Jim Henson has been dead now over 34 years. That’s almost as long as he was active. He passed away at the age of 53. Maybe it was because he had about 20 or so more years left in him and wasn’t able to fully see the advance of special effects by Industrial Light and Magic, which was owned by his friend George Lucas. He wasn’t young but he wasn’t old. Other celebrities have passed away at this age or younger. Or they’ve been gone longer than 1990. So, why does Henson’s death and legacy still make most people wonder about him?
For the most part, the man more or less changed what people thought of puppetry and animatronics. The recent documentary Jim Henson Idea Man directed by Ron Howard presents a look into a man who didn’t want to fully be associated with a kid’s show but still went forth because it allowed him to hone his craft and expand on it. Henson and his crew of puppeteers, called Muppeteers, always added a hint of mature humor to their work. Sesame Street may have been for younger kids to learn something. But The Muppet Show was for the older kids who liked a more irreverent humor. Jack Burns, who had worked with George Carlin early in their careers and worked on Hee-Haw and Fridays, was the head writer for the first season.
The documentary shows how Henson started out doing small puppetry shows on regional station affiliates before working his way up assembling the people like Frank Oz and Jerry Juhl who would build what they were doing. He created Sam and Friends where some of the popular characters such as Kermit the Frog would originate. I was surprised and amused to hear that the puppetry for Rowlf was made by cutting a basketball in his half for his head. I think a lot of people like Rowlf just as much as they did Kermit or Fozzie. He’s one of my favorites and you can’t imagine anyone else but Henson with his low, gruffy voice as him.
But like a lot of people in the entertainment industry in the 1960s and 1970s, Henson was fascinated with experimentation and different techniques such as the short film Time Peace and TV short The Cube. But once he began working on Sesame Street in 1969, his fate as a child entertainer was set. I really wished Howard had focused more on Henson’s career during the 1980s as he seemed to really make some strides. His 1986 Labyrinth is briefly mentioned but there’s only a little bit of The Storyteller shown as well as Fraggle Rock.
Henson was known for perfectionism. There was the failure of Little Muppet Monsters, which was supposed to run along with Muppet Babies on Saturday mornings. But it was canceled because Marvel Productions couldn’t deliver the animated features in time. Rumors also persisted Henson wasn’t happy with the quality either.
Because of his dedication to his work, it made things difficult in his private life. His children, Brian, Cheryl and Heather, got involved with puppetry because it was usually the only time they got to be around him. And his marriage with his wife, Jane, struggled. She had first worked with Jim at the start as they worked on Sam and Friends. She had to quit to become the housewife and raise the children. Sadly, Jane wasn’t the type to be a Betty Homemaker and that caused problems throughout. Brian recalls in the 1980s visiting his parents after he had grown up and hearing them fight in the next room most of the time concluding they were probably going to break up.
If you’re expecting some big tea to be spilled, it’s kinda disappointing. There’s a small reference to drug use among Henson and the Muppeteers, which is a “Well, duh?” revelation. Some of the Muppeteers smoked cannabis and they worked on Saturday Night Live during the first season, so there obviously was drug use. But even that is slowly referenced with a line from Michael O’Donoghue who famously quipped, “I won’t write for felt.” However, John Belushi would call them the “Mucking Fuppets.” It’s probably because the documentary was made through Disney-Plus and streaming online that it tows the line of between being family-friendly and eye-opening.
I really wish Howard as director had shaken it up a little because the documentary follows the same style and format that seems to focus too much on the earlier life of Henson but not the latter part. I Am Big Bird, which was about the life of Carroll Spinney who did Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. You got more of a sense of who Henson was. I was kinda disappointed Oz didn’t reveal more. He and Henson seemed to go together perfectly like a well-tuned duo that can finish each other sentences.
Sadly, most of the Muppeteers have also passed away. Spinney died in 2019. Jerry Nelson (Count von Count, Gobo Fraggle) passed away in 2012. Richard Hunt (Scooter, Sweetums) died from AIDS-related complications in 1992. And I also feel that Disney forbid Howard from interviewing Steve Whitmire, who took over performing Kermit, because of all the problems and drama that has been said over the last decade or so. And I’m sure Kevin Clash was a persona non grata because of the sexual abuse allegations. It is nice to see Dave Goelz (Gonzo the Great) get a lot of screen time.
The complications with Whitmire and Clash may also explain why the video of the Muppeteers performing “One Person” at Henson’s memorial isn’t included. The video, which is available online is noteworthy for the having Hunt, Clash, Whitmire, Oz and Goelz as well as others singing through their famous characters.
Howard’s goal isn’t to besmirch the memory of Henson, because why would anyone want to do that. Yet, there’s a feeling of sadness a lot of stuff was left untouched. The best moments of the documentary are the archival behind the scene stuff as Henson forms The Jim Henson Creature Shop. Howard is obviously fascinated with Henson and admires him as filmmaker and imaginative mind. I feel a lot of stuff was limited on what Howard could show. Sadly, the rights of some of the Muppet shows and movies are owned by other entities. Disney has the rights to The Muppet Movie, The Great Muppet Caper, The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island but others are owned by different media companies. And the likelihood that we’ll ever see Muppet Babies from the 1980s streamed is because the show incorporated images and scenes from pop culture movies and shows that are tied up in rights by media conglomerates. Henson was so well liked in the 1980s by producers and production companies, they allowed the usage.
I’m not saying it’s a bad documentary. Howard has a lot of respect and admiration for Henson. There’s just only so much you can put into a documentary and even still, some things just don’t fit even though it probably would’ve been something people would’ve liked to see. Howard’s been making movies for decades. He knows what needs to be in and what needs to be cut.
I’d also recommend as a companion documentary the one-hour TV special The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson which aired shortly after he had passed.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 