January 6, 2015 • 40 mins
We've already recorded an episode on The Muppets, but Jim Henson was such a neat guy we delved into him even further. Learn all about the man behind the Muppets who was so much more than just a master puppeteer in this episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck, Bryant Cowdy and Jerry
for the last time this year. Yeah, it's just informed
(00:21):
us and she's all smiles. She is not very nice, Jerry.
How'd you like that presentation earlier? The sensitivity training? It
was great. Yes, people, because we worked for corporation, we
have things like sensitivity training, and in those trainings you
get shown video examples of various forms of harassment and
(00:46):
they are the best, most fun things to watch. Ever,
they're pretty overt. Yeah, I could watch those all day long.
I was wondering how much that production company made from that.
You know they did, but like five little vignettes they
I'm sure they paid the actors like literal peanuts. They
were bad actors. They were like, there's the peanut bucket
(01:07):
over there, you can pay yourself. Yeah, the old The
one that really got me was the Actually they were
all really funny, but the one with the old guy
in the in the factory loading boxes like a shipping warehouse,
and they were giving the old man a hard time
about everything because he was old. Yeah, because he's old,
and you know, he'd they were giving a hard time,
so he'd, uh he was out of work for a
(01:28):
while and they had to cover for him, the old man,
and he had the back brace on, did you know what?
I said? And he just looked on his face. He
just kept getting a little more like pouty the whole time.
I was like, dude, that's good acting. Stick up for yourself.
Tell these young kids, you know what to do. The
back brace prevents him from it. Anyway. I just had
to bring that up because I just think that stuff
(01:50):
is so funny, And what's funny is people really do that,
some of that stuff that you're like, what, there's some
creeps out there. Um, that was a really weird set
up for Jimson because he's the least harassing guy he
was probably ever. Yeah, he certainly comes across that way.
He's a genuinely good dude. It's not one of these
stories you hear about, like, uh, maybe some of your
(02:13):
favorite children's books writers or cartoonists or something, maybe we're
kind of bad people. No, apparently not at all. Um,
he was not. Only so there's a lot of quotes
in this article. John no John. I thought John Strickland
wrote it. It turns out that's not the case. I'm surprised, um,
(02:33):
because he's friends with or down with at least one
of Jim Henson's kids, I believe lives here in Atlanta.
And but in this article, it's one of those things
where everybody who compliments Jim Henson, who worked with him,
they go to the trouble of complimenting him in a
way that's not just like, oh, he was such a
(02:56):
great guy. They all back up just a little bit
because they're cognizant that that doesn't get it across, and
they want you to understand that they're talking about more
than just the great guy. Like, oh, he's dead and
I'm not going to speak ill of the dead, and
he was a great guy. And that's a really thoughtless, polite,
inoffensive thing to say. So, like Frank Oz said something
(03:20):
like he was a he was a great guy, but
at the same time, you know, he was a human,
but he was still a really great guy. So like
what you're thinking of as a great guy, get rid
of that and actually replaced it with a genuine human
great guy. Yeah, because as a filmmaker, he's a puppeteer obviously,
but he was a filmmaker first and foremost, which a
(03:42):
lot of people kind of forget about. Um, oh yeah,
that's a tough, tough job, super stressful, and you and
I have seen it can make good guys and good
ladies be real jerks and you under stressful situations. You know,
it's it's it's a tough thing. There's a lot of
(04:02):
money on the line each day, and uh, it's like
everybody relaxed. It's just millions of dollars. But frank Oz,
I think that's the point he was making, like even
when he would get frustrated in a stress like that,
it was he was still a good guy behind it all. Yeah,
and I read a read an I guess there was
a book review of biography about him that that showed
(04:22):
that it was all somebody said it was all just
play to him, like work was play. Even though he
worked really hard, he was able to commit himself like
that to his work because to him he was having
the time of his life all the time. And apparently
like there was just there was no line between work
(04:42):
and play, which now that we've seen that sensitivity training
could have gotten him in a lot of big you know,
a lot of trouble, but he, Um, he just enjoyed
the life that he had. From what I understand, love cars.
He had like a lotus that was the same color
as Kermit the Frog. Um, he had a role is
Royce early on from his work. Yeah, Um, let's talk
(05:06):
about let's talk about the guy. Yeah, I mean, if
you haven't, I just need to go ahead and say,
if you haven't listened to the episode on the Muppets, Um,
this is a what I consider just a more in
depth part two on the man himself. But that's one
of our favorite all time episodes and from feedback, one
of the great all time fan episodes. Yeah, it was
a great episode. Yeah, it was just a lot of fun.
(05:27):
And so I hope this augments that one. I hope
you do it justice. So, um, that's actually one of
the reasons why we can do this episode because we
already did a Muppets episode and they tweeted about us.
Do you remember the Henson Company did? Yeah, they did,
which was they approved, got their actual approval, right, man.
That was something. Um, the the Muppets episodes, it's own thing.
(05:50):
It's about Muppets. This is about Jim Henson. And it's
appropriate that we're doing this because he was more than
just the Muppets, even though everybody pegs him with the
Muppets and like that is a huge thing. He was
more than that. Like you said, he was a filmmaker,
but originally started out as it a puppeteer, but kind
of a reluctant one. Yeah. He was born in uh
(06:11):
ninety six September James Marie Henson, m A U r
Y in Mississippi, and his grandmother, maternal grandmother was a
painter and a quilter and a needle worker. And apparently
it was a big inspiration to him, uh, just to
seek out the creative in life, right, which is pretty great, um,
(06:32):
and one of the one of the things he got into. Well,
he was originally a kind of a fan of ventriloquism
a little bit, but he he said later on in
life that he was never he was never like obsessed
with puppets or anything like that like you would have
expected him to be. And as he went to college
I think in Maryland, he uh, he got into he
(06:56):
started out as a studio artist, that's what he was studying. Yeah,
he loved television above all else. From the time he
was a little kid, he was just transfixed by the tube.
He almost kind of made himself destined to be on
television by being obsessed with it. But um, he kind
of stumbled into puppetry uh in college, and he started
(07:18):
out as a studio art major and ended up graduating
with a home X degree because home X was the
only degree that offered puppet making courses. Yeah, he he
majored h or He took a puppetry course at first,
and h then a bunch of textiles and crafts courses,
which is a great way to you know, start building
(07:38):
and making your own puppets. Right. So, but he graduated
with the home X degree. But by the time he graduated,
he was already extremely successful. The UM the Rolls Royce
that I mentioned he bought in time to drive to
his college graduation because he had already created successful shows
UM in his town. Yeah, I think he was in
(08:02):
high school. He was on the local TV station doing
little guest spots and then uh, in nineteen fifty five,
the show Salmon Friends debuted and that uh. You know,
he also did work on the side making money with UM.
I think he did some of the like really cool
concert posters of the day, really color colorful silk screen posters,
(08:22):
and salmon prints did really well. Uh, but he still
wasn't quite sure, Like I still don't know if I wanted,
you know, I'm a filmmaker. I did. Did these short
films really sort of weird abstract short films, live action
experimental that totally experimental. Did you see the time Piece? Yeah,
that one was pretty cool. It was great, um, and
it's way and did you see the Cube? I watched
(08:45):
parts of the Cube that was did you see the end? Now? Oh,
you've got to see the end. I skipped the middle
because I was like, Okay, I get where you're going
with this. Yeah, well we should just set it up
real quick. The Cube was a show on NBC. It
was a one hour show um in nine. The name
of the show NBC did was called Experiment and Television,
(09:07):
and it was a different thing each week. And he
had one week's installment called The Cube, which was a
guy just stuck in a white room but other people
could come in and out of the room, but he
could not write yes, and he starts to go kind
of crazy and it has the look and feel of
a color TV ad um, like all lots of overacting
(09:27):
and like Carol burnettesque characters and stuff like that, but
the sentiment behind it and like the everything behind is
really neat and it really gives you a good, an
eye opening example of like what Jim Henson was capable of,
but also like what he was into, because you know,
(09:48):
when you think of him, you think of muppets and
Sesame Street in particular. Sure, and these are weird abstract
art films, um not unlike you know, you watch like
a Jim Morrison art film him from film school and
it's kind of the same style. You know, that was
what was going on back then. And he actually got
nominated for an Academy Award for time Piece. Uh. I
(10:09):
think Jim Henson had Jim Morrison beat by a mile
as far as experimental films. When yeah, I'll agree with
you there. Um So, like I said, he wasn't quite
convinced that puppetry was his future because he was a
filmmaker and he was like, puppets are still kind of
kids stuff. But post college he did the Old Tour
(10:29):
of Europe, and in Europe, puppeteering is a whole different business.
