whole reason for being against all other things which are neat and innovative.”

“Jim Henson’s Muppets … is still central to the success of Sesame Street. They are fun for youngsters and intriguing to adults in the imaginative ways in which he uses them.”

It was what the audience wanted and so I felt I should be putting my time and energy into that. The Muppets have always had a life of their own and we who do the Muppets serve that life and the audience. This entity called the Muppets is something that I don’t dictate at all. The audience doesn’t dictate it either—but the response of the audience is all part of it. It has a natural flow of life that one goes with. It’s been fun and rewarding—just wonderful—and I hope that will continue.

When green is all there is to be, It could make you wonder why. But why wonder? Why wonder? I am green—and it’ll do fine. It’s beautiful, And I think it’s what I want to be.

“Jim Henson’s Muppets are so good,” said the Monitor, “they may actually justify the cliche ‘for children and adults alike.’ ”

“Good, solid entertainment is funny for young and old,” he patiently told one reporter. “There is a tendency to think of children’s entertainment versus adult entertainment. It’s possible to have an identical level for both.”

This skit made into at least the first season of the Muppet Show.

To Jim, then, the next step was obvious. He had conquered television; now he was going to make a movie.

Finally, in the film’s climactic scene—a High Noon–type showdown between Kermit and Doc Hopper—Kermit delivers a defiant monologue that so clearly defined Jim’s own personal code that Juhl could have lifted it verbatim from any of his countless conversations with Jim over the last two decades: Yeah, well, I’ve got a dream, too. But it’s about singing and dancing and making people happy. That’s the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with. And, well … I’ve found a whole bunch of friends who have the same dream. And it kind of makes us like a family.

Now, in March 1981, Jim wanted to start developing the series itself—an International Children’s Show, he was calling it—bringing

From the very beginning, Jim was intrigued with the idea of having three very different kinds of Muppet “species” linked together in some way that set up an unintentional but very necessary balance between them.

“The Dark Crystal really polarized opinion,” said Brian Henson. “People who liked it, loved it. But others were not so keen.”

That was the biggest problem with The Dark Crystal; for the first time, Jim had let spectacle get in the way of the story. His vision had come first, the story second—and the audience, usually willing to meet Jim more than halfway, had been unforgiving.

The Muppets Take Manhattan would prove particularly profitable because it had something going for it the other two Muppet films didn’t: Muppet Babies.

Procter & Gamble, which wanted the Muppet Babies to help sell Pampers diapers. Jim arched an eyebrow coyly. “You’re going to let kids shit on my name?” he asked in mock annoyance—then agreed to the deal.

A Muppet Family Christmas stands as one of Jim’s finest, and most underappreciated, productions.

To the delight of the press, Jim also announced that he was at work on another Muppet movie, which he hoped to start shooting in early 1989. For much of the year, he had been mulling over various proposals and brainstorming with Juhl and other Muppet writers.

I would’ve loved to have seen this movie. I’m sad that we didn’t get it.

Jim was thinking about an origin storytelling of the discovery of Fraggle Rock called The Saga of Fraggle Rock.

Wow! I would’ve wanted to see this episode of the Jim Henson Hour!

While he understood NBC’s impatience—gone were the days when a series like The Muppet Show could be given breathing room to find its way—he was certain there was still a place for television shows that took their time and rewarded patient viewers with high production values and top-notch storytelling.

Jim Henson knew that televised serialized storytelling was an option for television. It just wasn’t there in the late 80s.

He also visited with Industrial Light and Magic, George Lucas’s groundbreaking special effects company, to discuss special effects for The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made, which he was determined to put into production in 1989.

On Friday, April 14, the first episode of The Jim Henson Hour finally made its debut on NBC.

YEAH!!!! The Jim Henson Hour is such an under appreciated piece of Jim Henson’s filmography

Now he was going to make a phone call to put the plan into motion. He was going to sell his company to Disney.

FOR DISNEY CEO MICHAEL EISNER, THE VERY IDEA OF JIM HENSON joining the Walt Disney Company was a match “made in family entertainment heaven.” For Jim Henson, it was a lifelong dream come true.

Brillstein assured Jim that if he wanted to sell his company to another major studio—and in fact, Disney rival MCA was interested—he could make it happen. But Jim refused; he wanted Disney, or no one.

But with The Little Mermaid still months away from its November 1989 release—and no certainty for how it would be received by audiences—Disney needed not only reliably bankable characters to add to its slowly expanding character base, it needed a blast of creative energy and talent as well. Jim was their man.

From the very beginning of his discussions with Eisner, said Cooney, “Jim had been adamant that Disney could not have the Sesame Street Muppets.”