Jim Henson: Idea Man (2024)

[bunniefuu]

[harp music playing]

You know, I'm an idea man.

I spend a lot of time thinking.

Thoughts are funny things.

They can lead to ideas.

There's one now.

["II B.S." playing]

Now, when you get an idea,

you have to look at it

from every direction.

[roars]

- [g*nsh*t]

- [glass shatters]

Help.

[children giggling]

- [screams]

- [groans]

Then along comes

a new, fresh idea.

[shouts]

And this gives you other ideas,

which gives birth

to other ideas.

And finally the whole thing crystallizes

into one gloriously marvelous,

great, big, beautiful idea.

[music ends]

[crew chattering]

- [Seeff] Looks fantastic.

- [shutter clicks]

[Seeff] Stand up. There's, uh...

There's a little rectangle on the floor.

Stand up.

I think he looks so good

this way that I'm...

It's just it's so

graphic an image.

Great.

- Yeah.

- I don't do this for a living.

- [Rockwell] You got a great face.

- [Seeff] Oh.

[Rockwell] Oh, yeah.

[Seeff] How would you define yourself

now, as a puppeteer or a filmmaker or...

- [stammers] Any of those.

- [Seeff] Yeah, right.

- And all of the above?

- Yeah. Sure.

Do you get a lot of fear wondering

whether your perceptions are correct?

[Jim] Uh, when you're running a whole,

you know, several-hundred-person unit,

uh, you have to keep

everybody else enthusiastic.

- [Seeff] Uh-huh.

- You can't really express

grave doubts and stuff,

whether or not your...

this whole thing is

a good idea or not.

[Seeff] Yeah.

- [shutter clicks]

- Is this a nine-to-five job?

No, it's sort of... [chuckles]

an all-the-time job.

- [laughs]

- [Seeff] Yeah.

It's every... "every moment of one's

life" kind of a job, I suppose.

[Oz] I met Jim when I was 17.

And it took about ten

years to get to the point

where we could sense

each other's rhythms.

[shutter clicks]

I was the mainstay performer

with Jim for 35 years.

Jim created out of innocence.

He was a very rare,

rare creature.

He was so internal and quiet

that his inner life must

have been sparkling.

He had so many ideas and so

many things he wanted to do.

And so the idea of time, I think,

was very much on Jim's mind always.

[clock ticking]

[Rockwell] I was what they

called a "creative assistant,"

an assistant that would travel

with Jim and shadow him 24-7.

You should be much more active.

You need to be running around.

[ticking continues]

His ideas came from

excitement in him.

[Rockwell] He said to me

that from a very early age,

he had the feeling that he was

here for a purpose and a reason.

And that was largely

what drove him.

I feel like he came onto this planet, and

he knew he had a mission and a calling.

He's like, "Gotta get it

done. Gotta get it done."

[Rockwell] His schedule was so packed.

New York to London to Toronto to LA.

His drive was superhuman.

Uh, we have to keep going,

and you get to go home.

[Goelz] It was a restlessness.

He was always doing, always

creating. And he was urgent about it.

Wrap it up and

get to the ending.

[Jim] I've always operated doing

a few things at the same time.

And I find it very exciting.

It's just an incredibly busy life

with a shocking amount of things

that got done in every year.

[Oz] Why he kept going

so much, I don't know.

There's no real one answer.

That's the trouble, you know?

[creaking]

Muppets, they're superstars.

250 million people

enjoy them every week.

And just because

they're so popular,

we may neglect to notice

that Muppetry is also an art.

Sitting beside me here is

the Muppet master himself.

There's only one word for Jim.

He's a genius.

Think of Rasputin

as an Eagle Scout.

[audience laughs]

And in the chair next to him,

and, indeed, seldom far from him,

is Jim's close associate and friend,

a man who truly fits his name.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Frank

Oz and Mr. Jim Henson.

[applause]

Let's get this on the

record. How did you start?

So when I started, it was,

like, just out of high school,

and I just heard about

a television station

that was looking

for a puppeteer.

And so I made puppets

and auditioned

because I really wanted

to work in television.

I don't recall ever seeing a

puppet show when I was a kid.

You never saw a puppet?

No. And I never played with puppets.

I never had any to play with.

[Lisa] He grew up in rural

Mississippi. Leland, Mississippi,

on a Department of

Agriculture research station.

His mother was a

Christian Scientist,

and his father agreed to be Christian

Science because he loved her.

His older brother

was his best friend.

They would spend a

lot of time outside,

a lot of time exploring.

If you imagine the

peacefulness...

he really had that kind of childhood

where your mind is allowed to fill in.

[Jim] When I was fairly young,

we just got a television set.

Television was in

its early days,

and I thought it was

such an exciting thing.

This television picture that

was happening in one place,

and you could see what was

going on somewhere else.

From the first time he saw a television,

I think that's where he wanted to go.

[Cheryl] You think of a guy

growing up in Mississippi.

A television set could bring

the world into your home.

Like, that's just like,

boom, mind-blowing.

- [static]

- His name is Jim Henson,

the most famous name in the

whole history of puppetry.

And you're telling us that

you went into puppetry

just as a way to

get into television?

Yes, because I wanted to work

in this field. I-I loved it.

- [scoffs]

- [audience laughs]

[Jim] Throughout, I'd get

all the credit and so forth.

But back in the early

days, it was my wife, Jane.

Actually, she wasn't my wife

when we started working.

She and I were the whole thing for

the first, oh, five, seven years.

My mom had a wicked sense of humor.

She was really, really funny.

She was very, very artsy, but

she was also extremely earthy.

She was a painter and a ceramicist,

and her art was very important to her.

I met Jim in a puppetry class.

It was my senior year,

and he was a freshman.

When he was young, everything

was absolutely intriguing to him,

and he just couldn't wait

to get on to the next thing.

The puppetry class really was the

first thing he did with the university.

It was a senior class,

and Jim was coming

in as a freshman.

He started writing all the

scripts, designing the puppets,

and he pretty much

took over the class.

And he had that boy-genius

quality about him.

His skin wasn't perfect.

He wanted to take

care of his acne,

and his mother didn't want

to have him go to a doctor.

So as soon as he could grow a

beard, he just wanted to have one.

[Lisa] He thought of himself as

a pimply-faced, skinny teenager,

and then carried that

with him for a long time.

When they first met, she was much

worldlier on multiple levels.

She came from New York. She

had had other boyfriends.

She was more socially

adept than him.

They both had a sophisticated

appreciation of nonsense and absurdity.

That's probably what

pulled them together.

[Jane] He already had some puppets on

TV 'cause he started in high school.

And it was in that spring semester

that Jim asked me to help him at WRC.

Jim was an artist.

He wanted production design, but

he was fascinated by television.

[crew] Action.

I heard of a TV station that

was looking for a puppeteer.

So I painted the scenery

and I built the puppets,

and wrote the materials and

auditioned and got a job.

And that's kind of

how it all started.

I did this thing that was

called Sam and Friends.

It was late at night.

It was on at 11:30,

which was a strange kind

of time for a puppet show.

- [audience laughing]

- But, uh...

But, at the time,

we never thought of ourselves as

being particularly for children.

Going now to two of the best

people in the world, I think.

They're Jim and Jane Henson.

And they have two friends.

They call 'em Muppets

because they're neither puppets or

marionettes, but kind of a combination.

They invented them.

Here we go to Washington

and Jim and Jane Henson.

Yes! We have no bananas

We have no bananas today

[Jane] It almost always started

with some kind of a musical piece,

and do his visual

interpretations.

Jim would pick a record, and he

would build puppets to go with it.

And I would help perform.

...old-fashioned tomato

[Juhl] Sometimes it was a sort of

sophomoric, uh, record pantomimes.

Other times, it was completely

zany sketch comedies.

The truth is out!

[Juhl] And it attracted

this huge following

in Washington D.C.,

of all places,

where everybody

watched the news.

[Jane] Everything was

live. Nothing was taped.

Whatever you did, went out

over the air as you did it.

And our style of puppetry, we

didn't even try to be sophisticated.

Television was very new, and

really, Jim went to play.

[record scratches]

[Oz] There's so many things that Jim

did at that time to explore puppetry.

Old black magic

has me in its spell

Old black magic that

you weave so well

What Jim did is he took

the first proscenium away,

and made the TV set the stage.

Like a leaf caught in a tide

I should stay away

But what can I do?

Not only that, but he

worked with the close-up.

Most shows at that time didn't

have close-ups of puppets.

The old black

magic called love

[music ends]

[applause]

[presenter] Oh,

that's marvelous.

Jim and Jane, I'm... I'm glad

that you run the lady's part.

- Oh.

- [chuckles]

- [Jane] This is Kermit.

- It's Kermit.

And this is Sam. Some of our

characters change sex very easily...

- [Jane chuckles]

- with the addition of a wig.

[presenter] Kermit...

Uh, yeah, I see. Okay.

[Brian] To start with, my dad just had

sort of a... a troupe of puppets that...

that he had designed.

And they were very

different from each other.

And Kermit was just one of them.

[harmonizing]

So deep in my heart

Dad was still trying to, like, find

what he felt was the right look

for... for puppets for him.

In the very early experimentation,

Kermit was right there.

Kermit wasn't a frog then.

Keep your shirt on, King.

[narrator] Said the

little green guy.

[Lisa] Initially, it was

just one of the troupe.

My mother puppeteered

it sometimes. [chuckles]

Kermit wore a wig at times.

I've grown accustomed

to your face

[audience laughs]

You almost make

the day begin

[host] Where were you

first born, Kermit?

The first... The first me actually

came from, uh... I was a, uh...

I was a coat that belonged

to, uh, Henson's mother there.

- Actually was. Yeah.