It was a lot more serious um and a lot
more um. I guess it was treated his art, Yeah, exactly,
and he said, you know what, I Am going to
give this a shot. Came back to the US, married Jane,
and even though he and Jane separated, they never divorced.
(10:51):
Oh really I thought they did. No, they never uh
fulfilled the divorce. They just stayed separated and um. Then
he started making TV commercials and formed his own company
in nineteen sixty three with I don't know if he
formed it with Frank Oz, but he hired Frank Oz
and Jerry Jewell, who ended up being obviously legendary puppeteers
(11:11):
and lifelong collaborators of his. Yeah. Yeah, But he started
out making a basically a puppet based commercial ad agency
in New York in nineteen sixty three. Yeah, and they
weren't making funny commercials back then, so he was really
pretty revolutionary at the time. And they, I mean, they
did pretty well for themselves. And one of the smartest
(11:32):
moves he made early on was all of his contracts
said that he retained the rights to any of the
creations he made for these companies, So he was creating
what some of the things that would later become famous muppets,
Like the Cookie Monster was originally made for a chip maker,
and it was this puppet that couldn't get enough of
(11:52):
these chips. Yeah, he was the wheel steeler and he
stole cheese wheels. Yeah, okay, that's what it was. Um,
And he ended up being the Cookie Monster. The reason
he ended up being the Cookie Musters because Jim Henson
retained the rights to that creation. That was he was
a very savvy business guy too. Yeah, and he was
he was using somebody else's dime, these these advertisers like
(12:14):
Budgets to kind of hash out and form and make
his muppets. Yeah. Rolf the Dog started out on Purina
commercials and was later a sidekick on The Jimmy Dean
Show in nineteen sixty three, which I remember that from
the Muppets episode Wolf was the first big Muppet. Then
it's he's such like a bit character now that you know.
(12:36):
It's just mind boggling to think he was the one
that started at all, even before Kermit, before Big Bird,
it was Rolf. Kermit kind of stole the show. I think. Yeah,
we'll talk a little more about Kermit and where he
came from, right, after this. Alright, so it's nineteen sixty
nine and a very very big thing happens to Jim Henson.
(12:59):
He was invited to be on the pilot of a
show created by the Children's Television Workshop called Sesame Street.
He did not create it, some people think he did,
but he did make his mark by creating most of
the iconic characters. And if you were a fan of
the old Sesame Streets back then, all, not all, but
(13:21):
many of those little short films, the little claymation ones,
are the live actions. He directed those as well, which
is pretty cool. I never knew that. I think I
knew that, did you? Yeah, he was he was our restive.
Yeah he was there. Rustivick, that's right. Russevick is ours.
That's right. So um chuck. Uh. The whole thing that
(13:43):
changed everything for him was Sesame Street. He's not a
he wasn't a creator of Sesame Street. They's hired him
on and they actually kind of went him over because remember,
one of the things that Jim Henson always struggled with
his whole career was he wanted to explore places that
puppets had never really gone to. In themes that they
(14:06):
hadn't gone to at least not in the modern age. Um.
But he was fighting against them not being taken seriously. Yeah,
it wasn't like he was anti puppet by any means.
He was or anti kids because one of the big
reasons he signed on with Children's Television Workshop was their
goal to educate kids meant a lot to him. But um,
(14:26):
like you said, I think to merge those worlds successfully
was a big part of his goal and struggle for
a little while. Russ Vic, by the way, made the
little intersticial things for the stuff you should know television,
the animation, which is why I reference him. So the
Children's Television Workshop, which is now called the Sesame Workshop.
(14:47):
From what I understand, they want him over big time.
He makes all of these characters from like Big Bird,
and I think Kermit came before Sesame Street, and he
started out I think we talked about this in The
Muppet episode two. He started out looking really weird, not
cool at all, like really kind of freaky, which is
something that I now that I know a little more
(15:09):
about Jim Henson, I think maybe he might have even
been going for. But one of the things that Sesame
Street allowed him to do was to really kind of
explore something that he'd long been obsessed with, which was
television and where it converged with puppets, which was all
(15:29):
new territory, and Jim Hanson was at the bleeding edge
of it because if you think about it, when you
go to a puppet show live, you know, you're you're
looking at what's essentially a mechanism for hiding the human
and there's just a little area that the puppet can
move around in. Yeah. So Jim Henson stepped back and said, Okay,
(15:53):
the television is that little tiny area that the puppet
can stay, can move around in. But it all so
opens up the whole world for a puppet because you're
using camera angles and there's editing, and it's not in person. Yeah,
just frame out the people. So and again we talked
about this in the Muppet episode. He created something called
platforming up to where the the puppeteers no longer had
(16:16):
to like crouch down and in to to to maneuver
the puppets. Because he was a tall guy, yeah, tall
and lanky man. He was skinny. Those running shots and
time pieces because he was in it, they were hysterics. Yeah,
and he weighs about seventy pounds somehow big lanky legs.
But um, so yeah, the performers could stand up, which
was a huge weight off. But at the same time,
(16:40):
because you're working with cameras and stuff like that, and
they have the whole universe to move around in and
Jim Henson wanted him to move around as much as possible,
it also put him in some weird positions. Yeah, if
you ever well, some people might think it's like kind
of ruining the thing, but I think it's really neat
if you if you just look up on Google images,
mupp Spot, Muppet Show behind the scenes pictures, and it'll
(17:02):
show the stage sets you know, like uh, six ft
off the ground and all the people standing beneath. Um.
I think it's awesome to look at. But some people don't,
like you know, they want to keep that illusion alive.
So depending on what kind of person you are, either
seek that out or don't. And we gave that warning
in the Muppets Episode two, did we. Yeah. I think
they're really cool pictures because you know, a lot of
(17:25):
times they're looking at they're looking at video monitors. UM,
standing there contorted using both hands. Um, like the way
puppeteers work together, to me is is just a miracle
because they're acting as the puppets, but they're moving still
(17:45):
moving among one another as humans underneath, which can be
really complicated. We, in fact, we know some really really
talented puppeteers here in Atlanta. Yeah, the Center for Puppetry
Arts is yeah, I think the nation's largest puppet puppeteer organization. Yep.
And that is where we had our TV show debut party,
premiere party. Like, it was a really cool experience, Like
(18:08):
emmett Otter and the gang are right there on display.
I think the Hintson and Kermit cut the ribbon for
the grand opening back when it opened, and UM ended
up donating like five hundred puppets and muppets to the
Center for Puppetry Arts. So if you ever visit Atlanta,
people always email us and say what should we do?
Highly recommend going and checking out the Center for Puppetry Arts. Yeah,
(18:28):
because they have a museum with, like you said, emmett Otter,
like a full size life size s yeah behind glass,
scary as you can imagine. Yeah, But I was talking
about Raymond Carr, our friend who I hate to keep
bring up the TV show, but it all kind of overlaps.
He was a production designer for Stuff You Should Know
on Science Channel, and he and his friends Brandon and
(18:50):
the Gang are amazing puppeteers and they're doing some really
really leading edge, like cool stuff here in Atlanta, Like
these giant puppets operate, like, you know, fifting foot tall
puppets operated by like six and eight people. Have you
ever seen the spaceman that they do. No, man, it's unbelievable.
It's really cool. It's like, I don't know how tall
he is. He seems like he's twenty ft tall. And they,
(19:13):
you know, do these at parades and stuff, and it's
just really really cool stuff. That's awesome. Yeah, but Hinton
is a huge inspiration to them obviously. Oh yeah. I
think anybody who works even remotely in puppets has got
to be inspired by Jim Um. One of the other
things that he came up with was that was based
on putting muppets or puppets on TV. Was using softer materials. Yeah,
(19:37):
everything else is like up to that point, stiff wood marionettes,
ventriloquist dummies, that kind of stuff. He used like foam
and it allowed the puppets themselves to have more expressive faces,
which was great for close up on TV. Yeah. Absolutely,
and it also I mean now looking back, he just
(19:59):
are like, well, yeah, of course, it's what puppets do.
That's what I know. But that was Jim Henson that
came up with that, and it changed everything because it
took something like, I mean, imagine, how do he dot?
It was like, yeah, it's cool, you know, it's how
do he doty? Or whatever? But whether close up or
far away, he looked exactly the same. It was like
a wood head with like a moving lower jaw, and
(20:20):
you know, he gave you nightmares. But with the Termit,
the frog or something like that. The fact that he
could have different expressions and react differently, and and his
emotions could be shown on his face, that made him
that much more popular, that much more approachable, uh, to
people who were into him, absolutely, which is everybody. Yeah, yeah,
(20:42):
show me someone who doesn't like muppets in any form.
I get it. If you don't like it anymore, maybe,
but your heart is cold and dead inside um for
a while. And this is something I don't think I knew. Uh.
