Category Archives: Jim Henson

“Henson & Oz” and the Museum of the Moving Image

Posted on July 21, 2011 | 1 comment

The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York — a stone throw from the Kaufman Astoria studios where Sesame Street is taped — is presently hosting the exhibit Jim Henson’s Fantastic World, a marvelous show covering the entire span of Jim Henson’s creative career.  As the program for the show says:

Fifteen iconic puppets, including Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, Rowlf, and Bert and Ernie, are on view, along with photographs of Henson and his collaborators at work and excerpts from his early projects and experimental films. The exhibition spans Henson’s entire career, with drawings, cartoons, and posters produced during his college years in the late 1950s and objects related to the inspired imaginary world of his popular 1982 fantasy film, The Dark Crystal. The exhibition features artifacts from Henson’s best-known projects, The Muppet Show, The Muppet Movie and its sequels,Fraggle Rock, and Sesame Street, in addition to materials from Sam and Friends, an early show he created in the 1950s, and his pioneering television commercial work in the 1960s.

I had the opportunity to see the exhibit when it was at the Smithsonian in 2008, and it’s a lot of fun.  And while there are plenty of familiar faces on display, you’ll also have the chance to take a peek at some hidden treasures, including some projects that never materialized.

Jim Henson’s Fantastic World runs through January 2012.  You can find more information right here.

Meanwhile, the Museum of the Moving Image has put up on its website a terrific short film Henson & Oz, a affectionate look at the on- and off-screen relationship of Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and the characters they performed.  And it’s very funny stuff indeed. Have a look.

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Posted in Jim Henson, Muppets, museums

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Box Tops

Posted on May 9, 2011 | Comments Off on Box Tops

As expected, four o’clock in the morning arrived WAY too early this morning. Still, that was what time I had to get up to catch the 5:58 a.m. train from Baltimore to New York, where I’m spending another week doing research in the Jim Henson archives at the the company’s headquarters out on Long Island.

As usual, crack archivist Karen Falk (and her assistant, Madalyn) are taking good care of me, bringing me armloads of materials stored neatly in dark green boxes. Today, I spent the entire day sorting through newspaper clippings, press releases, and interviews. And how cool is it when the boxes that get plunked down on your desk have this sticker on top of them?

I’ll be here the rest of the week, continuing to do research—even though it’s so much fun it hardly seems fair to call it “research.”

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Posted in Jim Henson, Muppets, works in progress

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Pull the String!

Posted on March 21, 2011 | 4 comments

I’m back from Atlanta, where I spent two days talking with lots of Interesting and Wonderful People — including Vince Anthony and his crack staff at the Center for Puppetry Arts, where I had an opportunity to tour the museum (including its collection of Henson-related materials), learn a bit more about the history of the art form, and scour their video archives.  I also had a chance to watch a performance of “The Dragon King” — performed by the Tanglewood Marionettes of Ware, Massachusetts — right along with 200 enthusiastic elementary school students who squealed with delight in all the right places. Here’s a look:

For more information on the Center for Puppetry Arts, click here.

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Posted in Center for Puppetry Arts, Jim Henson, works in progress

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Life’s Like A Movie…

Posted on March 1, 2011 | 2 comments

Last Friday, I spent the morning at the Jim Henson Company and studios in Hollywood, where I took some time to poke around, then had yet another fascinating conversation with An Amazing Person.  Following that, I returned to my hotel, e-mailed the digital files of my conversations off to be transcribed, then collapsed with probably the worst case of jet lag I have ever had in my life.  And that’s only a three hour time change.  Whatta wimp.

The Jim Henson Company works out of a really neat, and important, piece of Hollywood history.  Back in 1999, the Henson family purchased the old Charlie Chaplin studios, which Chaplin built in 1917 and opened in 1918. Here’s the plaque mounted to the wall just outside the front entrance:

This is the studio where Chaplin filmed classics like The Gold Rush, Modern Times and The Great Dictator, which makes it officially the stuff of Hollywood legend.  What makes the studio really interesting, though, is that Chaplin, like Jim Henson, couldn’t do anything in an ordinary way.  His studio, then, pulled off a bit of theatrical sleight of hand: from the street, it looked like a very proper English Tudor village, straight out of the 18th century — or, at least, a stage set built to look like one.  Once you were through the gates, however, everything was purely state of the art — a tradition that continues to this day.