- [host] That's how you began?

[Jim] It was my mother's coat

and a Ping-Pong ball, you know,

which I cut in half

to make the eyes.

[Lisa] He was sort

of sitting vigil

with his grandfather,

who was very, very ill.

The story is he used Kermit to entertain

his grandfather as he was dying.

My mom thought there was a little bit

of a spiritual connection to the puppet.

It was a way of bringing

lightness and bringing humor.

My dad always felt like humor was an

antidote, that it was a saving grace.

[Brian] Kermit was one of the

more generic of the puppets,

but it fit his hand really well.

He could puppeteer

really well through it.

[no audible dialogue]

He was learning that a really

simple puppet, like Kermit,

could be very expressive just by using

the fabric and letting it distort,

but controlling the distortion

so that they become expressions.

- Give me a dozen eggs.

- How about a loaf of Claussen's bread?

Nah, just give me the eggs.

Give him the eggs!

He'll learn to buy Claussen's.

The fact that the puppet is so simple,

and it really almost exposes the hand,

makes it very close to him.

And, over time, he really imbued

that character with more of himself.

[Jim] Kermit is... is more

outgoing than I am, certainly.

I am more laid back. I...

I don't do outrageous.

I... I do his outrageous

things. That's true.

[shouts]

[screaming]

[eggshell cracks]

I guess it's close to an

alter ego of some sort.

How's that for

happily ever after?

- Yeesh.

- [laughter]

[water splashes]

Oh, Harry, we're blocking

some people's view.

Oh, excuse me. I sure don't

want to keep anybody from seeing

this gorgeous Esskay

bacon package.

It's a very tasty package.

[Jane] Jim was doing Sam

and Friends daily shows.

Even though it was fun,

he was very confined.

[Cheryl] He was particularly

sensitive to being boxed in.

[Lisa] He wanted

to be an artist.

He was interested in filmmaking.

He was interested in television,

not strictly puppetry.

He was figuring out what he

wanted to do next in his life.

[Jim] I was going through those

sort of early times in one's life.

I was breaking up with a girl.

[Jane] We were kind of dating

other people and everything.

We had life going on

during Sam and Friends.

[Brian] Well, he clearly

had a moment of self-doubt.

Here's a track. I could

stay on this track,

but is this the track I want?

[Jim] So I decided

to go away and paint.

Then I went to Europe.

[horn honks]

[shutter clicks]

[Jim] I wandered around.

[chattering]

Then I met a lot of

other puppeteers.

[Cheryl] He could see that puppetry

was taken more seriously in Europe.

I mean, they got funded. They

had companies. They had theaters.

[Oz] He started to believe

that puppetry was an art form,

and could express things

that humans couldn't express.

[Jim] In the course

of that little trip,

I found that people were

doing interesting things,

and it was something that, uh,

you could get into and develop

and... and turn

into something else.

That's what you did, all right.

[Jim] I came back from

that trip all fired up.

[Jane] He really had it in his

mind. "This is what we're gonna do."

We're gonna do this with the puppets,

and then we're gonna get married.

Falling in love is a kind

of a funny way of putting it

because, I don't know, we

were just with each other,

and we were very fond of

being with each other.

He and my mom founded a

company called Muppets, Inc.

[Jane] But as soon as it was incorporated,

that's when we settled on the 60-40,

which it kind of always

was from then on.

It was around October or so

that we decided to get married.

[applause]

But I don't know at that time we

knew what the future would be.

[Lisa] My mom sometimes said

that they got married too young.

She was aware that he was maybe too young

to settle down for the rest of his life,

having gotten married at 23.

Now, that was probably not

too young for her though.

[Jane] Right about that

time, we got that local Emmy.

I do remember Jim getting

it from Richard Nixon,

and you have to stand there

having your picture taken.

You have to say

something, right?

But I do remember Jim came up

and he said, "Nixon said to me,

'I knew a man in the navy

with a beard.'" [chuckles]

[Brian] At that time, he was holding

it all together with my mother.

[chuckling] Just the two of

them figuring it all out.

[Jane] Then we had a

baby in May of '60.

And then in August '61, we went

to Puppeteers of America Festival.

Jim was anxious to

know other puppeteers,

and also to look for

somebody to work with him.

He really was in search of

putting together a team.

[audience laughing]

Jim started asking

around for someone.

And everybody was saying,

"You really should see a very

young man named Frank Oznowicz."

[Oz] I was 17. I hadn't finished

high school when Jim saw me.

I had worked for four or five years doing

puppet shows all around the Bay area.

I think Jim could sense

that feeling and timing

I learned through all those

years of doing all those shows.

And I could hold an audience.

I think that was the key thing.

[Lisa] Frank Oz was, initially,

a very mischievous son of

a very serious puppeteer.

[Oz] My dad and mom escaped

from Antwerp, Belgium

at the beginning of the w*r.

My father was a window

dresser and a sign painter.

And, to the degree that I know,

he carved puppets out of wood.

Then when he met my mom, she

made the characters' clothes.

They really took the art

of puppetry so seriously

that Frank could never take

the art of puppetry seriously.

Frank and I met Jim

at exactly the same time.

In fact, Frank and I were

doing a show together.

[Oz] Jerry was asked

by Jim to join him.

I probably never would have had the

job except that Frank was too young...

[chuckles]...to...

to leave home.

[Jane] Jerry Juhl came in '61.

I was pregnant with

Cheryl, and Jim felt

that I was no longer

dependable. [chuckles]

[Juhl] Shortly thereafter,

Don Sahlin joined the team

and became the genius

builder of the Muppets.

He was this quiet, very

funny, obsessed man.

[Oz] I completed high school, and

that's when he asked me to come on.

[Juhl] That was the core

group for quite a while.

I arrived at 53rd and Second

Avenue, and there were two rooms.

One room was a little

cubicle for a secretary,

and then there was a

workshop for Don Sahlin.

And he had the gerbils

running around.

[Juhl] Don took a basketball

one day and cut it in half.

And that became the

basis of Rowlf's head.

[Jane] And, of course,

Rowlf became the big star.

- Howdy.

- Was that him?

- Yep.

- Howdy.

- Is that all he says?

- He's a star.

- Any more and we have to pay him.

- Howdy.

[Jane] Immediately, Jim and Frank

started performing together.

And almost the first thing that Frank

did was to play the extra hand of Rowlf.

He then had a weekly spot

on Jimmy Dean's show.

- You're on the other side.

- I'm on the other side.

- Now, Rowlf...

- I got water in my ear.

[audience laughs]

- Okay. Now I'm running again.

- All right. Now you're running.

- Now you're going faster and faster.

- Faster.

- Lickety-split.

- I'm lickety-split.

- [grunts]

- What's the matter?

- I think I just split my lickety.

- [audience laughs, applauds]

[Oz] My part was

basically an apprentice.

I didn't do anything, you

know, except the right hand.

- All right, Jimbone.

- [laughs]

[Jane] Frank always had such a emotionally

loaded relationship with puppets.

Jim could relate to that a lot, too,

'cause he didn't intend to be a puppeteer.

And here was Frank, who didn't

intend to be a puppeteer,

but Jim very quickly

picked up on that.

Frank also wanted to do

things really, really good.

And that was really their bond.

That's right It's

friendship, friendship

Just a perfect blendship

[Jane] You do it great,

and I'll do it great.

We'll do it great together.

[vocalizes]

- Woof, woof, woof.

- [laughs]

[applause]

[Jim] This is what it looks like when

we're doing a television show backstage.

We stand up here. The four of

us, we're working this one.

We're watching a television set

here while we're doing the show.

We'll play back a little bit

of the show so that you can see

what it looked like from backstage

while we were doing that last skit.

"Okay. Now, once upon a time, there

was a lovely girl named Cinderella."

Cinderella, come here,

you wretched girl.

Oh, no. It's Gretel, and

she's back from the moon.

- [slide whistle plays]

- [piano plays]

I shall kiss you on the nose.

[Rowlf] That's a

magical transformation.

Three bowls of porridge.

[Jim] Using the television monitor, you

can perform and see your performance

exactly as the audience does.

And so, as we're performing,

we're also editing.

We're framing the shots.

It's a magical transformation.

[Oz] At the end of the day,

what that monitor is, is life.

Purina Dog Chow will really

make a hit with your dog.

Are you sure it'll make a hit?

Positive.

[Oz] During that time, we were

making a lot of commercials.

But the amazing thing with Jim was,

even though he had to do something

that he didn't

really want to do,

he always made it fun

for himself and for us.

I'm gonna convince everybody to

buy nothing but Claussen's bread.

What's the club for?

To get their attention.

We had 6.5 seconds of audio in which

to sell a product and tell a joke.

What do you mean Taystee bread

is baked while you sleep?

I'm awake.

Like I said, Taystee is

baked while you sleep.

[Jim] In the old days, a lot

of our stuff was very violent.

It was before we even started

talking about violence on television.

Uh, or maybe they were talking

about it, but I didn't hear it.

- Uh...

- [laughter]

That's a lot of...

Well, I'm gonna go.

What do you have

against Jim Henson?

Nothing.

What do you have against me?

Nothing.

What do you have

against Wilson's Meats?

Well, actually,

I'm a vegetarian.

[chattering]

[Juhl] Doing commercials was

a practical matter for Jim.

It allowed him to build

a-a small team of people

that would be able to move

on and do bigger things.

[laughing]

Jim created a big dollar bill

like this that hung on the wall,

and it was all made with coins and

money, and that was the altar to money.

It was an awareness

that, damn it,

we have to... we've got to pay

attention to that. [laughs]

I want that green ammunition That's

the stuff of which I'm wishing

Fill my closets with deposits

I'm a demon at addition

Give me shekels, give me pesos

Let me see their smiling face-ohs

Give me money, money

Money, money, money

[cackles]

You could see how conflicted

he was about advertising,

and just selling for

the sake of selling.