He dabbled on Saturday Night Live in season one, h
Lauren Michael's got him a deal to perform some sketches
and ultimately it wasn't a huge success and it wasn't
(21:04):
the greatest marriage, but it was pretty cool that he
was uh seeking out, you know, different avenues to get
those puppets on television. It was and his big break came,
um in nine he had it. He wanted to make
The Muppet Show. And he had a lot of trouble
in the US still, even though he had his various
successes on commercials and stuff. Uh. So he had to
(21:27):
go to London and a TV producer named Lord lew
Grade gave him a deal with grades A TV Studios
and said, you know what, you can make your show. Uh,
and the Muppet Show was born. Oh yeah about it
being about a boom, that was it. That was it.
And um you can really see Jim Hinson's love of
variety shows and just kind of um, well, just the
(21:51):
stage uh in The Muppet Show because if you think
about its set, the whole thing set backstage at a
variety show. It's such a great idea when look back
at it. Let me take it for granted a little
bit because we were kids, but now as an adult,
it's like, what a perfect way to frame this world
is It's basically like thirty Rock or thirty Rock was
(22:12):
the Muppet Show? Right? Well, the Muppet Show started all that. Yeah.
I don't know if Carol Burnett was before the Muppet Show.
Yeah it was before, was it? So she did a
lot of backstage stuff, didn't she. I wonder if who
started that. I don't know. He hurts was more sketch, Yeah,
but some of it was like backstage, wasn't I believe
(22:32):
So I don't remember that. I'm hallucinating right now. They
to have a good old fashioned variety show again, Yeah,
they don't have those anymore. Those are big back in
the day, you know, like the host comes out and
then their sketches and singing and remember our cabaret, No,
it was in cabaret. What was it the episode we did?
Oh burlesque burlesque? Yeah? Yeah, how that started out in
(22:55):
vaudeville and burlesque cad that's where stand up comedy came from.
That was an interesting episode. Yeah. I missed those variety
shows though, like the Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton and
uh Cail Burnett all the van drell sisters, although Kenny
and Dolly could just sit on a couch and stare
at the camera for an hour and I'd watch that
the best great entertainers too. Um. Alright, so where are
(23:20):
we in our timeline? Well, Chuck, the Muppet Shows just hit.
Things are going pretty well. They happened going pretty well
already for Henson. Apparently in nineteen seventy, rubber Ducky hit
number sixteen on the Billboard charts. And for those who
don't know, uh, Ernie is voiced by Jim Henson. So
(23:41):
Jim Henson sang a song rubber Ducky that made it
to number sixteen on the Billboard charts. And that was
nineteen seventy, a year after The Cube, before the Muppet
Show even happened, before Sesame Street even right, No Mystery
was same year as The Cube. That's good, it's did
a new touchstone for his life. The Cube yea PC
(24:03):
and BC. Um. So the Muppet Show was. It was
a huge hit. It won uh you know, a lot
of awards, It connored critical praise and won the hearts
of children all over the world. But it was also
for adults too. Oh yeah, I think that's why he
was able to pull it off in Great Britain because
they have better senses of humor. Yeah. And speaking of adults, Uh,
(24:26):
he got into some more serious themes with his next
great show, Fraggle Rock in I never saw a second
of that show. Oh man, really it wasn't an HBO. Yeah.
It was one of the first HBO original series. We
either had showtime or we didn't have HPOU. It was awesome.
Fraggle Rock was great, and uh, the idea there is
(24:46):
you had the the Fraggle Gang, and then you had well,
you you had three different groups. You had the home
of Doc who was an inventor in his dog's procket um.
You had the Fraggles who share caves underground of Fraggle
Rock with their neighbors the Dousers, and the Gorg's and
these gigantic creatures, uh that are in Gorg's garden. And
(25:10):
the whole point of that show was to show how
different types of people can live together and work together
in peace. It was really cool. Didn't know it at
the time when I was, you know, twelve years old,
but what I was learning about was acceptance and uh.
He won three Cable Ace Awards. Uh. Five International Emmys,
and Fraggle Rock was one of the first big hits
(25:32):
for HBO as far as TV goes, great, great show,
lots of great songs that I mean, he had every
kind of like reggae, rock, country, bluegrass. He was all
over the map with the music and Fraggle Rock, and
he I mean, he wrote a lot of songs too.
I think he wrote rubber Ducky. I'm sure he wrote
a lot of the stuff on Fraggle Rock. It was
just yet another thing he did, was right. M Renaissance
(25:53):
man Um the other show that he came out with
in the eighties, in the mid eighties that I was
big time into his Muppet Babies. I never saw one
second of that, and I love that show. Yeah, we're
just enough apart in age, where like certain things I
saw you, I was you were too young for, and
then certain things I was too old for. You know,
it's weird though, I'm just gonna say this, so you
(26:14):
me and I are the same age. Her sister is
like five years younger than us, and I used to
love Muppet Babies. You mean's sister used to watch Muppet Babies.
So you mean it was like, why were you watching
Muppet Babies. If my younger sister was watching babies, now,
she watched like Donna Hue or something like that. I
(26:35):
watched the Muppet Babies. I'm not ashamed anymore to say,
Well when was that in four? I was thirteen, so yeah,
I was just I was starting to be a teenager.
Muppet Babies didn't appeal. I think it was on for
like four or five seasons, so maybe I was watching
it at the beginning of the series and it was
watching it. That's what I've been telling you. Me and
eighty four, you would have been what eight? Oh yeah,
that's perfect age for Muppet Babies. So I think I
(26:56):
think we just saw it on different ends of the series,
is what it was? Is that what it is? Um?
But have you ever heard of Ron Funches? Uh? Yeah,
the comedian. Yeah, yeah, he has a little bit about
Muppet babies. That's pretty hilarious. Yeah he's awesome. I love
that guy. Yeah, we saw him live. He's just a
beautiful human being. Um, Muppet Babies was cartoon though, right right?
(27:18):
It was not live puppets. Correct, it was cartoon, Okay,
it was so cute. Were they just the regular muppets
as babies. Oh, we'll have to watch that sometimes. Yeah,
and they like use their imagination. Like Gonzo had a
thing for Indiana Jones, so he was frequently like exploring
caves and like swinging on vines with the Indiana Jones
(27:40):
Fedora on and that kind of stuff. Well, see, I
would probably enjoy that, now you would. Yeah, definitely. All right,
I'm gonna go get Muppet babies, chuck. He did even
more TV that we'll talk about in a second. Okay, okay, okay, okay,
and we're back and we're still in the eighties, that's right,
(28:00):
And you were talking about other TV. As we said,
the man loved television and filmmaking, and so he got
away from the muppets and puppets every now and then.
Uh collaborated with Raymond Scott, who was an electronica pioneer
actually on shorts called Ripples and Wheels that go h
and he did that for the Montreal Expo in sixty seven.
(28:22):
And I know we're jumping around in time, but we're
just trying to paint the full picture here, not going
necessarily in order. And then he also did this cool
thing called the Floating Face, which was a sketch that
was on the Tonight Show, on the Mike Douglas Show
in the sixties. Um, which did you see any of
that a little bit? It was a little weird. It
was like two eyes and a mouth and they were
like these invisible wires and background images, and it was
(28:46):
definitely a little more on that surreal tip, the Hinson
surreal tip, not kid oriented necessarily. But he got into
the movies with the Muppet Movie, which was a big hit.
It still holds up, man, it's still so great. And
if you want to know more about that movie, into
some of the cool facts from it, go again, listen
to the Muppet episode. As a matter of fact, pause this,
(29:10):
go listen to the Muppet episode and then come back
to this one. Probably enhance your experience, agreed, or listen
to him both at the same time. But he followed
the Muppet In nineteenade two he made The Dark Crystal, Yeah,
which was puppets and it was based on m some
drawings by fantasy artist Brian Froud, and um, there were
(29:32):
no humans. It was all puppets. And I don't think
it holds up as well, but it still looks pretty good. Well, yeah,
I think it actually is probably better received now than
it was originally. I think critics appreciated it, but it
didn't do so well at the box office. But now
it's become like kind of a cult classic for sure. Um.
(29:52):
And one of the reasons why it didn't do that
well at the box office because audiences didn't quite know
what to make. They heard Frank Oz who co directed it,
Jim Henson, uh and puppets, and I think they went
expecting the Muppet movie this and they they got the
Dark Crystal instead, which is really dark. A lot of
(30:15):
the like the theme is, you know, good versus evil,
and it's the evil and it is really really evil.