The Hensons extensively renovated and refurbished the old studios (after leaving Chaplin’s hands, it belonged to CBS then A&M records) and in 2000, made it the new headquarters for The Jim Henson Company.  As Brian Henson said back in 2000:

“When we heard that the Chaplin lot was for sale, we had to have it. It’s the perfect home for the Muppets and our particular brand of classy, but eccentric entertainment. When people walk onto our lot, they fall in love with Hollywood again.”

Mission accomplished, I’d say; it’s a wonderful place.  Here’s the view of the exterior of the building, as you approach it from the south on La Brea Avenue:

As you can see, as a tribute to Chaplin, there’s a statue of Kermit in Chaplin’s trademark derby and baggy pants just beside the entrance.  Here’s a somewhat better picture, taken from just outside the front gate:

Just for a bit of historical perspective, here’s a view of the studio during Chaplin’s day . . .

…and now:


There’s one more tribute to Chaplin as you stroll past.  Just below Kermit is an arch-topped wooden door — you can see it in the photo above — which has now been affectionately painted to allow Chaplin to make a cameo appearance at his old studio:

Neat, huh?  Finally, just for fun, here’s a brief clip from The Chaplin Revue — narrated by Chaplin himself — with a bit of information about the studio, including a time-lapse film of it being built.

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Posted in Charlie Chaplin, Jim Henson, works in progress

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The Hills, The Stars, The Stacks of Wax

Posted on February 24, 2011 | Comments Off on The Hills, The Stars, The Stacks of Wax

I’m sitting in front of the window in my fourteenth floor hotel room in Hollywood, overlooking Hollywood Hills, and it’s sunny and very springish outside, which makes me wish that the sudden touch of winter we had in Maryland earlier this week would finally just pack up and leave. While I can’t see the famous HOLLYWOOD sign from my window (thanks to the rest of the hotel looming up to my right) there’s no mistaking where I am.

The Hollywood Bowl is just over that hill, and the famous Magic Castle — official home of the Academy of Magic Arts — is the yellow building visible at center left, with the gray roof and turret. Oh, I also apparently forgot there’s some sort of formal awards ceremony going on this coming Sunday, which explains why the lobby of my hotel is bustling with people wearing name badges proclaiming them as part of an OSCAR SET-UP CREW. Who knew.

I arrived here yesterday with plenty of time to spare before my interview last evening, so I decided to walk over to Roscoe’s on Gower Street, which meant my footsteps took me right along the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame — which, as I think I’ve mentioned before, is both exciting and sort of depressing.  It’s fun to pick out the famous names as you stroll the sidewalk, but it’s a bit shocking to see stars for former heavy hitters like Gary Cooper or Katherine Hepburn gracing the pavement in front of a tattoo parlor — and it’s even more heartbreaking to hear someone say “I don’t even know who these people are!” as they step past the star for James Cagney.  (Okay, maybe you don’t know George Cukor, but James Cagney? )

Oh, and I did manage to find this one — which, I’m happy to say, was not in front of a tattoo parlor or cigarette shop:

Meanwhile, the Sinatra fan in me couldn’t resist snapping a quick shot of this famous building:

Ring-a-ding-ding, baby.

After stuffing myself on chicken and waffles, as promised, I made the much-needed long walk back to my hotel and spent the next few hours preparing for my interview.  While it seems that an interview should be easy — especially when you’re the one asking the questions — I like to go in prepared, so I spend time reading over my questions several times, making notes where I may need to clarify something, or making sure I have any materials handy that I might want to have my subject read or look at during our conversation. I also try to make sure the questions are in something that at least looks like a logical order so I don’t disorient them — or me — by jumping from topic to topic, though that’s always bound to happen once you get talking.

Finally, around 6:00 or so, I got into the rental car and drove down Sunset Boulevard, looking very much out of place in my Ford Focus as I headed for Beverly Hills. And I had a fantastic evening, with great conversation and even better company.

Today, it’s back to Jim Henson Studios over on La Brea.  Stay tuned.

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Posted in Capitol Records, Jim Henson, walk of fame, works in progress

Over and Under and Through

Posted on February 22, 2011 | Comments Off on Over and Under and Through

I’m off bright and early tomorrow morning to head to Los Angeles to conduct several interviews — and, if I have time, catch lunch or dinner at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles.  Next week , it’s interviews in New York and Pittsburgh, and an Irving event in Philadelphia. I’m counting on not knowing what day it is for the next two weeks. But I plan to report back here this week, so keep watching.