I want you to get out

there and sell, sell, sell.

Merely spray it...

Quick-cooked in dragon fire.

What else do you do

besides just puppets?

Well, I've been into

filmmaking for a while.

Jim was an experimental filmmaker.

That's what he really, really was.

[drums playing]

[Jane] Jim wasn't a musician himself,

but he thought like a musician.

He was just always rather

intrigued with the idea of music

and time being

measured out in beats.

Heartbeats.

[Brian] Everything he

did was experimental.

And that's the way my dad

approached everything.

He was such an ambitious guy,

he'd do a little sh**t

for his home movies.

[Lisa] He was doing stop-motion,

experimental television...

experimental film.

- Moms.

- [both] Dads.

[all] Kids.

Flapsole Sneakers

hit the spot

[both] Vita-Juice.

Let's have a shot.

- [g*nsh*t]

- [glass shatters]

[actors] Tippy Toys

for a happy tot.

[actor] Boo-boo

Band-A*DS help you clot.

I have a short film that I

made I called Time Piece.

- [bell rings]

- [film projector whirs]

It's just a study of

contemporary man sort of thing.

You know, kind of

a fun look at it.

[heart beating]

[shutter clicks]

[ticking]

So if you want to know my dad, watch

Time Piece and then go from there.

[Jim] It's a film that's made of a lot of

little short segments chopped together,

and it's a way of editing that I

was enjoying doing at the time.

[bell dings]

It's sort of, like, kind of

train of thought editing.

[drums playing]

- [phone rings]

- [register clicks, dings]

Help.

[Brian] The idea was mixing seemingly

unrelated images in quick sequence

in order to communicate

one feeling, one thought.

- [gasps]

- [g*nsh*t]

[glass shatters]

[Oz] We did that on weekends.

We'd make commercials,

and then we'd have enough

money to sh**t on the weekend.

And that's how we shot Time Piece

for a year with an old Rackover 35.

[gulping]

Help.

[chiming]

For my dad, time was

ticking all the time.

Because he wanted to do more

than is humanly possible,

there was never

gonna be enough time.

Help.

[flushes]

[Brian] That idea that

time could run out,

I'm sure came with the

death of his brother.

It was huge. It was huge. Losing

his brother was huge to him.

[Brian] They were inseparable. Like,

they were brothers and best friends.

And my father was, uh, two or

three years younger than him.

He died in a car accident

at the army base.

He was very young.

It was a huge shock

to the family.

Absolutely shattered

my dad's world.

[Cheryl] The whole family

had a really difficult time.

He saw his mom get

really depressed.

He saw his mom, like,

start to give up.

And he wasn't gonna do that.

He was gonna keep going.

["I'm a Man" playing]

[Oz] In the 1960s, Jim

was excited to create work

that reflected everything that

was going on in the country.

I think part of it is shocking, and I

think part of it is very interesting.

He did this show

called Youth 68.

I think it's finally getting down to

the nitty-gritty of artistic expression.

[Cheryl] It was very much

about the generational divide.

It was about the music. It was about

the politics. It was about the protests.

It was about what is

happening in the world.

- Well, I think it's garbage.

- I love it.

- I don't understand it.

- I think it's wonderful.

Yeah, sure. It's always

more exciting. Then what?

[music continues]

[Jim] How can you do

a program like this

where you could take all

these people's statements

and you could re... rearrange

it, you could reedit the film

so that, uh, one person

comes out saying something

they really never

intended to say?

This is no way to make

a television program.

Jim was not into

drugs or anything,

but he... he loved the

expression that was going on.

You know, I've learned to walk

around inside my own head.

That may sound silly to you,

but it's been very,

very helpful to me.

[Oz] Jim wanted to do more

than just the Muppets.

He wanted to experiment.

One of the things he did during

that time was called The Cube,

which was about a man who was

trapped in an alternate reality.

What is this place?

What's it for?

We ask that question

ourselves once in a while.

[Oz] But what Jim was most excited about

was creating a discotheque called Cyclia,

which would have, like, 24

projectors all over the ceiling

with different angles of white.

And then he would project

all this 16 millimeter film

while the music was going on.

[Lisa] He didn't really care

that it was gonna be a nightclub.

It was all about what

is technically possible.

He was always excited

about the next idea.

[clock ticking]

He wasn't sure that

puppetry would be his thing.

And, in some ways, he was starting

to drift away from the family.

But then he got this invitation.

[no audible dialogue]

[Stone] Children were watching a

tremendous amount of television.

Forty, 50 hours a week.

Some of it bad television.

Joan Cooney had the notion that

if you're going to watch

that much television,

why don't we find out what it is

they like to watch on television?

Then go out and find out what

preschool children ought to know,

and put those two

things together.

[chattering]

So Joan found seasoned television

professionals and said,

"Do your thing and we're gonna

teach you how to be educators."

Joan had seen Jim's work and knew how

valuable he would be to the program.

I knew Jim very well, and

I had worked with him.

So I could call him up and say,

"Come on over and talk to us."

[Oz] But Jim wasn't sure

he wanted to do that.

And we weren't into children's

shows. We never did children's stuff.

But there's also a part of him

that sensed the value of the show.

Because he always sensed that

television could do more.

[Stone] Jim latched on to the idea

that we could create a television show

that would really do some good

for a very specific audience

that needed good done for it.

[Jim] I think that television is

such a huge influence on children.

I think it's the next most

important influence to the family,

or the church or the school.

[no audible dialogue]

As an industry, we don't generally

face up to that responsibility,

and I think we need to be a

great deal more responsible

to what we put on the medium.

[Lisa] He had four kids, all kind

of Sesame Street age at home,

and another on the way.

My younger brother John

had learning difficulties

and was not speaking yet.

So the whole idea of "How do kids

learn?" was really personal to him.

[door creaks]

But he didn't think that educating

children was anything he was good at.

[door creaks]

- Can you sing the alphabet, Joey?

- Yes.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G

H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P

- Q, R, S

- Q, R, Cookie Monster

[giggles]

Cookie Monster isn't a letter

of the alphabet. It goes...

- Q, R, S, T, U, V

- R, S, T, U, Cookie Monster

[giggles]

[scoffs] You're...

You're just teasing me.

W, X, Y and Z

- Now I know my A, B, Cs

- Now I sung my A, Cs

- Won't you...

- Next time Cookie Monster

Next time Cookie Monster

can do it with you.

I'm leaving. Whoo!

I love you.

- I love you too.

- Thanks.

[Jim] Sesame Street is one

of those interesting things

where the time was right

for that particular idea.

Here's one half of my

chicken salad sandwich.

Where's the other

half? It's gone.

Egad, the hunt's afoot.

Show me the clues.

[Brian] I think Sesame Street was

almost the most unlikely thing,

probably, in terms

of his life plan.

[Cheryl] The fact that he did Sesame

Street instead of a series of nightclubs,

yay. Like I... [chuckles] I

think everybody was like, "Phew!"

One, two, three, four, five, six,

seven Eight, nine, ten, 11, 12

One of the ways they lured him

into doing the show was to say,

"You can do a lot of

experimental films."

Seven, eight,

nine, ten, 11, 12

[Lisa] He did one

set of number films

that has the syncopated

animation of Time Piece.

[actors] Two.

[Lisa] And then ten other films, which

was the most exciting to him of all,

where he could do

whatever he wanted.

[fanfare playing]

I'm the King of Eight,

And I'm here to state

That everything here

Has to total eight

The guards, for

instance, by the gate,

Must always number

exactly eight

[actors] One, two, three,

four, five, six, seven, eight.

[Lisa] They weren't coming at it

from how to teach preschoolers.

Like, they were all about doing

the coolest, funniest, fun show.

One wedding cake.

[exclaims]

[children] And that's

our song of one

[Stone] In the summer of

'69, we did some test shows.

And the original concept was

the street would be real,

and everything else

would be fantasy.

The result was the

street was deadly dull.

So we realized we had to populate the

street with some interesting puppets.

[pencil scraping]

[Jim] I had in mind that we would

do this large, silly character

who would represent the child.

Oh, good morning.

[Stone] It's possibly the

world's most magnificent puppet.

[yawns]

[snoring]

He's also a very highly technical puppet,

which a lot of people don't realize.

And it was Jim's

design, top to bottom.

[Jim] Caroll Spinney was one of the

few that had not worked with us before.

I met him at a puppet festival and I

described this very large, yellow bird.

[chattering]

I'm sure he'd had no

idea what he was in for.

[crew] Caroll.

There we are.

Ah... [speaks German]

Jim offered it to Frank Oz but he'd

already done the La Choy Dragon.

He says, "You're not getting me

into one of those things again."

And so Jim said, "Whatever you

want to develop, it's all yours."

[Oz] And then he asked

Caroll to do Oscar also.

Ta-da! Hey, that was rotten.

[Heather] I think that having both

Oscar and Big Bird on the street

sort of brought

the street to life.

[crew] Here we

go. Rolling sound.

[laughing, chattering]

Yay!

[Stone] The puppets,

from the very beginning,

were an integral part of our

whole concept of the show.

[no audible dialogue]

There would be no Sesame

Street without the Muppets.

What's the big one, Big Bird?

Oh, what's the big one?

Oh, that's a picture of

me when I was little.

Wasn't I cute? [chuckles]

Characters have come about

from many different ways.

Some of the characters were puppets

that we had before Sesame Street,

and they took on a personality.

Uh, Cookie Monster

certainly was that.

I will count them.

- No, me eat them.

- Count.

- Eat. Eat, eat, eat.