And the stuff that happens to some of the puppets is,
including really cute puppets, is really horrifying. And um, I
read this awesome quote by Frank Oz and basically he says,
like Jim thought it was okay to scare kids. As
(30:38):
a matter of fact, he thought it wasn't healthy for
kids to never be scared, so like he purposefully was
trying to scare kids, and he wanted to take the
tradition back to like grim fairy tales, which were very
very dark graphics, good that's what he was going for
with The Dark Crystal. Yeah. I think it was ahead
of its time for sure. If you look at some
(30:59):
of these, uh, like some of the C G I
movies today, I think that Dark Crystal was a precursor
a lot of those. Uh. Then he went on to
make the movie The Labyrinth with Bowie, right, Yeah, David
Bowie and a very young Jennifer Connelly. Now that was
a legend. Okay, um, good movie. But this was written
(31:19):
by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame and then rewritten
a bunch by a bunch of other people, including executive
producer George Lucas. Um. Labyrinth was okay, not bad. Again,
not a huge hit for Hinson though as far as
movies go. But he was still out there exploring these
cool fantastical worlds and fantasy worlds. And he still had
(31:39):
a lot of credit. Um, even in the late eighties. Uh,
if you think about it, his heyday was the late
seventies early eighties with The Muppet Show, the Muppet Movie,
and then after that it was like, yeah, I'll try
this with Jim Henson. I'll try this with Jim Henson. Um.
And even even still he had like a He was
on a pretty eight streak and at the end of
(32:02):
the A d C had two TV shows on the
Jim Henson Hour and Storyteller. The Storyteller, Yeah, the Jim
Hinson Hour. He was always pushing the boundaries. The Storyteller
looking Back Now, I'm sorry, Jim Hinson Ower looking Back
was really different from what you were getting at the
time because it was it was all over the map.
You had certain shows that were like, you know, four
(32:22):
or five sketches in one and then three of the
episodes were full on one hour little mini movies from yeah,
from beginning to yeah. That's a good point actually. Um.
One of the little mini movies was called dog City,
which was great. It was narrated by Rolf and it
was I remember watching this. It was like a film
(32:43):
noir gangster thing with puppet dogs. Uh and the main character,
A s U was the guy who did Elmo. Kevin
Clash did the character of a s U and that
was fantastic. I think Dog City went on to be
a TV show in its own right too for a
little while. But it was really good. I mean, it's
total like gangster crime, film noir, but it's you know,
(33:05):
Rolf the Dog, the Gang. I love it's really cool.
Um the Storyteller I hadn't seen before. I was, I
guess aware of, but I don't know why I wasn't
watching it because it would have been like right there
for me because I would have been twelve. But I
watched one today and it was really good. It's like
human um puppet interaction, which is and it's just seamless.
(33:28):
Like There's one of the things from studying this that
I've realized is like we take for granted and expect
our puppet human interactions to be so seamless that we
don't even realize that we're looking at puppets right then.
And the reason why we expect that is because of
Jim Henson and the people he worked with in and
inspired to work so hard at creating that illusion. Well, yeah,
(33:52):
the illusion that these are living, breathing things. Uh, he
would go I remember Kermit as guest on talk shows.
He wouldn't go out as Jim Henson. He would go
out as I mean, he did those appearances as well,
but Kermit the Frog would be a guest on The
Tonight Show with Johnny Carson or host or host the
night guest House, The Night Show and Larry King. Yeah,
(34:12):
and it was all a part of this um goal
of making these real people or real living things not people. Yeah.
Apparently somebody who was working with Jim Henson was I
guess the director of the Muppet Show would be giving
Jim notes on Kermit, and Jim would just respond, like,
(34:33):
let Kermit respond, and the director said, eventually you're just
sitting there. You turned and you address Kermit like he
just forced you into like interacting with the puppet, even
during a note session. Yeah, and probably without feeling silly
or stupid or anything. You know, it probably seemed like
a totally normal thing to do eventually once he forced
you to do. Uh. He also pioneered the Henson Performance
(34:56):
Control System and won an Academy Award for that, and
that was a remote control system that helped puppeteers out.
So he was always pushing technical, visual, um stylistic thematic
boundaries as far as he could UM, and they didn't
always work. You know, the movies weren't aside from the
(35:17):
Muppet Movie, they weren't the biggest hits UM. The TV
show a couple of you know, neither one of those
lasted very long, but I think he was. He was
just intent on doing something different he uh, and he
did too, and he died in of us staff infection.
Organ failure brought on by a staff infection. Did you
(35:39):
know that? Yeah? I think pneumonia had something to do
with it, too, didn't it. Not that I saw, I
really I saw organ failure caused by a group a
strep infection. I'm sorry. That's staff. Very sad. And if
you're ever in the mood for a good cry, watch
the Jim Henson memorial We're Big Bird sings It's not
easy being green. Yeah, tough stuff people. His children, His
(36:04):
legacy lives on through Jane, his wife, formed founded the
Jim Hinson Legacy to preserve his contributions chairing with the public,
and like I said, he donated five puppets to the
Center Puppetry Arts and uh. There is also the Jim
Hinson Memorial in Muppet Museum and traveling exhibits. And his
(36:28):
sons and daughters help run his foundation, and some of
them are themselves and run the company. The company has
changed hands a lot um. I have sort of the
boring history. When he was still alive, he was going
to sell it to Disney for a hundred and fifty
million because apparently he believed in Disney's commitment to characters,
so he thought like that would be a good place
(36:50):
for the Muppets to live. Yeah, and Disney went he
bought it, but he did not get that deal finished.
But it turns out a hundred fifty million with chump
change because in two thousand his children sold the entire company,
including the Sesame Street characters, to a German media company
for six and eighty million, And then I believe that
(37:12):
company fell on hard times and they bought it back
in two thousand three for eighty four million. Isn't that crazy?
The Hanston children are smart. And in between all that
there are various exchanges of percentages of steaks with other
companies and rights of certain characters. Uh, it's a little
doll to go over all of that, but needless to say,
(37:34):
they made up pretty well, and eventually Disney now does uh,
they do own all the Muppet studio. They own the Muppets.
Apparently the Henston company sold the rights to the Sesame
Street characters to Sesame Street, which is pretty yes, and
the Jim Henson Creature shops still builds the Sesame Street
Puppets and Muppets. Yeah, since they sold the rights of
(37:56):
the Muppets and there in the Big Blue House characters,
which I'm not familiar with that one, nor am I,
but Disney wanted. I guess that's sort of the the
player to be named later that's included in the in
the baseball trade. Man. I'm proud of the Henson kids. Yeah,
they're great and uh, I hope we get tweeted about
this one. From then they seem he seemed pretty great,
(38:18):
Brian and Cheryl and the gang. He seemed like they're
doing right by the dad. And there's other siblings too,
and I think they're all involved, super involved. And sadly
Jane passed away I think in two thousand thirteen at
the age of seventy eight. I would have loved to
have seen what kind of work he did later in
his life. Oh yeah, the fact that he died still
(38:39):
had like a couple of TV shows going. I'm years old. Yeah,
he hit a lot of left in. Uh. If you
want to know more about Jim Henson, go listen to
our Muppets episode. And while you're looking that up, you
can also uh search Jim Henson on the search bar
at how Stuffworks dot com and we'll bring up this
great article and us since I said search parts, time
(39:01):
for a listener mail. Uh this is I'm gonna call
this sophomore smart sophomore. Hey guys, my name is Matt
and I'm a sophomore in high school. Smartphomore. I'm a
newer fan of the show, and I listen while I
do everything. I just wanted to say the Dark Ages
were only dark in Europe. The life expectancy in the
Dark Ages is actually a little longer than before, but
(39:23):
mostly because there were smaller wars. But things were certainly
brighter in the Islamic world. In fact, people in the
Middle East were really enlightened during this time. Within about
a hundred years, they conquered a lot of new land,
including Spain. Also, the Arabic language grew to be the
language of philosophy, medicine, and poetry, and Baghdad became the
world center of scholarship. They translated almost all of the
(39:45):
famous Greek philosopher's work into Arabic. Muslim Muslims developed algebra
to simplify inheritance laws, and they made important strides in
trigonometry to help people find a way to Mecca. Architecture
grew to the Great Mosque in Spain. We took roughly
a year, while medieval cathedrals took hundreds of years to build.
So the Dark Ages weren't that dark. And the Enlightenment
(40:06):
came earlier than most think. And that is from Matt.
Thanks Matt. That is enlightening stuff, my friend. Yeah, our
numerals are Arabic. Yeah, it's true. We should, we should
hit on some more Middle Eastern topics. Let's do it. Yeah. Uh.