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Posted in Jim Henson, works in progress

Back At It

Posted on January 6, 2011 | 2 comments

Happy 2011! And good lord, is the first week of the year really almost over?

The winter break was a quick sprint through the Southwest for Barb and me — I’m a New Mexican, and she’s an Arizonan, so we spent a few days with family and friends in each state before setting up camp (read: staying in a hotel) out in the Gold Canyon region of Arizona for several days.  Barb took advantage of the spa services while I spent my time in front of a fire, sipping Land Shark, burning the eight-dollars-a-piece Duraflame logs provided by our hotel, and reading Robert Caro. All in all, not a bad way to pass the time.

It was unseasonably cold while we were out there — as it seems to have been across most of the continental US that week — and a snowstorm blew through northern Arizona late last Wednesday, blanketing Flagstaff under two feet of snow and closing roads in all directions.  The only problem was, our New Year’s Eve plans included driving to Flagstaff and ringing in 2011 from there. Fortunately, the roads cleared and we made it to Flagstaff with no problems, though we greeted the new year with temperatures hovering at 15 below. On New Year’s morning, I discovered that a case of sodas I had stupidly left in the back seat of the rental car had frozen and exploded — then instantly froze again, making the clean up easy: I simply picked up the frozen ice sculpture of cans, box, and foam and threw it away.

I left behind the laptop I had intended to carry along with me — we decided to forget work and stay off the grid during our vacation, though Barb couldn’t resist bringing along her iPad and checking e-mail every once in a while.  Since our return, however, we’ve been back at it.  In fact, this week, I’ll have a draft of several chapters completed that I can ship off and have some folks take a look at. Yeah, I’m pretty excited, too.

On a completely random aside, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve got two Washington Irving-related events in the coming months, both in Philadelphia.  One is a speaking engagement at the Rittenhouse Club, while the other is at a celebration of Rebecca Gratz at the Rosenbach Museum and Library. At the Rosenbach, I’ll be speaking in tandem with Susan Sklaroff, a Gratz scholar and docent at the Museum.  Susan writes a great blog about Gratz (which you can see here) and she and I will be discussing Irving and Gratz’s rather amusing relationship, as well as whether Sir Walter Scott based his heroine Rebecca in Ivanhoe on Irving’s description of the dynamic Rebecca Gratz. I’ll post more information as it becomes available.

Finally, I just registered for the Biographers International Organization’s 2011 Compleat Biographer conference, right here in Washington, DC.  And you should too.

Happy New Year!

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Posted in BIO, damn it's cold!, Jim Henson, Philadelphia, Washington Irving, works in progress

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Nonblogging

Posted on November 23, 2010 | 3 comments

…and hello again. Sorry to be away so long — in the past week, I’ve been up to New York and back to carry out the first of what I hope are several interviews with Someone Wonderful (or someone “Super Cool,” to quote the adjective I apparently kept using over and over as I spoke with my wife on the phone afterwards) and I’m working now to get my notes organized.

Who was I talking with? While I’m not sworn to secrecy, I’ll just be coy and provide this hint — and add that it was one of the most memorable mornings of my life:

If I don’t see you until then, Happy Thanksgiving.

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Posted in Jim Henson, works in progress

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Yellow Leaves and Red Books

Posted on October 29, 2010 | 1 comment

Wow, has it really been more than two weeks since I last posted here?  Sorry to leave you hanging.  Apart from book work, we’ve been enjoying the fall, cleaning up the yard and flower beds, and preparing for Halloween.  Given our schedule this year (including Madi’s incredibly busy volleyball schedule, where’s she’s starting on the varsity squad as a freshman  — yeah, we’re pretty proud of her, too), we won’t make it to Sleepy Hollow for the first time in several years, so we’re decking out our place appropriately, including these two fellows near our back door:

Rest in pieces.

On a different note . . . if you’re a Jim Henson fan and you’re not reading the daily excerpts from Jim Henson’s Red Book . . . well, for shame, Doc, for shame.  What is the Red Book, you ask?  At the end of each year, Jim Henson would go through his personal calendar and write down in his red notebook everything that had happened during the previous year — or, at least, what he thought was interesting.  It’s a fascinating (and, oftentimes, funny) document — not quite a diary, but more than just a simple listing of events. Think of it this way: if Jim were alive today, these are the kinds of things he might put up on a Twitter feed.