- No, count. Count, count.

- Wait.

- What?

- Why don't we cooperate?

- Ah!

[Oz] The Count was

invented for Jerry Nelson.

Grover was closest to my heart.

Oh, they're coming!

- Which way? Which way? Which way?

- That way. [giggles] That way.

[Oz] Guy Smiley was invented on

the show and he was brilliant.

Jim was absolutely brilliant

with him. God, he was so funny.

Wonderful. I'm Guy Smiley.

They call me Guy Smiley because I

changed my name from Bernie Liederkranz.

- [audience cheering]

- Yes, thank you. Yes.

Some of his absolute best performances

took place on Sesame Street

because he didn't have to

be watching the budget.

He didn't have to be producing.

He was just there to perform.

- [crew] Quiet, please.

- [coughs]

[Jim] Performing the Ernie

and Bert pieces with Frank

has always been one of the great

joys of... of doing this show.

[director] Action.

- [Bert] Good night, Ern. [groans]

- Good night, Bert.

- Bert?

- [Bert] What?

Oh no, I'm not saying this to

you. I'm sorry, this is to me.

- [Bert] Oh, I didn't hear that.

- Hmm.

This is where I could use that

close-up, Jimmy. If you wanted to.

- [Bert] Oh, you want a close-up now.

- Oh.

I remember in the very beginning,

we... we first built these characters,

and then we were trying to

decide who should do which.

And I remember trying Bert, and

Frank tried Ernie for a while.

[Oz] We were in front of the mirror

and he was Bert and I was Ernie,

and that wasn't working.

I mean, Jim didn't even

have to make the decision.

It was obvious that Ernie was more

of Jim because Jim was very playful.

Wubba, wubba, Bert.

- You're it, Bert.

- No, I'm not.

Yes, you are, Bert. Bert's it!

Bert is it.

And Bert was me because I was

uptight and neurotic at that time.

Ernie, I am not going

to play this game.

- Mmm.

- Angry, right?

Yes, I am angry!

I knew it. Very good.

That's one for Ernie.

[Jim] In the beginning,

Frank didn't like Bert.

In the beginning, Bert... he...

he felt Bert was too dull.

[Oz] And then I realized, okay,

I'll make the negative a positive.

And then I created the character who

just want to be left alone and read.

And that allowed for the comic

impulses of Jim to interrupt me.

Twenty-two. Oh, the red one.

Twenty-three. [stammers] Twenty-four.

- Bert. Bert, Bert. Cut, cut. Bert.

- [laughing]

Jim is somebody if he's on the

river, he will pull his paddles in,

and he'll allow the

river to take the boat.

Me, I get in the boat and

I go upstream. [chuckles]

So, we're so different

in that area.

And one of the best things about

comedy, from Abbott and Costello on,

is that the characters

are opposites.

Pretend like you didn't

hear any of that stuff.

- That was just fine.

- All that stuff you just heard,

- you didn't hear that.

- We were kidding around.

[Jim] About half the time

when Frank and I are working,

we decide not to use the script.

And so we're really

working spontaneously,

and just sort of playing

off of each other.

And it's a lot of fun.

The opposite of

stop is go, Bert.

Go, Bert, go.

Go, Bert!

- Bert, Bert, the opposite of stop...

- [laughing]

At first...

When I came, I was 19, and I think

I used Jim as a father figure.

I was unfair to him.

I was dependent and

it took a while.

And the more

independent I became,

the more we came closer.

- Grover, is that you?

- Mm-hmm. That's right, Froggy. It's me.

[stammers] You're a salesman?

Uh, you know, you got to do

something to pay the cookie bill.

[Oz] He was my boss.

I worked for him.

He paid me, but, I mean,

he never acted like a boss.

Why am I doing it

and you're not?

- Because I'm just doing the words now.

- Okay.

[Oz] So it really

was a partnership.

Eventually, it

was like brothers.

- That's... that's...

- [growls]

- Good. Good. That's good. That's good.

- [growls] Yeah?

[growls] Yeah?

- [Oz] A little higher. To the left.

- [chuckles] That's awful.

[Jim] During the '70s,

I suppose, the whole country felt

it was slightly in a depression.

Emotional type of depression.

And when you were working

for the preschool kids,

you can't be

depressed about that.

I mean, you know, this

is such a wonderful age,

and it's this wonderful innocence

that you're dealing with.

["1-2-3 Sesame Street" playing]

[vocalizing]

- One, two, three

- Sesame Street

- A, B, C and...

- Sesame Street

[Cheryl] The fact that Sesame

Street was such a giant hit

was a big surprise to everybody.

- One, two, three

- Sesame, Sesame Street

[Lisa] It was beloved

immediately on every level.

Sesame Street

Sesame Street

[Lisa] The success of Sesame Street

meant he did have to expand at that point

bringing new people

into the company.

[Brill] There was an

ad in the paper saying

that Jim Henson was looking to train

puppeteers for a television show.

I was an actress. I had

just come to New York.

I met with Jim and Frank.

The next thing was him asking me

if I wanted to do Sesame Street.

[no audible dialogue]

Fran Brill was a friend of a

friend, and she called and said,

"Jim Henson is looking

for a costume designer."

I wasn't sure what to expect

when I went in to meet Jim.

There were all these people working using

foam rubber and all kinds of materials.

And I was fascinated, and that was

the beginning of a whole new life.

[Oz] He chose

people really well.

People that had the same spirit.

This affectionate anarchy.

That was the culture.

[Goelz] I was working

in Silicon Valley.

One day, I'm sitting in my cubicle,

phone rings and it's Jim Henson.

Sounds like Ernie.

[imitating Ernie] "Hi,

Dave. This is Jim Henson."

[normal voice] And I

thought, "Oh, my God."

[Frith] I was an editor and

illustrator working with Dr. Seuss,

but I was fascinated

with Sesame Street.

With the books, we could

reach hundreds of thousands.

But with television, we

could reach millions.

So, I said goodbye to Dr. Seuss

and hello to the Muppets.

It's probably the best group of

people I ever could have walked into.

It was Jim finding these

people, putting them together,

and trusting them to do what

he thought they could do.

It was amazing.

[Jim] All right,

guys. Here we go.

[Cheryl] I don't think he

really liked advertising,

and Sesame Street gave him a really

good reason to drop out of it.

He didn't have to do it

to make money anymore.

Ribbit. Ribbit.

[Brian] It was a very, very

creative period for him

the early year or

two of Sesame Street.

But then, definitely the

box closed hard around him.

[clock ticking]

[Oz] After a year of

Sesame Street, he felt,

"Oh, my God. I... I

made a big mistake."

[Brian] He was suddenly America's

favorite preschool entertainer,

and that didn't sit

comfortably with him.

He had all these ideas, and

then when he became successful,

now was the opportunity.

[Brian] If he had wanted

to do two more kids shows,

it would have been no problem.

He would have sold

them in a second.

But he didn't.

[Juhl] He had plans

for Broadway shows.

He had plans for ballets. He

had plans for amusement parks.

Lots of things in

lots of directions.

[wind whistling]

[Heather] He had

a great ambition,

and he really wanted to contribute

to the world in a huge way.

One more time.

I don't think Jim was ever

afraid of anything creatively.

[Lisa] He kept on trying stuff.

He did Hey, Cinderella,

The Frog Prince

and, uh, one that hardly anybody's

seen called the Musicians of Bremen.

And those productions were

where he would work out

a lot of cool, new

ideas in his mind,

whether it was figuring out how

to puppeteer the frogs in water,

or how to build puppets with

a different look and feel.

He would work two days on a

trot sometimes without sleeping.

He would do that regularly.

And that was normal

for Jim. Normal.

I think it was Jerry Juhl who

said that Jim had a whim of steel.

He was very thin, and

he looked vulnerable,

but he was the toughest

one of the bunch.

He was the strongest

man I've ever known,

both with integrity, but

also that skinny body.

He would just work and

work and work and work.

["A Song Without

a Reason" playing]

Well, you don't need rhyme or

reason To sing a happy song

[vocalizing]

This is a song

without a reason

[intercom buzzing]

- [player clicks]

- [music ends]

[Jim clears throat]

Hello.

[Heather] He loved the work. He relished

in the work and he thrived in the work.

But it did mean that he was

doing the work all the time.

[chuckling] You know?

Like even on vacation,

he's bringing his work.

It wasn't really a vacation.

[birds chirping]

[Oz] So I think what happened

was that Jane didn't foresee

how popular things would come.

And she didn't always

want it to grow bigger.

She wanted her

husband home more.

[no audible dialogue]

[Brian] They were the

cofounders of the company.

And then my mother started

having babies very quick.

It was very hard for them to

be cofounders of the Muppets

and have five kids

at the same time.

[Cheryl] My mom

was an anarchist.

My mom was a creative thinker.

My mom was strong

and... and dynamic,

and she was often rebelling against

the concept of the perfect wife.

And my dad had some

traditional expectations

of how things are

supposed to be done.

[Brian] It was when it came

down to talk about the company.

I'm sure all of my siblings will

say they remember the friction often

at the dinner table because

my father wanted to know

how... how was my math quiz,

and how... how did the science

project work out with my sister.

But my mother only wanted to... my

father to talk about the company,

which was the last thing

he wanted to talk about.

[Jane] Jim certainly

had respect for women.

He assumed that I was either interested

in what the children were doing,

or I was interested in what he was

doing, and that was what wives do.

I probably just kept it inside for

so long until I made a declaration.

"Hey, look. I have a life too.

It's just not about

you and your career.

It's about me too."

[Cheryl] What is a

declaration of independence?

It's a cry for recognition.

[Lisa] She felt left out.