In the meantime, if you want to suggest some Middle
Eastern topics for us, you can tweet them to us
(40:27):
at s I s K Podcast. You can post them
on our Facebook page at Facebook dot com, slash stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email to
Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and as always,
hang out at our beautiful home on the web, Stuff
you Should Know dot com For more on this and
(40:48):
thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot
com
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck, Bryant Cowdy and Jerry
for the last time this year. Yeah, it's just informed
(00:21):
us and she's all smiles. She is not very nice, Jerry.
How'd you like that presentation earlier? The sensitivity training? It
was great. Yes, people, because we worked for corporation, we
have things like sensitivity training, and in those trainings you
get shown video examples of various forms of harassment and
(00:46):
they are the best, most fun things to watch. Ever,
they're pretty overt. Yeah, I could watch those all day long.
I was wondering how much that production company made from that.
You know they did, but like five little vignettes they
I'm sure they paid the actors like literal peanuts. They
were bad actors. They were like, there's the peanut bucket
(01:07):
over there, you can pay yourself. Yeah, the old The
one that really got me was the Actually they were
all really funny, but the one with the old guy
in the in the factory loading boxes like a shipping warehouse,
and they were giving the old man a hard time
about everything because he was old. Yeah, because he's old,
and you know, he'd they were giving a hard time,
so he'd, uh he was out of work for a
(01:28):
while and they had to cover for him, the old man,
and he had the back brace on, did you know what?
I said? And he just looked on his face. He
just kept getting a little more like pouty the whole time.
I was like, dude, that's good acting. Stick up for yourself.
Tell these young kids, you know what to do. The
back brace prevents him from it. Anyway. I just had
to bring that up because I just think that stuff
(01:50):
is so funny, And what's funny is people really do that,
some of that stuff that you're like, what, there's some
creeps out there. Um, that was a really weird set
up for Jimson because he's the least harassing guy he
was probably ever. Yeah, he certainly comes across that way.
He's a genuinely good dude. It's not one of these
stories you hear about, like, uh, maybe some of your
(02:13):
favorite children's books writers or cartoonists or something, maybe we're
kind of bad people. No, apparently not at all. Um,
he was not. Only so there's a lot of quotes
in this article. John no John. I thought John Strickland
wrote it. It turns out that's not the case. I'm surprised, um,
(02:33):
because he's friends with or down with at least one
of Jim Henson's kids, I believe lives here in Atlanta.
And but in this article, it's one of those things
where everybody who compliments Jim Henson, who worked with him,
they go to the trouble of complimenting him in a
way that's not just like, oh, he was such a
(02:56):
great guy. They all back up just a little bit
because they're cognizant that that doesn't get it across, and
they want you to understand that they're talking about more
than just the great guy. Like, oh, he's dead and
I'm not going to speak ill of the dead, and
he was a great guy. And that's a really thoughtless, polite,
inoffensive thing to say. So, like Frank Oz said something
(03:20):
like he was a he was a great guy, but
at the same time, you know, he was a human,
but he was still a really great guy. So like
what you're thinking of as a great guy, get rid
of that and actually replaced it with a genuine human
great guy. Yeah, because as a filmmaker, he's a puppeteer obviously,
but he was a filmmaker first and foremost, which a
(03:42):
lot of people kind of forget about. Um, oh yeah,
that's a tough, tough job, super stressful, and you and
I have seen it can make good guys and good
ladies be real jerks and you under stressful situations. You know,
it's it's it's a tough thing. There's a lot of
(04:02):
money on the line each day, and uh, it's like
everybody relaxed. It's just millions of dollars. But frank Oz,
I think that's the point he was making, like even
when he would get frustrated in a stress like that,
it was he was still a good guy behind it all. Yeah,
and I read a read an I guess there was
a book review of biography about him that that showed
(04:22):
that it was all somebody said it was all just
play to him, like work was play. Even though he
worked really hard, he was able to commit himself like
that to his work because to him he was having
the time of his life all the time. And apparently
like there was just there was no line between work
(04:42):
and play, which now that we've seen that sensitivity training
could have gotten him in a lot of big you know,
a lot of trouble, but he, Um, he just enjoyed
the life that he had. From what I understand, love cars.
He had like a lotus that was the same color
as Kermit the Frog. Um, he had a role is
Royce early on from his work. Yeah, Um, let's talk
(05:06):
about let's talk about the guy. Yeah, I mean, if
you haven't, I just need to go ahead and say,
if you haven't listened to the episode on the Muppets, Um,
this is a what I consider just a more in
depth part two on the man himself. But that's one
of our favorite all time episodes and from feedback, one
of the great all time fan episodes. Yeah, it was
a great episode. Yeah, it was just a lot of fun.
(05:27):
And so I hope this augments that one. I hope
you do it justice. So, um, that's actually one of
the reasons why we can do this episode because we
already did a Muppets episode and they tweeted about us.
Do you remember the Henson Company did? Yeah, they did,
which was they approved, got their actual approval, right, man.
That was something. Um, the the Muppets episodes, it's own thing.
(05:50):
It's about Muppets. This is about Jim Henson. And it's
appropriate that we're doing this because he was more than
just the Muppets, even though everybody pegs him with the
Muppets and like that is a huge thing. He was
more than that. Like you said, he was a filmmaker,
but originally started out as it a puppeteer, but kind
of a reluctant one. Yeah. He was born in uh
(06:11):
ninety six September James Marie Henson, m A U r
Y in Mississippi, and his grandmother, maternal grandmother was a
painter and a quilter and a needle worker. And apparently
it was a big inspiration to him, uh, just to
seek out the creative in life, right, which is pretty great, um,
(06:32):
and one of the one of the things he got into. Well,
he was originally a kind of a fan of ventriloquism
a little bit, but he he said later on in
life that he was never he was never like obsessed
with puppets or anything like that like you would have
expected him to be. And as he went to college
I think in Maryland, he uh, he got into he
(06:56):
started out as a studio artist, that's what he was studying. Yeah,
he loved television above all else. From the time he
was a little kid, he was just transfixed by the tube.
He almost kind of made himself destined to be on
television by being obsessed with it. But um, he kind
of stumbled into puppetry uh in college, and he started
(07:18):
out as a studio art major and ended up graduating
with a home X degree because home X was the
only degree that offered puppet making courses. Yeah, he he
majored h or He took a puppetry course at first,
and h then a bunch of textiles and crafts courses,
which is a great way to you know, start building
(07:38):
and making your own puppets. Right. So, but he graduated
with the home X degree. But by the time he graduated,
he was already extremely successful. The UM the Rolls Royce
that I mentioned he bought in time to drive to
his college graduation because he had already created successful shows
UM in his town. Yeah, I think he was in
(08:02):
high school. He was on the local TV station doing
little guest spots and then uh, in nineteen fifty five,
the show Salmon Friends debuted and that uh. You know,
he also did work on the side making money with UM.
I think he did some of the like really cool
concert posters of the day, really color colorful silk screen posters,
(08:22):
and salmon prints did really well. Uh, but he still
wasn't quite sure, Like I still don't know if I wanted,
you know, I'm a filmmaker. I did. Did these short
films really sort of weird abstract short films, live action
experimental that totally experimental. Did you see the time Piece? Yeah,
that one was pretty cool. It was great, um, and
it's way and did you see the Cube? I watched
(08:45):
parts of the Cube that was did you see the end? Now? Oh,
you've got to see the end. I skipped the middle
because I was like, Okay, I get where you're going
with this. Yeah, well we should just set it up
real quick. The Cube was a show on NBC. It
was a one hour show um in nine. The name
of the show NBC did was called Experiment and Television,
(09:07):
and it was a different thing each week. And he
had one week's installment called The Cube, which was a
guy just stuck in a white room but other people
could come in and out of the room, but he
could not write yes, and he starts to go kind
of crazy and it has the look and feel of
a color TV ad um, like all lots of overacting
(09:27):
and like Carol burnettesque characters and stuff like that, but
the sentiment behind it and like the everything behind is
really neat and it really gives you a good, an
eye opening example of like what Jim Henson was capable of,
but also like what he was into, because you know,
(09:48):
when you think of him, you think of muppets and
Sesame Street in particular. Sure, and these are weird abstract
art films, um not unlike you know, you watch like
a Jim Morrison art film him from film school and
it's kind of the same style. You know, that was
what was going on back then. And he actually got
nominated for an Academy Award for time Piece. Uh. I
(10:09):
think Jim Henson had Jim Morrison beat by a mile
as far as experimental films. When yeah, I'll agree with
you there. Um So, like I said, he wasn't quite
convinced that puppetry was his future because he was a
filmmaker and he was like, puppets are still kind of
kids stuff. But post college he did the Old Tour
(10:29):
of Europe, and in Europe, puppeteering is a whole different business.
It was a lot more serious um and a lot
more um. I guess it was treated his art, Yeah, exactly,
and he said, you know what, I Am going to
give this a shot. Came back to the US, married Jane,
and even though he and Jane separated, they never divorced.