Anyway, over at the Jim Henson Company, crack archivist Karen Falk is putting up daily entries — corresponding to actual dates, meaning if today is October 29, then she’ll put up an entry from October 29 — and, where appropriate or helpful, providing a bit of background.

Go get it — and if you’re on Facebook or Twitter, subscribe to it for daily updates. It’s fun.  Trust me.

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Posted in Halloween, Jim Henson, works in progress

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Sensational, Inspirational

Posted on October 8, 2010 | 1 comment

…and hello again.  I’m back from a week-long visit to New York *, where I spent several days buried in the archives at the Jim Henson Company — and if you’re at all a fan of Jim Henson or the Muppets, then you can imagine just how much fun that is.  (But really,  take the amount of fun that you think it is, then multiply it by ten, and you’ve got a much better idea of the Actual Fun Level.)

The archives themselves are physically located in the company’s new digs out on Long Island — needing more space, they moved from Manhattan a while ago.  As I was staying in Brooklyn, I had to travel to Long Island City by subway every day — and I’ve gotta tell you, even though I’ve taken the subway in several cities around the world, for some reason, I was terrified of taking the New York subway.  I was worried I would have no idea how to purchase tickets or use the system — and meanwhile, in my befuddlement, I would be clogging up the system, blocking the way for New Yorkers trying to commute into the city who would now be late and surely fired because I was costing then two minutes.  Yeah, I’m a mess that way.

Fortunately, Agent J was kind enough to lend a hand and show me that it was actually really easy — and it was — and I’m pleased to say I took the subway regularly with no problems at all except for (1) missing my stop one day when I wasn’t paying attention, and (2) burning several dollars when I mistakenly entered on the wrong side of the platform and had to exit and re-enter (and thus pay again) on the other side of the street.

Each day, then, I would take the R train, as it made its hour-long trip from Brooklyn and boomeranged off Manhattan to curve into Queens.  Here’s my stop each day — 36th Street, near Northern Boulevard:

 

The Subway stop near the Jim Henson Company. Yes, it really was that quiet.

 

After exiting the subway, it’s just a brief walk up the street toward the Jim Henson Company — which is located in this unassuming white building right here:

Now, don’t be fooled by this building’s rather industrial facade.  It’s like Clark Kent: behind the plain blue suit and nerdy glasses lies something wonderful.  Go through these doors, take the freight elevator up several floors, and when the door comes rumbling open, you’ll see a simple white sign (among a sea of similar square signs) that lets you know you’re in the right place:

The Jim Henson Company takes up a long stretch of space at the end of the fourth floor, wide enough so that both sides of the workshop are lined with windows.  There’s a long wooden meeting table just inside the front door — with a Skeksis throne in one corner — and just behind the ornate reception desk (with a Kermit phone sitting on top of it) is a wonderful, life-size photo of Jim, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, and Caroll Spinney performing on Sesame Street. Beyond that, the workshop stretches out as far as you can see, weaving its way around large white pillars that march up the center of the space.

And what a space it is.  Several Elmos sit on a table for adjustment.  Miss Piggy waits patiently on another bench as a number of incredibly talented people sew her new costumes. Snuffleupagus hangs from a rack for repair and restoration. A young woman glues feathers to a Muppet arm.  Classic rock vibrates from a boombox on a middle workbench as two craftspeople cut and glue and sew in front of a wall of plastic drawers with labels on them like “Monster Fur” and “Eyes.” The magic you see on the screen of any Jim Henson production is due to the hard work of these master craftsmen, and I’m humbled, and a bit intimidated, at being in their presence.  So I try to stay out of their way.

Meanwhile, I’m in good hands as Archivist Karen Falk (and her awesome assistant Crystal) brings me box after box of materials, which I spread out on a desk in the workspace they’ve generously provided for me — a quiet side office, lined with windows overlooking Long Island.  Here’s a bit of my mess as I worked one morning, poring over scripts, receipts and correspondence:

By Friday, like a kid in an amusement park, I was wishing I had just one more minute to keep reading before I had to catch my train back to Maryland.  It may be too ambitious to try to emulate Neal Gabler — who allegedly read every page contained in the Walt Disney archives for his spectacular Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination — but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try.  I’ll be back soon.

* Actually, I was there the week of September 27, but haven’t the chance to blog about it until today…

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Posted in Jim Henson, Muppets, super powers, works in progress