She loved the creative collaboration,

and I think it was hurtful to her

that the collaboration could

keep going without her.

She wasn't thinking of ending the marriage

because she didn't believe in divorce.

She continued to be a

very good talent scout.

She discovered a lot of the puppeteers,

particularly the young ones.

She would say that she was the first

person who discovered Jim Henson.

[Cheryl] No matter what happened

in my parents' relationship,

my mom was always supportive

of my dad as an artist.

[Brian] I think my mother

would've been super happy

if he did just stay

on Sesame Street.

'Cause my mother always wanted

to dedicate her life to kids.

My father never

wanted to do that.

He had this idea for a Muppets variety

show that predated Sesame Street.

[phone rings]

He had been selling

it for years.

That was gonna be

the ultimate show.

He tried to pitch it to

every single network.

Anyone who would listen.

[no audible dialogue]

[Oz] In the beginning, Jerry

and me and Jim and Don Sahlin,

we'd have the puppets

in these big boxes,

and we would go to ABC or CBS or

whatever, to try and get them interested.

And, invariably,

what would happen was

they'd say either, "Oh, no. They're

puppets," or "Kids' stuff. No."

Or they'd say, "Well, it's interesting,

but I'm not the guy to see.

You should see Bill." And, of

course, Bill's on vacation,

and we gotta come do it all

over again in two weeks.

[no audible dialogue]

[Brian] My dad was very confident that

The Muppet Show was going to be great.

But the effort he had to go

to to convince the industry

was almost superhuman.

[Lisa] People were saying, "Well,

the Muppets are for preschoolers."

So, then he overreacted by creating a show

called Sex and Violence with the Muppets.

[announcer] Ladies

and gentlemen,

presenting the end of sex

and violence on television.

[laughing]

Ladies and gentlemen,

it's The Muppet Show.

["Love Ya to Death" playing]

Well, I might be able to get you a

job on an educational show for kids.

Incidentally, this show

has been prerecorded.

I mean, it was really strange,

because I couldn't sell the Muppets

who have now done Sesame

Street, and were a huge hit.

So he put together

a new presentation.

Friends, the United States of

America needs The Muppet Show.

And you should buy this show.

Now, we're not pulling

any punches here.

I mean, there's nothing

subtle about this pitch.

So buy the show and put it on

the air, and we'll all be famous.

The Muppets will be famous,

and CBS will be famous

because we'll have a

hit show on our hands.

And we'll all get temperamental

and hard to work with,

but you won't care because

we'll all make a lot of money.

And Schlatter and

Henson will be happy.

And you will be happy.

And Kermit's mother

will be happy.

And God will look down on us

and smile on us and he will

say, "Let them have a 40 share."

I... I couldn't sell it.

Help.

It was passed on by everybody.

It was enormously frustrating.

[Lisa] The idea for a

Muppets variety show

was quickly replaced by

other things to be busy with.

[theme song playing]

[announcer] NBC's

Saturday Night.

With Jim Henson's Muppets.

[Brian] The most adult show that

has ever been made... [chuckles]

is the way Saturday Night Live was being

set up. And he was like, "I want in."

Scred?

Yes, oh, High Supreme

Mucky-Muck, sir.

Scred, I'm hungry.

Ah, what would please

your flatulence?

[groans]

That was a great example of two

completely different groups of people

with completely different styles

of comedy clashing together.

We weren't allowed to

write our own material.

[groans]

It was their show, and

we were taking up time.

Michael O'Donoghue could not say

a good thing about the Muppets.

He despised them. "I hated

writing for that felt."

We were all pretty sorry to hear

you guys got canceled, Scred.

But, uh, you know,

that's show business.

It was not a happy

experience. It really wasn't.

It was halfway through that season

that he got a call from London.

[phone rings]

So one of the last two Saturday

Night Live shows we did,

Jim pulled me over and say,

"Hey, listen. We just got 24

half-hour guaranteed shows."

Lew Grade had ATV Studios

in London, which was empty.

He wasn't sh**ting anything there, so

he needed something to sh**t there.

[Brian] It was two of the most

ambitious men on the planet,

and they come from two

completely different universes.

[Oz] Lew used to be

a Charleston dancer.

Then he became this very

successful producer.

He was absolutely the

greatest financial sponsor

that my dad could have had because

he gave him so much freedom.

Lew would always say,

"Okay, if it felt right, let's

do it. Here's the money."

As opposed to today,

you go to a committee.

It was just visceral for

Lew, and he trusted himself.

[Brian] Lew was very

bullish about this plan

of selling back into little, local

TV channels across the country.

So we said, "Okay, well, that's a

way to get it on the air anyhow."

And so we went over to England.

[military band playing]

[Lisa] The whole

crew went over there,

and they were working with British

directors, with British writers.

It was a big collaboration,

and nobody really knew what

was gonna come out of it.

[chattering]

[Juhl] We started frantically

trying, grasping around,

trying to find characters

and ideas and concepts

that would fit with this basic

shape that Jim had put to the show.

We knew we wanted a comedian,

and that he was gonna be a bear.

That's about all

we knew about him.

And we knew that Gonzo the Great

was a guy who thought that eating

a tire to music was great art.

Jim gradually hit upon this idea

based on old English music hall.

[piano playing]

I mean, there's a lot of influence,

the way that theater looks.

All we were doing is taking

a chance with 24 episodes.

I had no idea that it would be such

an extraordinary, phenomenal success.

[applause]

It's time to play the music

It's time to light the light

It's time to meet the Muppets

On The Muppet's Show tonight

It's time to put on makeup

It's time to dress up right

It's time to get

things started

Why don't you get

things started?

It's time to get

things started

On the most sensational, inspirational

Celebrational, Muppetational

This is what we

call The Muppet Show

[trumpets playing]

[audience laughs, cheers]

Thank you, thank you!

Hello, everybody. And

welcome to The Muppet Show.

[Oz] Everything evolved

in that first season.

- Mahna Mahna

- Do doo be-do-do

- Mahna Mahna

- Do do-do do

- Mahna Mahna

- Do doo be-do-do

Do do do, do do do Do do

do, do do do, do do do

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen,

I will eat this rubber tire to the

music of the "Flight of the Bumblebee."

- Music, maestro.

- [music playing]

- Frog of my heart...

- Yes.

you will just wait until

I say the word "here."

When you hear me say the word "here,"

you will rush up to me and say,

"Good grief, the

comedian's a bear."

- Good grief, the comedian's a bear.

- Check.

- When you say the word "here."

- Right.

- Gotcha.

- Okay.

He's doing it.

He's eating a tire.

- Boring.

- [audience member boos]

Hiya, hiya, hiya! You're a

wonderful-looking audience.

It's a pleasure to be here.

- Good grief, the comedian's a bear!

- I...

Not yet!

- You just said "here."

- That was the wrong "here."

- Which is the right "here"?

- The other "here."

Sure.

- Stomachache, check.

- Mmm.

[screams]

- [shouting, indistinct]

- [audience laughing]

Hey, hey, folks. This is a

story you're gonna love to hear.

- Good grief, the comedian's a bear!

- Will you stop it?

- But you said "here."

- Not that "here."

- Well, which "here"?

- Another "here."

- How am I gonna know?

- You'll know when you hear!

- Good grief, the comedian's a bear!

- Not...

[audience laughing]

[Oz] The concept was these bizarre

people trying to put on a show every week

[screams]

Next on stage, Prince Rudolph

and His Invisible Cheeseburger.

I'm sorry, guys. I've got a full show.

I cannot use a jug band number tonight.

[clamoring]

Way to go, samurai. To

your dressing... [shouts]

[Oz] And this poor frog trying to

make it happen every damn week.

Everybody's onstage for the

opera except the spear carriers.

They want more money.

No way.

- Uh, see how much they want.

- Right.

Kermit's function on this

show is very much like my own,

in that he's trying to hold

together this group of crazies.

And that's not unlike what I do.

The Muppet Glee

Club, "Temptation."

One and two and...

[singing]

[Jim] And the very first show, we

had a, sort of, an animal chorus.

You came

[Jim] Kermit was conducting...

I was alone

[Jim] ...and this one pig came forward

to sing the solo in "Temptation."

Born to be kissed

I can't resist

You are temptation

And I...

[Jim] And so she was sort of

coming on to the conductor.

So that really started that... the whole

relationship in that little moment.

Only a sl*ve

To you

One show in rehearsal, it

said for Piggy to slap Kermit.

And, for some reason, I don't know

why, I karate chopped him instead.

- Hi-yah!

- [grunts]

- [audience laughs]

- [Oz] And Jim went with it.

Barbarian.

[thuds]

It is a lightbulb that...

Okay, I know her character now.

- I'll show you.

- What...

- Hi-yah!

- Piggy... [shouts]

- Hi-yah!

- [screams]

- Hi-yah!

- [laughs]

- Hi-yah!

- [shouts]

So Piggy was plucked from

the chorus and became a star.

Hello, Morley.

- May I ask you a question? Please?

- [chuckling] Yes.

- Is your wife here?

- No, she's not.

- Great.

- [chuckles]

- I thought he was a good interviewer.

- [person] Yeah, right.

- He's just overwhelmed by your beauty.

- Could've fooled me.

All right. That's a wrap.

She has so many limitations.

All she can do is have bravado.

Okay, Piggy, you were good.

I was great.

[Oz] She covers all her pain 'cause

she knows she's not talented.

She knows she can't tell jokes.

She knows she can't dance.

I'm too delicate

for show business.

[Oz] And, of course, her magnificent

obsession in life is the frog.

And he is just kind of

namby-pamby about her.

That comedic conflict, I think

that's what makes it memorable.

Kermie, would... [grunts] ...would you

help me take this mermaid outfit off?