(10:51):
Oh really I thought they did. No, they never uh
fulfilled the divorce. They just stayed separated and um. Then
he started making TV commercials and formed his own company
in nineteen sixty three with I don't know if he
formed it with Frank Oz, but he hired Frank Oz
and Jerry Jewell, who ended up being obviously legendary puppeteers
(11:11):
and lifelong collaborators of his. Yeah. Yeah, But he started
out making a basically a puppet based commercial ad agency
in New York in nineteen sixty three. Yeah, and they
weren't making funny commercials back then, so he was really
pretty revolutionary at the time. And they, I mean, they
did pretty well for themselves. And one of the smartest
(11:32):
moves he made early on was all of his contracts
said that he retained the rights to any of the
creations he made for these companies, So he was creating
what some of the things that would later become famous muppets,
Like the Cookie Monster was originally made for a chip maker,
and it was this puppet that couldn't get enough of
(11:52):
these chips. Yeah, he was the wheel steeler and he
stole cheese wheels. Yeah, okay, that's what it was. Um,
And he ended up being the Cookie Monster. The reason
he ended up being the Cookie Musters because Jim Henson
retained the rights to that creation. That was he was
a very savvy business guy too. Yeah, and he was
he was using somebody else's dime, these these advertisers like
(12:14):
Budgets to kind of hash out and form and make
his muppets. Yeah. Rolf the Dog started out on Purina
commercials and was later a sidekick on The Jimmy Dean
Show in nineteen sixty three, which I remember that from
the Muppets episode Wolf was the first big Muppet. Then
it's he's such like a bit character now that you know.
(12:36):
It's just mind boggling to think he was the one
that started at all, even before Kermit, before Big Bird,
it was Rolf. Kermit kind of stole the show. I think. Yeah,
we'll talk a little more about Kermit and where he
came from, right, after this. Alright, so it's nineteen sixty
nine and a very very big thing happens to Jim Henson.
(12:59):
He was invited to be on the pilot of a
show created by the Children's Television Workshop called Sesame Street.
He did not create it, some people think he did,
but he did make his mark by creating most of
the iconic characters. And if you were a fan of
the old Sesame Streets back then, all, not all, but
(13:21):
many of those little short films, the little claymation ones,
are the live actions. He directed those as well, which
is pretty cool. I never knew that. I think I
knew that, did you? Yeah, he was he was our restive.
Yeah he was there. Rustivick, that's right. Russevick is ours.
That's right. So um chuck. Uh. The whole thing that
(13:43):
changed everything for him was Sesame Street. He's not a
he wasn't a creator of Sesame Street. They's hired him
on and they actually kind of went him over because remember,
one of the things that Jim Henson always struggled with
his whole career was he wanted to explore places that
puppets had never really gone to. In themes that they
(14:06):
hadn't gone to at least not in the modern age. Um.
But he was fighting against them not being taken seriously. Yeah,
it wasn't like he was anti puppet by any means.
He was or anti kids because one of the big
reasons he signed on with Children's Television Workshop was their
goal to educate kids meant a lot to him. But um,
(14:26):
like you said, I think to merge those worlds successfully
was a big part of his goal and struggle for
a little while. Russ Vic, by the way, made the
little intersticial things for the stuff you should know television,
the animation, which is why I reference him. So the
Children's Television Workshop, which is now called the Sesame Workshop.
(14:47):
From what I understand, they want him over big time.
He makes all of these characters from like Big Bird,
and I think Kermit came before Sesame Street, and he
started out I think we talked about this in The
Muppet episode two. He started out looking really weird, not
cool at all, like really kind of freaky, which is
something that I now that I know a little more
(15:09):
about Jim Henson, I think maybe he might have even
been going for. But one of the things that Sesame
Street allowed him to do was to really kind of
explore something that he'd long been obsessed with, which was
television and where it converged with puppets, which was all
(15:29):
new territory, and Jim Hanson was at the bleeding edge
of it because if you think about it, when you
go to a puppet show live, you know, you're you're
looking at what's essentially a mechanism for hiding the human
and there's just a little area that the puppet can
move around in. Yeah. So Jim Henson stepped back and said, Okay,
(15:53):
the television is that little tiny area that the puppet
can stay, can move around in. But it all so
opens up the whole world for a puppet because you're
using camera angles and there's editing, and it's not in person. Yeah,
just frame out the people. So and again we talked
about this in the Muppet episode. He created something called
platforming up to where the the puppeteers no longer had
(16:16):
to like crouch down and in to to to maneuver
the puppets. Because he was a tall guy, yeah, tall
and lanky man. He was skinny. Those running shots and
time pieces because he was in it, they were hysterics. Yeah,
and he weighs about seventy pounds somehow big lanky legs.
But um, so yeah, the performers could stand up, which
was a huge weight off. But at the same time,
(16:40):
because you're working with cameras and stuff like that, and
they have the whole universe to move around in and
Jim Henson wanted him to move around as much as possible,
it also put him in some weird positions. Yeah, if
you ever well, some people might think it's like kind
of ruining the thing, but I think it's really neat
if you if you just look up on Google images,
mupp Spot, Muppet Show behind the scenes pictures, and it'll
(17:02):
show the stage sets you know, like uh, six ft
off the ground and all the people standing beneath. Um.
I think it's awesome to look at. But some people don't,
like you know, they want to keep that illusion alive.
So depending on what kind of person you are, either
seek that out or don't. And we gave that warning
in the Muppets Episode two, did we. Yeah. I think
they're really cool pictures because you know, a lot of
(17:25):
times they're looking at they're looking at video monitors. UM,
standing there contorted using both hands. Um, like the way
puppeteers work together, to me is is just a miracle
because they're acting as the puppets, but they're moving still
(17:45):
moving among one another as humans underneath, which can be
really complicated. We, in fact, we know some really really
talented puppeteers here in Atlanta. Yeah, the Center for Puppetry
Arts is yeah, I think the nation's largest puppet puppeteer organization. Yep.
And that is where we had our TV show debut party,
premiere party. Like, it was a really cool experience, Like
(18:08):
emmett Otter and the gang are right there on display.
I think the Hintson and Kermit cut the ribbon for
the grand opening back when it opened, and UM ended
up donating like five hundred puppets and muppets to the
Center for Puppetry Arts. So if you ever visit Atlanta,
people always email us and say what should we do?
Highly recommend going and checking out the Center for Puppetry Arts. Yeah,
(18:28):
because they have a museum with, like you said, emmett Otter,
like a full size life size s yeah behind glass,
scary as you can imagine. Yeah, But I was talking
about Raymond Carr, our friend who I hate to keep
bring up the TV show, but it all kind of overlaps.
He was a production designer for Stuff You Should Know
on Science Channel, and he and his friends Brandon and
(18:50):
the Gang are amazing puppeteers and they're doing some really
really leading edge, like cool stuff here in Atlanta, Like
these giant puppets operate, like, you know, fifting foot tall
puppets operated by like six and eight people. Have you
ever seen the spaceman that they do. No, man, it's unbelievable.
It's really cool. It's like, I don't know how tall
he is. He seems like he's twenty ft tall. And they,
(19:13):
you know, do these at parades and stuff, and it's
just really really cool stuff. That's awesome. Yeah, but Hinton
is a huge inspiration to them obviously. Oh yeah. I
think anybody who works even remotely in puppets has got
to be inspired by Jim Um. One of the other
things that he came up with was that was based
on putting muppets or puppets on TV. Was using softer materials. Yeah,
(19:37):
everything else is like up to that point, stiff wood marionettes,
ventriloquist dummies, that kind of stuff. He used like foam
and it allowed the puppets themselves to have more expressive faces,
which was great for close up on TV. Yeah. Absolutely,
and it also I mean now looking back, he just
(19:59):
are like, well, yeah, of course, it's what puppets do.
That's what I know. But that was Jim Henson that
came up with that, and it changed everything because it
took something like, I mean, imagine, how do he dot?
It was like, yeah, it's cool, you know, it's how
do he doty? Or whatever? But whether close up or
far away, he looked exactly the same. It was like
a wood head with like a moving lower jaw, and
(20:20):
you know, he gave you nightmares. But with the Termit,
the frog or something like that. The fact that he
could have different expressions and react differently, and and his
emotions could be shown on his face, that made him
that much more popular, that much more approachable, uh, to
people who were into him, absolutely, which is everybody. Yeah, yeah,
(20:42):
show me someone who doesn't like muppets in any form.
I get it. If you don't like it anymore, maybe,
but your heart is cold and dead inside um for
a while. And this is something I don't think I knew. Uh.
