The new Disney+ documentary Jim Henson Idea Man conjures the life and mind of the visionary who created the Muppets and changed not only an art form, but also the parameters of storytelling. Directed by Ron Howard, and made with the participation of Henson’s children and long-time collaborators like Frank Oz — who played Bert to Henson’s Ernie, Miss Piggy to his Kermit the Frog — it’s a comprehensive portrait of a cultural giant who never lost his sense of play.
“We learned so much wandering around here,” Howard said on a recent visit to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in New York City’s borough of Queens, which is still busily whipping up critters of felt and feathers. “It definitely influenced the style of the movie, seeing the colours and the mechanics and the detail of all of it.”
There was an emotional component, too: Walking in is “instant nostalgia”, Howard said. “You just get a lift, you know, just looking around the place.”
Henson, who died in 1990, had no childhood experience with puppets. He started working with them as a teenager in the 1950s for a job at a TV station. He made the first version of Kermit out of his mother’s old coat — teal, not green — and a ping-pong ball cut in half for eyes.
With Jane Nebel, his college classmate and later his wife, he also made puppets for commercials, honing a screen-friendly style and a sly, satirical wit.
In 1958 Henson visited Europe and encountered sophisticated forms of puppetry. He realised, “‘This is something I’m good at — where I can actually make a difference,’” said Karen Falk, the Jim Henson Company’s archivist.
Sesame Street, which started in New York in 1969, recruited him. In 1976, his more adult-oriented Muppet Show began in London.
Henson’s characters occupied the imaginations of millions around the world. He travelled, often at breakneck pace, to perform and develop new projects, still experimenting relentlessly.
His partnership with Oz drove characters, and comedy. “I was more moody,” Oz said in an interview — a good fit for Bert. Henson was the goofy Ernie.
Henson had large hands, which allowed him to be extra expressive, especially with Kermit, who clearly reflected Henson’s personality, Howard said.
Muppets also had human hands. Think of the Swedish Chef, performed in tandem by Oz and Henson. “I never told Jim what I was going to do with the hands,” Oz said.
Zaniness reigned. “You could walk into the workshop almost any time and find weird things going on,” said Bonnie Erickson, a Muppet designer who oversaw the space. ping-pong balls bouncing on toothpicks, blown by hair dryers; pet mice running across the studio through interconnected Slinkys — it all helped them discover “the movements of the puppets”, she said.
Ending a sketch was no problem: “You either blew it up, ate it or threw in a penguin, as we used to say.”
As Henson’s company grew, he minted his leadership style. “I called him a gentle anarchist,” Erickson said.
Oz added: “He never criticised, ever. He never told us what to do. He was the boss, but he was the boss as a brother, almost.”
Making Henson laugh was the goal.
On The Muppet Show, Erickson said, “even when the cameras were off and they called ‘Cut,’ everybody stayed in character and played jokes on Jim, or teased him or each other”.
Henson started a journal in 1965 and filled in details retroactively, “like he was downloading his brain”, said Falk, the archivist. The multicoloured entry for 1979, when The Muppet Movie was released, begins: “A very major big year.”
Henson’s philosophy — treat people the way you’d like to be treated; stay in the moment; recognise the joy — pervaded his work and inspired countless others, including Howard, who met him only briefly.
At the same time, “a kind of creative recklessness or courage or thick skin — all of it — was required for somebody to be as prolific as Jim”, Howard said. “He followed a horizon line, which was, ‘I want to have a creative life.’”
“He would do very little small talk,” Oz said. “He wouldn’t talk about politics. He had his own very strong feelings about spiritual life and religion. He never gossiped. He would care about how we were and our families were, but that’s the extent of it. The rest of it was: ‘Hey, I got this good idea. You want to hear it?’”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Melena Ryzik
Photographs by: Thomas Prior and Getty Images
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