[groans]

- You want me to do the zipper back here?

- Yes. Back there, the zipper.

- Okay.

- It's just...

- [zipper opens]

- [exclaims]

Ah! What a relief.

[sighs] Thank you. Oh!

Don't look. Don't look.

- [stammers]

- No peeking.

- [screams]

- [audience laughs]

[Oz] Is the pig ready?

[crew 1] The sofa goes across.

- [crew 2] All right.

- [crew 3] Yeah.

[crew 4] Bye, Frank.

The necessity of, uh,

doing a shot like this,

you have to, uh...

you have to, uh...

[sighs]

In order to make it look good up there,

it has to be uncomfortable down here.

[applause]

Oh! Come sit, Roger.

Roger, I'm so glad

you asked me up here.

Well, actually,

I didn't ask you.

It was both a joy and a grind.

[all laughing]

- Two, three, four...

- [Jim] "They call him the pillage idiot.

He was stupid with his

pillaging." We'll get there.

[Oz] We do a show a week.

Every number we do has to

go through the same stages.

We have the guest

star on a Sunday.

We do a read through, we do

rehearsal, we go through music.

[performer] Oh, is that me?

[Oz] And then the next

day, we record the band.

[band playing]

And then the vocals

are laid down.

And then we had

three days to sh**t.

- In the navy

- Yes, you can sail the Seven Seas

- In the navy

- Yes, you can put your mind at ease

- In the navy

- Navy

[both] In the navy

Cut. Right? Okay.

[Oz] And then one day off, and

we start it all over again.

- Take it slow

- [stammers]

Easy goes

[Oz] There were no live

people, except one guest star.

And we had everything raised.

We would have the floor in,

like, three-foot sections.

We'd be underneath, and

then we'd have our hands up.

- And Jim invented all this.

- [Fozzie Bear] What is it?

that you'd like to come

to my dressing room

and, uh, have a cup of tea?

- Could I bring a friend?

- [laughing]

- Well...

- It's just... just my mother.

[audience laughing]

[Jim] The concept of taking and designing

the show around a guest star each week,

uh, worked out very nicely too.

Each guest would come in, and the

whole show would change personalities.

You, sir, are a freako.

- Why, thank you.

- [audience laughs]

Oh, oh, so is life

Abatiwaha, so is life

- Odl lay ee

- Odl lay ee

- Odl lay hee hee

- Odl lay hee hee

Odl lay ee Odl

lay ee odl lay

La, la, la, la, la, la

La, la, la, la, la

He was literally turning away the

biggest movie stars in the world,

'cause he just didn't have

enough episodes to put 'em in.

[Oz] Dave Lazer would

be there at the airport

meet them, bring them to

the hotel, have flowers.

And exec producers don't do that,

but he knew how important it was.

Jim couldn't do that. It's

just not something Jim did.

He was shy, first of all.

I don't know that

it was shyness.

Jim was a reticent person when it

came to communicating with people.

He never gave long

and detailed answers.

I loved making him laugh.

[both babbling]

[both exclaiming]

If I could make his eyes crinkle,

I was one happy Puerto Rican.

["Fever" playing]

Never know How

much I love you

Never know How much I care

When you put your

arms around me

I get a fever That's

so hard to bear

You give me fever

"Fever" was extremely complicated

and I kept breaking up.

- [Animal groans]

- [audience laughs]

And then Jim at one point said,

"Rita, we don't do overtime here.

This is London.

If you break up again,

that's what we have to use."

I got to the end of the

number... [chuckles]

[audience laughs]

and Animal says...

[groans] That my kind of woman.

[Moreno] You can see my

nostrils flare at the end,

which is me trying

desperately not to laugh.

[applause, cheering]

There was nothing that

Jim didn't entertain.

Jim never thought of color.

Jim never thought

of nationality.

Jim just simply

thought of characters.

It's not easy bein' green

Having to spend each day

The color of the leaves

When I think it might be nicer

Bein' red or yellow or gold

Or something Much more

colorful like that

[Moreno] "It's not

easy being green."

I mean, come on.

We know what that means.

Everybody knows what that means.

It seems you blend in With

so many other ordinary things

And people tend

to pass you over

'Cause you're not standing out

Like flashy sparkles in the water

Or stars in the sky

[Moreno] That frog was green.

He was a little f...

green, funny looking frog.

And I know the children understood,

that they just understood.

Or tall like a tree

[Brian] That's one of the main

thrusts of my father's work.

It's why he very rarely

celebrates tribalism in any sense,

because he thinks if

we all loved each other

for our differences and

not our similarities,

we would... There

would be no more w*r.

I'm green And

it'll do fine

It's beautiful And I

think it's what I wanna be

[frogs croaking]

[applause]

[Jim] The Muppet Show is now

seen in over 100 countries,

and I'm just delighted

with the show's success

because until this

program came along,

no one had ever done a

show quite like this,

where the real

stars are puppets.

[Juhl] For its day, it was the most

watched television series in history.

My dad really got

the final laugh

'cause the networks all passed

twice on both of his pilots.

[shutter clicks]

[Cheryl] He and the puppeteers,

they felt like rock stars.

They had tried so hard

to get that show made,

and against such odds,

and then for it to hit in that way,

it was really, really satisfying.

Puppets are very

ancient entertainers.

They don't just go

back to the crib.

They go back to the cave.

They were beginning to

show their age a little

until you came along and dragged

that whole squeaking box of dolls

into the 20th century,

into the mainstream.

The Muppets, for my money,

are the most original thing

that ever happened on the box.

Don't you agree?

[applause]

[Oz] We were so incredibly

popular around the world.

And so I... It's just a

natural decision to do a movie.

[cameraperson] And zooming.

[Jim] Jim Frawley,

who was the director,

at first, he wanted to sh**t in studio,

create a world like The Wizard of Oz.

And I was really trying to talk

him into sh**ting outdoors.

I said, "Come on over." He

brought a Super 8 camera,

and we shot footage of...

of the characters outdoors.

[Oz] Jim Frawley didn't

really get the Muppets,

and he wasn't sure if they really would

work on the big screen and in real life.

- I apologize for that.

- [Fozzie Bear] Hey, Kermit.

Look at the windshield

wipers. Look at them go.

Isn't that terrific? I

think I'm gonna be sick.

Uh, excuse me, guys. We're

looking for Hollywood.

Uh, Hollywood, California.

No, it's... it's over

near Los Angeles.

Do you... Have you ever been to Lo...

Have you ever been to Lo... Excuse me.

[laughs]

[screams]

Jim, of course, knew it'd work.

For the opening scene of the movie,

we were sh**ting Kermit in a swamp.

[no audible dialogue]

Jim had to be squeezed into this

steel canister under the water.

When they finally let him out,

it took him about 20

minutes to get unfolded.

But Jim wouldn't think twice.

[projector clicks, whirs]

["Rainbow Connection" playing]

[Jim] It's the Muppets

meeting the world.

Why are there so many

Songs about rainbows

And what's on

the other side?

What's so amazing That

keeps us star gazing

And what do we

think We might see?

Someday we'll find it

The rainbow connection

The lovers, the

dreamers And me

All of us...

[Juhl] The Muppet Movie opened

us up into a whole new world

that allowed us a

whole emotional range.

It afforded him chances to do more

things, to fulfill more dreams,

to go off in a

different direction.

He knew that he could pick up

the phone and call anybody,

and the best people in the

world in any given field

would be willing to listen to

him because he was Jim Henson.

Just look at all this. Boy!

How did a frog

make the big time?

- [static]

- [chattering]

- Do you know me? I created the Muppets.

- [all] Big deal!

Everybody knows

them, but not me.

So when I travel, I carry

the American Express card.

[Brian] And from that point on,

my dad couldn't walk a block

without getting recognized.

[Lisa] He bought a new building

on 69th Street in New York City.

Much lovelier,

fancier headquarters.

And all of a sudden he's wearing a

much more fashionable kind of wardrobe.

California cowboy chic.

[Lisa] He got a Lotus with custom

green paint in Kermit color...

and he started new

parts of the business.

He had his own merchandising

department and distribution,

and everything was getting

a little bit bigger.

[interviewer] The Muppet Show,

Sesame Street, the movie,

the bits and pieces of Muppetry,

the whole Muppet empire.

- What's it worth?

- [laughs]

I have no idea. I really don't.

- [Jim laughs]

- [interviewer] Scores of millions?

- [Jim] Oh, no. No.

- Millions?

Probably, but I

wouldn't swear to that.

Yeah. [chuckles]

[Brian] Becoming famous was

definitely what he wanted.

But I could see and feel that there

was an innocence getting lost,

and that it was gonna impact his

relationship with us and everything.

And that was complex.

[Jane] This kind of success

has less peace in it.

It's, um, troublesome

in many ways.

There's a lot of work,

a lot of separation.

There's a lot of pressure

in a success that involves so

many people and so much money.

He was also trying to commute back

and forth between New York and London.

That was challenging

because The Muppet Show

would tape months

on end in London.

And then when he would get to New

York, everybody needed his attention,

whether it was on

the family side,

or even at the company needing more

leadership and more of his presence.

So there was stress involved

with getting bigger, for sure.

You're a very busy man.

How do you find enough time

to spend with your family to keep

those home fires burning, let's say?

You know, it... it is difficult,

and certainly I... I, um...

But I like to travel with them.

I often, you know, have one or two

of my kids with me at the time,

and, uh, we enjoy family

vacations and that sort of thing.

Come on, everybody. Try it.

[Goelz] And meanwhile, Jim is still

doing Sesame several weeks a year.

He felt completely committed

to service Sesame Street

and not leave them behind.

[chattering]

[Cheryl] My dad was

working incredibly hard.