He dabbled on Saturday Night Live in season one, h
Lauren Michael's got him a deal to perform some sketches
and ultimately it wasn't a huge success and it wasn't
(21:04):
the greatest marriage, but it was pretty cool that he
was uh seeking out, you know, different avenues to get
those puppets on television. It was and his big break came,
um in nine he had it. He wanted to make
The Muppet Show. And he had a lot of trouble
in the US still, even though he had his various
successes on commercials and stuff. Uh. So he had to
(21:27):
go to London and a TV producer named Lord lew
Grade gave him a deal with grades A TV Studios
and said, you know what, you can make your show. Uh,
and the Muppet Show was born. Oh yeah about it
being about a boom, that was it. That was it.
And um you can really see Jim Hinson's love of
variety shows and just kind of um, well, just the
(21:51):
stage uh in The Muppet Show because if you think
about its set, the whole thing set backstage at a
variety show. It's such a great idea when look back
at it. Let me take it for granted a little
bit because we were kids, but now as an adult,
it's like, what a perfect way to frame this world
is It's basically like thirty Rock or thirty Rock was
(22:12):
the Muppet Show? Right? Well, the Muppet Show started all that. Yeah.
I don't know if Carol Burnett was before the Muppet Show.
Yeah it was before, was it? So she did a
lot of backstage stuff, didn't she. I wonder if who
started that. I don't know. He hurts was more sketch, Yeah,
but some of it was like backstage, wasn't I believe
(22:32):
So I don't remember that. I'm hallucinating right now. They
to have a good old fashioned variety show again, Yeah,
they don't have those anymore. Those are big back in
the day, you know, like the host comes out and
then their sketches and singing and remember our cabaret, No,
it was in cabaret. What was it the episode we did?
Oh burlesque burlesque? Yeah? Yeah, how that started out in
(22:55):
vaudeville and burlesque cad that's where stand up comedy came from.
That was an interesting episode. Yeah. I missed those variety
shows though, like the Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton and
uh Cail Burnett all the van drell sisters, although Kenny
and Dolly could just sit on a couch and stare
at the camera for an hour and I'd watch that
the best great entertainers too. Um. Alright, so where are
(23:20):
we in our timeline? Well, Chuck, the Muppet Shows just hit.
Things are going pretty well. They happened going pretty well
already for Henson. Apparently in nineteen seventy, rubber Ducky hit
number sixteen on the Billboard charts. And for those who
don't know, uh, Ernie is voiced by Jim Henson. So
(23:41):
Jim Henson sang a song rubber Ducky that made it
to number sixteen on the Billboard charts. And that was
nineteen seventy, a year after The Cube, before the Muppet
Show even happened, before Sesame Street even right, No Mystery
was same year as The Cube. That's good, it's did
a new touchstone for his life. The Cube yea PC
(24:03):
and BC. Um. So the Muppet Show was. It was
a huge hit. It won uh you know, a lot
of awards, It connored critical praise and won the hearts
of children all over the world. But it was also
for adults too. Oh yeah, I think that's why he
was able to pull it off in Great Britain because
they have better senses of humor. Yeah. And speaking of adults, Uh,
(24:26):
he got into some more serious themes with his next
great show, Fraggle Rock in I never saw a second
of that show. Oh man, really it wasn't an HBO. Yeah.
It was one of the first HBO original series. We
either had showtime or we didn't have HPOU. It was awesome.
Fraggle Rock was great, and uh, the idea there is
(24:46):
you had the the Fraggle Gang, and then you had well,
you you had three different groups. You had the home
of Doc who was an inventor in his dog's procket um.
You had the Fraggles who share caves underground of Fraggle
Rock with their neighbors the Dousers, and the Gorg's and
these gigantic creatures, uh that are in Gorg's garden. And
(25:10):
the whole point of that show was to show how
different types of people can live together and work together
in peace. It was really cool. Didn't know it at
the time when I was, you know, twelve years old,
but what I was learning about was acceptance and uh.
He won three Cable Ace Awards. Uh. Five International Emmys,
and Fraggle Rock was one of the first big hits
(25:32):
for HBO as far as TV goes, great, great show,
lots of great songs that I mean, he had every
kind of like reggae, rock, country, bluegrass. He was all
over the map with the music and Fraggle Rock, and
he I mean, he wrote a lot of songs too.
I think he wrote rubber Ducky. I'm sure he wrote
a lot of the stuff on Fraggle Rock. It was
just yet another thing he did, was right. M Renaissance
(25:53):
man Um the other show that he came out with
in the eighties, in the mid eighties that I was
big time into his Muppet Babies. I never saw one
second of that, and I love that show. Yeah, we're
just enough apart in age, where like certain things I
saw you, I was you were too young for, and
then certain things I was too old for. You know,
it's weird though, I'm just gonna say this, so you
(26:14):
me and I are the same age. Her sister is
like five years younger than us, and I used to
love Muppet Babies. You mean's sister used to watch Muppet Babies.
So you mean it was like, why were you watching
Muppet Babies. If my younger sister was watching babies, now,
she watched like Donna Hue or something like that. I
(26:35):
watched the Muppet Babies. I'm not ashamed anymore to say,
Well when was that in four? I was thirteen, so yeah,
I was just I was starting to be a teenager.
Muppet Babies didn't appeal. I think it was on for
like four or five seasons, so maybe I was watching
it at the beginning of the series and it was
watching it. That's what I've been telling you. Me and
eighty four, you would have been what eight? Oh yeah,
that's perfect age for Muppet Babies. So I think I
(26:56):
think we just saw it on different ends of the series,
is what it was? Is that what it is? Um?
But have you ever heard of Ron Funches? Uh? Yeah,
the comedian. Yeah, yeah, he has a little bit about
Muppet babies. That's pretty hilarious. Yeah he's awesome. I love
that guy. Yeah, we saw him live. He's just a
beautiful human being. Um, Muppet Babies was cartoon though, right right?
(27:18):
It was not live puppets. Correct, it was cartoon, Okay,
it was so cute. Were they just the regular muppets
as babies. Oh, we'll have to watch that sometimes. Yeah,
and they like use their imagination. Like Gonzo had a
thing for Indiana Jones, so he was frequently like exploring
caves and like swinging on vines with the Indiana Jones
(27:40):
Fedora on and that kind of stuff. Well, see, I
would probably enjoy that, now you would. Yeah, definitely. All right,
I'm gonna go get Muppet babies, chuck. He did even
more TV that we'll talk about in a second. Okay, okay, okay, okay,
and we're back and we're still in the eighties, that's right,
(28:00):
And you were talking about other TV. As we said,
the man loved television and filmmaking, and so he got
away from the muppets and puppets every now and then.
Uh collaborated with Raymond Scott, who was an electronica pioneer
actually on shorts called Ripples and Wheels that go h
and he did that for the Montreal Expo in sixty seven.
(28:22):
And I know we're jumping around in time, but we're
just trying to paint the full picture here, not going
necessarily in order. And then he also did this cool
thing called the Floating Face, which was a sketch that
was on the Tonight Show, on the Mike Douglas Show
in the sixties. Um, which did you see any of
that a little bit? It was a little weird. It
was like two eyes and a mouth and they were
like these invisible wires and background images, and it was
(28:46):
definitely a little more on that surreal tip, the Hinson
surreal tip, not kid oriented necessarily. But he got into
the movies with the Muppet Movie, which was a big hit.
It still holds up, man, it's still so great. And
if you want to know more about that movie, into
some of the cool facts from it, go again, listen
to the Muppet episode. As a matter of fact, pause this,
(29:10):
go listen to the Muppet episode and then come back
to this one. Probably enhance your experience, agreed, or listen
to him both at the same time. But he followed
the Muppet In nineteenade two he made The Dark Crystal, Yeah,
which was puppets and it was based on m some
drawings by fantasy artist Brian Froud, and um, there were
(29:32):
no humans. It was all puppets. And I don't think
it holds up as well, but it still looks pretty good. Well, yeah,
I think it actually is probably better received now than
it was originally. I think critics appreciated it, but it
didn't do so well at the box office. But now
it's become like kind of a cult classic for sure. Um.
(29:52):
And one of the reasons why it didn't do that
well at the box office because audiences didn't quite know
what to make. They heard Frank Oz who co directed it,
Jim Henson, uh and puppets, and I think they went
expecting the Muppet movie this and they they got the
Dark Crystal instead, which is really dark. A lot of
(30:15):
the like the theme is, you know, good versus evil,
and it's the evil and it is really really evil.