And, regularly, at the end of each

week, they'd have, like, one day off.

And he would be sick.

He would just crash, and then

he'd have to get back up and go.

[Oz] We always said, "Oh, Jim is

taking on too much this time."

If there was a

week off in London,

he'd say, "Hey, we're doing the Queen's

Silver Jubilee during that week."

[chuckles]

[no audible dialogue]

He wasn't against doctors.

He just didn't want to

go to doctors first.

I remember doing a sh**t with him

in Chicago out in the dead winter,

and he... he had

walking pneumonia.

And he just barreled through.

He... He wasn't scared of dying.

I-I remember when Don Sahlin

died, which was a huge shock,

and I was in the workshop

and I was crying.

And Jim came behind me

and said, "It's okay.

He's just on a different plane."

And Jim believed that.

He saw it as another adventure.

He believed there was

something else there.

[Cheryl] He was interested in Buddhism,

TM, Transcendental Meditation,

different ways of

seeing the world.

What is reality?

What is human nature?

What is this world

that surrounds us?

[laughing]

[Lisa] My father

never spoke of God,

and he was not a Christian

Scientist, in spite of his mother.

He was the kind of person who just

believes in the greater power,

and a very intense interconnectedness

between all beings.

[Erickson] Jim was always trying to

broaden his mind, his sensibilities.

He was a seeker.

- [laughing, chattering]

- [band playing]

[no audible dialogue]

[applause]

Uh...

- I don't really make speeches, uh...

- [guests laugh]

as... as everybody knows.

But, uh, listen, it's been really

a great five years. And I'm not...

[Brian] After five seasons,

he was like, "I did it all.

I did The Muppet Show. I'm

gonna start repeating myself."

And he canceled it.

We're proud of the work

that we've done together.

All of you people and all of us.

And, uh, it's stuff that will,

uh, stay with me a long time.

So, thank you very much.

[applause]

[Brian] Nobody does that

with a show that successful.

But he had the next chapter

already in his head.

[Jim] Sometimes you feel you

should continue moving forward.

From a creative standpoint,

it's a lot more interesting to change

and do something different and new.

[Brian] Dark Crystal

was really the beginning

of this next chapter

of creativity.

[Jim] We intended

to do something

that would jump styles

completely from the Muppets.

And about the same time we

started thinking about it,

I saw the work of Brian Froud.

And I immediately loved it.

It's a wonderful challenge to design

the creatures and what they wear,

the castle and the landscape and

the color palette of the skies.

[Oz] Jim needed a shop.

So he bought a place in Hampstead,

an old derelict post office.

And that became

the creature shop.

[Erickson] Jim was

a detail person.

He would say, "Go ahead and

stitch that three times,

and do a handmade embroidery

because that'll just enrich it."

[Brian] He just started collecting

artists into this building in London.

So that's when he named it

the Jim Henson Creature Shop.

So it was literally a shop

where you can come and buy

your creature for your movie.

[Frith] Jim loved the technology

involved in all of this.

This extraordinarily complex system

of moving mouths and eyes and eyebrows

and wiggling ears, and anything else

that you needed to have a puppet do.

It was an interesting challenge

because these puppets were unwieldy,

and they were also capable

of nuance and subtlety

that we didn't have in

the regular Muppets.

There were mechanisms on the characters

that made them mimic life more closely.

[Jim] The images in the

shirt have to be vertical

because that... that's the

kind of shape we're going into.

Certainly not three,

and probably not two.

[Oz] It was getting

closer to the sh**t.

And in his own quiet

way, Jim just said to me,

"Frank, do you want to direct

this movie with me?" [chuckles]

I said... [stammers]..."I've never

directed before. Why... Why ask me?"

And this is typical

Jim. He said,

"Because it would be better."

He knew that I had some

strengths that he didn't have.

[no audible dialogue]

And that's always Jim.

[no audible dialogue]

The reaction of him hitting

that stone should be nice.

[Lisa] They were in the creative

sandbox the whole way through.

Everything was something new.

[Goelz] First day we shot,

Jim had 30 or 40 people

in this uncomfortable

position in the dark...

on a 2-foot-high platform.

And I step off the platform,

and now we're going over.

And somebody caught us, and

put us back on the platform.

[chuckling]

And I remember thinking

Jim's optimism has really gotten

the best of him this time.

Ah!

[crew] And one,

two, three, action!

[performers shouting]

[crew] One, two, three, action.

Uh, Mr. Oz, how do you

think the picture is going?

[laughing]

Mr. Oz doesn't say

much about that.

[crew 2] ...and one, two, three!

[Brian] The first time

he showed the movie,

the executives all got up and walked out

of the theater without talking to him.

They so disliked the

movie. [chuckles]

Fools! Skeksis fools!

What do you want with me?

Well, a large portion of the movie was

not in English, was in made-up languages.

[babbling]

When the characters were

just babbling nonsense words,

the test audiences

rejected it completely.

So they had to go back and

create a script in English

that would fit with the lip

sync of what they had shot.

[screams]

[Jim] That entire film was almost

rewritten twice after we shot it.

Oh!

Something I don't

recommend to anybody.

my home.

[Jim] We ended up just loading

the thing with dialogue.

And, in many ways,

I slightly regret...

Oh, how crude.

Dark Crystal came out

about the same time as ET.

And ET had one character in

it, one fantasy character,

and the rest of

the world was real.

[both screaming]

You just had to

believe that character.

Dark Crystal, we had

to believe everything.

[Oz] When Jim believed in

something, he will go all the way.

It wasn't a huge hit,

but it was successful.

A one-of-a-kind piece of work

that was artistic for him,

and got back to his

experimental roots.

[crew] 754, take six.

[Heather] My dad wasn't really

living in the house at that time.

Oh, hello.

He was living wherever

the productions were.

[interviewer] Tell

me what you're doing

for my friends at home

I'm gonna show this to.

- What are you doing?

- This is underneath the first Muppet orgy.

[laughing]

We just tighten up.

[Heather] My mom didn't want to

live where the productions were.

She wanted to live

in a stable house.

I think they might have been

done on my 18th birthday.

I was in boarding school,

so they saw me the least.

And for my birthday they said,

"Why don't you come to Toronto?"

They had a conference

or something.

So I went to spend one night

with them, which was my birthday,

and they fought all night in

a hotel room next to my room.

And I thought,

"Oh, they're done."

And then they pretty

much were done.

I knew they had tough times. I

didn't know it could be this tough.

[Lisa] They had such

different emotional realities.

He'd be like, "Hey, everything's

great the way that it is,"

and she was taking it very hard.

So their whole

worldview was dividing.

He got an apartment in New York

City at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel.

[Brian] So there he was, late

40s heading into his 50s,

and what he wanted was

to be single but dating.

He really liked the idea of dating

and not having it become too serious.

[Lisa] Eventually, in

the legal separation,

they did change the

ownership of the company.

A lot of my mom's

shares came to us kids.

While my father was going

through that with my mom,

Lord Grade sold his

company to Marble Arch.

And they both were

really worried

'cause all of a sudden The

Muppet Show, the Muppet movies

and The Dark Crystal were all gonna be

owned by this company that he didn't know.

This was a pretty big

turning point for him,

and he made a big, big gamble.

He basically borrowed every penny

he could and mortgaged everything.

And he said, "I want you kids

to know what I'm gonna do

because it's very risky and maybe you

won't have as much money in the future."

[Cheryl] Well, even though

they weren't living together,

my mom said, "Yes, do

it. You need to do it."

[Lisa] So he took all his money

and he bought back Muppet Show,

the Muppet movies

and The Dark Crystal.

That was a real reach to do

that, and really, really brave.

[no audible dialogue]

My parents didn't talk about

their romance, so to speak,

but they'd been through so much.

[Brian] I'm sure they were both

the love of each other's lives

who couldn't live

with each other.

[no audible dialogue]

- a great deal. Always tighter.

- [Seeff] Yeah.

[shutter clicks]

Uh, would... would you say that

you have a philosophy of life?

If our message is

anything, it is that...

is that it's a... it's a

positive approach to life...

- Uh-huh.

- and that life is basically good.

And by taking a positive

approach to it all,

it... it makes it, uh...

makes life a lot easier.

Right. Now... Now what

about the conceptualizing?

I mean, writing the stories.

I mean, for instance, Dark Crystal

was a film that I absolutely loved.

- Oh, good. You're gonna love our new one.

- Yes. Oh, good.

Our new one is, uh, I think it's...

it's similar to Dark Crystal,

but I think it's, uh... Well,

I'm... I'm very excited by it.

[Seeff] Is it more

sophisticated or...

Yeah. It's a good deal

more sophisticated.

Every time you do a film,

everything advances a little bit.

[shutter clicks]

[sighs] The Labyrinth.

- [chattering, laughing]

- ["Magic Dance" playing]

- You remind me of the babe

- What babe?

- Babe with the power

- What power?

Power of voodoo

- Who do?

- You do

- Do what?

- Remind me of the babe

[laughing]

[Connelly] When you think

about it, it's bananas, right?

You're in this kids movie, and I have

David Bowie as the kind of, like...

I mean, it's a mad idea,

and it's kind of great.

It doesn't look that far.

It's further than you

think. Time is short.

[Lisa] It was a very ambitious

film being a musical,

working with David Bowie,

working with human actors.

For him, that was

actually harder

because he hadn't been directing

humans. He'd been directing puppets.

[Jim] It comes down slowly into

your hand and the moment...

I was 14, and there's

this huge production.

You know, this world

that he had created,

and I'm kind of at

the middle of it.

[crew] Ta-da-da!

[Jim] When you're casting

a part like Sarah...

[crew] And playback.

which is the part in the film,

you hope someone walks in the

door and is the right person.