And the stuff that happens to some of the puppets is,
including really cute puppets, is really horrifying. And um, I
read this awesome quote by Frank Oz and basically he says,
like Jim thought it was okay to scare kids. As
(30:38):
a matter of fact, he thought it wasn't healthy for
kids to never be scared, so like he purposefully was
trying to scare kids, and he wanted to take the
tradition back to like grim fairy tales, which were very
very dark graphics, good that's what he was going for
with The Dark Crystal. Yeah. I think it was ahead
of its time for sure. If you look at some
(30:59):
of these, uh, like some of the C G I
movies today, I think that Dark Crystal was a precursor
a lot of those. Uh. Then he went on to
make the movie The Labyrinth with Bowie, right, Yeah, David
Bowie and a very young Jennifer Connelly. Now that was
a legend. Okay, um, good movie. But this was written
(31:19):
by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame and then rewritten
a bunch by a bunch of other people, including executive
producer George Lucas. Um. Labyrinth was okay, not bad. Again,
not a huge hit for Hinson though as far as
movies go. But he was still out there exploring these
cool fantastical worlds and fantasy worlds. And he still had
(31:39):
a lot of credit. Um, even in the late eighties. Uh,
if you think about it, his heyday was the late
seventies early eighties with The Muppet Show, the Muppet Movie,
and then after that it was like, yeah, I'll try
this with Jim Henson. I'll try this with Jim Henson. Um.
And even even still he had like a He was
on a pretty eight streak and at the end of
(32:02):
the A d C had two TV shows on the
Jim Henson Hour and Storyteller. The Storyteller, Yeah, the Jim
Hinson Hour. He was always pushing the boundaries. The Storyteller
looking Back Now, I'm sorry, Jim Hinson Ower looking Back
was really different from what you were getting at the
time because it was it was all over the map.
You had certain shows that were like, you know, four
(32:22):
or five sketches in one and then three of the
episodes were full on one hour little mini movies from yeah,
from beginning to yeah. That's a good point actually. Um.
One of the little mini movies was called dog City,
which was great. It was narrated by Rolf and it
was I remember watching this. It was like a film
(32:43):
noir gangster thing with puppet dogs. Uh and the main character,
A s U was the guy who did Elmo. Kevin
Clash did the character of a s U and that
was fantastic. I think Dog City went on to be
a TV show in its own right too for a
little while. But it was really good. I mean, it's
total like gangster crime, film noir, but it's you know,
(33:05):
Rolf the Dog, the Gang. I love it's really cool.
Um the Storyteller I hadn't seen before. I was, I
guess aware of, but I don't know why I wasn't
watching it because it would have been like right there
for me because I would have been twelve. But I
watched one today and it was really good. It's like
human um puppet interaction, which is and it's just seamless.
(33:28):
Like There's one of the things from studying this that
I've realized is like we take for granted and expect
our puppet human interactions to be so seamless that we
don't even realize that we're looking at puppets right then.
And the reason why we expect that is because of
Jim Henson and the people he worked with in and
inspired to work so hard at creating that illusion. Well, yeah,
(33:52):
the illusion that these are living, breathing things. Uh, he
would go I remember Kermit as guest on talk shows.
He wouldn't go out as Jim Henson. He would go
out as I mean, he did those appearances as well,
but Kermit the Frog would be a guest on The
Tonight Show with Johnny Carson or host or host the
night guest House, The Night Show and Larry King. Yeah,
(34:12):
and it was all a part of this um goal
of making these real people or real living things not people. Yeah.
Apparently somebody who was working with Jim Henson was I
guess the director of the Muppet Show would be giving
Jim notes on Kermit, and Jim would just respond, like,
(34:33):
let Kermit respond, and the director said, eventually you're just
sitting there. You turned and you address Kermit like he
just forced you into like interacting with the puppet, even
during a note session. Yeah, and probably without feeling silly
or stupid or anything. You know, it probably seemed like
a totally normal thing to do eventually once he forced
you to do. Uh. He also pioneered the Henson Performance
(34:56):
Control System and won an Academy Award for that, and
that was a remote control system that helped puppeteers out.
So he was always pushing technical, visual, um stylistic thematic
boundaries as far as he could UM, and they didn't
always work. You know, the movies weren't aside from the
(35:17):
Muppet Movie, they weren't the biggest hits UM. The TV
show a couple of you know, neither one of those
lasted very long, but I think he was. He was
just intent on doing something different he uh, and he
did too, and he died in of us staff infection.
Organ failure brought on by a staff infection. Did you
(35:39):
know that? Yeah? I think pneumonia had something to do
with it, too, didn't it. Not that I saw, I
really I saw organ failure caused by a group a
strep infection. I'm sorry. That's staff. Very sad. And if
you're ever in the mood for a good cry, watch
the Jim Henson memorial We're Big Bird sings It's not
easy being green. Yeah, tough stuff people. His children, His
(36:04):
legacy lives on through Jane, his wife, formed founded the
Jim Hinson Legacy to preserve his contributions chairing with the public,
and like I said, he donated five puppets to the
Center Puppetry Arts and uh. There is also the Jim
Hinson Memorial in Muppet Museum and traveling exhibits. And his
(36:28):
sons and daughters help run his foundation, and some of
them are themselves and run the company. The company has
changed hands a lot um. I have sort of the
boring history. When he was still alive, he was going
to sell it to Disney for a hundred and fifty
million because apparently he believed in Disney's commitment to characters,
so he thought like that would be a good place
(36:50):
for the Muppets to live. Yeah, and Disney went he
bought it, but he did not get that deal finished.
But it turns out a hundred fifty million with chump
change because in two thousand his children sold the entire company,
including the Sesame Street characters, to a German media company
for six and eighty million, And then I believe that
(37:12):
company fell on hard times and they bought it back
in two thousand three for eighty four million. Isn't that crazy?
The Hanston children are smart. And in between all that
there are various exchanges of percentages of steaks with other
companies and rights of certain characters. Uh, it's a little
doll to go over all of that, but needless to say,
(37:34):
they made up pretty well, and eventually Disney now does uh,
they do own all the Muppet studio. They own the Muppets.
Apparently the Henston company sold the rights to the Sesame
Street characters to Sesame Street, which is pretty yes, and
the Jim Henson Creature shops still builds the Sesame Street
Puppets and Muppets. Yeah, since they sold the rights of
(37:56):
the Muppets and there in the Big Blue House characters,
which I'm not familiar with that one, nor am I,
but Disney wanted. I guess that's sort of the the
player to be named later that's included in the in
the baseball trade. Man. I'm proud of the Henson kids. Yeah,
they're great and uh, I hope we get tweeted about
this one. From then they seem he seemed pretty great,
(38:18):
Brian and Cheryl and the gang. He seemed like they're
doing right by the dad. And there's other siblings too,
and I think they're all involved, super involved. And sadly
Jane passed away I think in two thousand thirteen at
the age of seventy eight. I would have loved to
have seen what kind of work he did later in
his life. Oh yeah, the fact that he died still
(38:39):
had like a couple of TV shows going. I'm years old. Yeah,
he hit a lot of left in. Uh. If you
want to know more about Jim Henson, go listen to
our Muppets episode. And while you're looking that up, you
can also uh search Jim Henson on the search bar
at how Stuffworks dot com and we'll bring up this
great article and us since I said search parts, time
(39:01):
for a listener mail. Uh this is I'm gonna call
this sophomore smart sophomore. Hey guys, my name is Matt
and I'm a sophomore in high school. Smartphomore. I'm a
newer fan of the show, and I listen while I
do everything. I just wanted to say the Dark Ages
were only dark in Europe. The life expectancy in the
Dark Ages is actually a little longer than before, but
(39:23):
mostly because there were smaller wars. But things were certainly
brighter in the Islamic world. In fact, people in the
Middle East were really enlightened during this time. Within about
a hundred years, they conquered a lot of new land,
including Spain. Also, the Arabic language grew to be the
language of philosophy, medicine, and poetry, and Baghdad became the
world center of scholarship. They translated almost all of the
(39:45):
famous Greek philosopher's work into Arabic. Muslim Muslims developed algebra
to simplify inheritance laws, and they made important strides in
trigonometry to help people find a way to Mecca. Architecture
grew to the Great Mosque in Spain. We took roughly
a year, while medieval cathedrals took hundreds of years to build.
So the Dark Ages weren't that dark. And the Enlightenment
(40:06):
came earlier than most think. And that is from Matt.
Thanks Matt. That is enlightening stuff, my friend. Yeah, our
numerals are Arabic. Yeah, it's true. We should, we should
hit on some more Middle Eastern topics. Let's do it. Yeah. Uh.
In the meantime, if you want to suggest some Middle
Eastern topics for us, you can tweet them to us
(40:27):
at s I s K Podcast. You can post them
on our Facebook page at Facebook dot com, slash stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email to
Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and as always,
hang out at our beautiful home on the web, Stuff
you Should Know dot com For more on this and
(40:48):
thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot
com
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