And when Jenny walked in,

she was the right person.

[Connelly] Despite having felt so

nervous, Jim is such a calming presence.

He would say, "Okay, so now

you're going to sit here,

and you're going to turn over

and then you're gonna talk

to this little worm that's

coming out of the wall."

I'm like, "Great. Okay.

Is this right?" [chuckles]

[chattering]

Say something, worm.

Uh-huh.

[Connelly] There was so much

imagination and creativity.

And it was so spectacular

to be around people

who are creating in that way.

It was like being

in a dream world.

- [Jim] One. Drop.

- [Sarah] Help!

Help!

[Connelly] I love all

the sporty, stunty stuff.

"Take me higher.

Throw me down a chute.

Can I be on the wires

a little longer?"

- I loved it.

- [bell rings]

The way that the puppeteers

would work together,

it was really incredible.

Ooh, yes. Hmm. Hmm.

Yes. Which way? Hmm?

[Brian] My dad never urged any

of us kids into the industry.

He just sort of supported us.

[Lisa] My dad did notice,

like, what we were good at,

encouraging Heather's work both as

a show creator, a theater maker.

Cheryl was so talented

with textiles and fabrics,

but she was also

really good on story.

[Cheryl] Lisa was always gonna

be a television executive.

My younger brother John, he was

doing, sort of, body performing,

and wound up doing Sweetums and

doing the Coca-Cola polar bear.

[Lisa] Brian, he had training

in everything technical.

On the directing side, he just knew that

Brian was a gearhead in a way. [chuckles]

[chattering]

[Brian] For Labyrinth,

my dad wanted to do a fully

radio-controlled character, Hoggle.

And he was saying, "Brian, can

you figure out how to do this?"

This was the beginning of

animatronics at the Creature Shop.

We both stayed open too long.

- [crew] Action! Shut up!

- [actor] Thank you.

- Oh! That makes it worse.

- Oh, come on. [grunts]

- [actor 2] That makes it...

- Ain't it? Yeah.

What a nice surprise.

Hello, Hedgewart.

- Hogwart.

- Hoggle.

[Brian] So, I got to really work with him

side by side and call him Jim, not Dad.

And I got to feel how rewarding it

was to work alongside Jim Henson,

which was very different than

being his son and in his family.

He was a kid at work. That

was the biggest difference.

When he was home, he was always

trying to set a good adult example.

And when he was at

work, he was free.

[Brian] So how do you think

the film's going so far?

I think this will probably be the

finest motion picture ever made.

[Brian laughs] Good thing I'm

only showing this to my family.

- [laughs]

- What does that laugh mean?

[Brian] No, no. I... I... I'm glad

I'm not sh**ting for the evening news.

This is gonna be the

best movie ever made.

[Brian] Okay. All right. Well,

I... I'll agree with that.

Uh, I'm happy to hear

that actually. [laughs]

- You better agree with it.

- [laughs]

[Lisa] Labyrinth was

a colossal failure.

I do think Labyrinth was the one where he

thought they just... they don't like it.

People don't like it, and he

really didn't expect that.

[Oz] It's hard to put one's

heart and soul in something,

and then be rejected to a degree

and not carry it around with you.

[Goelz] He was sad about the

reception that the film was getting.

This was unlike Jim.

We had lunch one day.

We were about to leave

and he said, "I love you."

And I said, "I love you too."

I mean, it was one of those moments

where I think he was just...

He was feeling vulnerable enough that

he would just say something like that.

[no audible dialogue]

[Oz] That's one thing about

Jim, when he did something,

he always had two other, three

other things he wanted to do.

As sad as he was about the

movie, he didn't dwell.

He kept on going and did

other things that excited him.

[screams]

[Goelz] One day, Jim

called a meeting and said,

"I'd like to do a

show that stops w*r."

And that became Fraggle Rock.

[Lisa] Storyteller's is the gem.

He was so proud of it.

[Brian] It was a culmination of

everything he had been striving for.

[Cheryl] He always had

so many projects brewing.

Good. Now I can make my entrance

like I do in every show.

[Rockwell] He was all about

the next technological advance.

He was flirting with CGI

with a character on the Jim Henson

Hour that was computer-generated.

Watch, watch this. Here we go.

[inhales sharply]

[sneezes]

[Jim] I'm very excited

by computer graphics,

and performing 'em,

uh, as puppets.

It is mostly being

done like animation.

And what we're trying to do with it

is perform it live like a puppet,

so you can capture real

performance, a dramatic performance.

[Oz] He always wanted to go

back and do exciting things.

And he was just worrying about overhead,

and essentially not having time to create.

[no audible dialogue]

It was not long after that that he

decided to sell the company to Disney.

He was a huge Disney

World fan. Like, fanatic.

[Oz] He wasn't just

selling outright.

He wanted to get back to not worrying

about business as much and having fun.

With us, from Walt Disney

World this morning in Florida,

are Michael Eisner and Jim Henson.

Good morning to both of you.

- Good morning, Charlie.

- Good morning.

They had a handshake agreement, and

it was really, you know, joyful.

I... As far as I can tell,

this is... this is a wonderful

place for my characters to be.

[Brian] It was really the beginning

of the next chapter of creativity

that he was excited about.

[no audible dialogue]

Jim had so many new ideas and

so many things he wanted to do.

I remember he called.

He said, "Hey, Frank. I want to

talk to you about something."

And that's the last

I ever talked to him.

[ticking]

[ticking stops]

[newscaster 1] A little

of the magic is gone.

Jim Henson, the man who

created the Muppets,

has died at the age of only 53

from what is described as a

massive bacterial infection.

He had pneumonia, which went

untreated for three days.

[newscaster 2] To call

Jim Henson a puppeteer,

comes nowhere near describing

his accomplishment,

or the love, affection and knowledge

that his characters brought to the world.

[newscaster 1] For millions of people,

it will seem like a death in the family.

[Lisa] I was in Los

Angeles, and I was too late.

And Brian was too late too.

But my mom went to the

hospital to be with him.

And what they discussed

is private to them.

And it's nice that they had whatever

closure they had right there.

This was just unthinkable to us

because this frail giant had just

been so unconquerable all these years.

It was just one of the

worst days of my life.

[sighs]

It was just this feeling

that the light had gone out,

and that it was not

gonna come back on.

He was ripped away

from us way too young.

It was an unfair early death.

[Rockwell] We all gathered in the New York

office, people from all around the world.

Our focus was to put this

funeral together in five days.

Someone came over 'cause the

kids had the instructions.

There was a set of

directions in the will.

It was like, "Oh, well, there are

instructions for... for making this show."

So it was uncanny in a way.

And then we read the

instructions at the table,

which was like a

voice from, you know,

it was just like his...

in his... It was so him.

[Brian] "I suggest you first have a nice,

friendly little service of some kind."

[guests laughing]

"It would be lovely if some of the

people who sing would do a song or two,

some of which should be

quite happy and joyful.

It would be nice if

some of my close friends

would say a few nice happy words

about how much we enjoy

doing this stuff together."

[no audible dialogue]

"This all may sound silly

and over the top to you guys,

but, what the hell, I'm gone

and who can argue with me?"

[laughing]

[applause]

I don't want to pretend that I

know what happens after this life,

or that Jim really knew what

would happen after this life,

- but he had great plans.

- [laughing]

["Bein' Green" playing]

It's not that

easy bein' green

Having to spend the day

The color of the leaves

When I think it could be nicer

Bein' red or yellow or gold

Or something Much more

colorful like that

Hello there, my name is Jim

Henson, and I'm a puppeteer.

But green is the

color of spring

And green can be cool

And friendly-like

And green can be

big like a mountain

Or tall as a tree

Or big as a sea

[Jim] I love doing what I do.

I can't imagine anybody else having

as much fun in their work as I do.

[no audible dialogue]

There's an honesty and an

integrity to what he was creating.

He was creating it because

he needed to create it.

[Oz] I think what Jim really wanted to

do was to sing songs and tell stories,

teach children, promote

peace, save the planet,

celebrate man and be silly.

[Brian] He showed that

creativity, artistry, metaphor,

can be used as a

great power of good.

You can make people appreciate

the good in all of us,

and laugh at the

absurdity in all of us.

[Jim] I think if the audience wants

these characters to continue to live,

they... they will.

[Rockwell] For me

and many others,

it became very important for us

to believe that we could carry on.

We felt like it was our life's

work, and that if it could continue,

we would love to carry on.

There's so much loyalty to Jim

because he was loyal to us.

We all do whatever we can

because he gave us so much.

[Lisa] There are just endless

things that have been changed

by the way he saw the world.

The tenderness that he

clearly had for humanity,

and the space he gave to creativity

and expression of imagination,

I see that in

everything that he did.

Well, I don't think there'll

ever be another Jim Henson.

[Oz] If Jim was here...

my heart would say

something a tad quietly,

but I wouldn't say it to him

because he... he'd be embarrassed

and... and couldn't accept it.

Uh, so on the outside,

I'd probably say,

"Jim, I'm busy. Could

you please move?"

That's what I'd

probably say. [chuckles]

But on the inside, um...

I just have to thank him.

["The Magic Store" playing]

It starts when we're kids

A show-off at school

Makin' faces at friends

You're a clown and a fool

Doing pratfalls

and birdcalls

And bad imitations

Ignoring your homework

Is that dedication?

You work through the mirror

You're getting

standing ovations

You're burning with hope

You're building up steam

What was once "juvenilish"

Is grown-up and stylish

You're close to your dream

Then somebody out

there Loves you

Stands up and

hollers For more

More!

You found a home

At the Magic Store

Yes, sir. It's a

standard Muppet finale.

If you don't know how to

end it, go out with a...

[expl*si*n]