Your Thoughts: "Jim Henson: The Biography" by Brian Jay Jones

[D'Snowth]

In finishing, "The World in His Head", it was somewhat difficult to really invest in the chapter, mainly because I still haven't had the chance to actually watch THE DARK CRYSTAL, and it's been so long since I've seen FRAGGLE ROCK (since I was a toddler in fact) that I just don't remember much of what I saw.

I could sense, however, the frustrations behind the production of DC. I can certainly understand Jim had a specific vision (as the chapter kept repeating, he saw this whole movie in his head) and wanted to make it happen as well as do it his own way, though from what I've read, I suppose that he really should have tried to figure out the actual story he was wanting to tell, rather than just let the visual aspect of the production carry the movie. I remember back when I was starting up my VAMPIRE GIRL webcomic miniseries: I had the characters, and I basically had the premise, but I didn't quite have the elements to help tell the actual story, so I consulted with a friend of mine who really has an interest in that kind of whimsical yet dark fantasy (she's actually founded her own animation company and is working on a series for Canadian television) for input on how the story could be told to make sense within the context of what the premise was. And I suppose having two directors on the movie may have been a mistake, especially since most of the time, people working on the movie kept coming to Jim for input, and basically brushing Frank off... not to mention, even Frank didn't really know just what was going on. I still really want to see DC to see how it turned out in the end, even though Jim was forced to change quite a bit. I totally agree with a point that Kathy Mullen made, and it's something I've been complaining about for quite sometime now (and surprisingly, both SST and the Classic Muppets have become big offenders of this in recent years) in that what made DC so unique is that everything (the characters, the effects, and all) were done traditionally and by hand, as opposed to today, where just about everything would have just been done with CGI. Again, if you ask me, the believability and realism in things we see on the screen stem from actually being there, in that world, and things happen in that time as the camera rolls... CGI seems to only enhance the artificiality of what you're seeing... I mean, really? Scooter had to be chromakeyed leaving Google headquarters? They couldn't have gotten a permit to film Scooter leaving Google's actual headquarters, or they couldn't just recycled set pieces and dress it to look like it would be Google's headquarters? Now I'm reminded of the SUPER MARIO BROS. movie with Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo... yeah, it bombed and people hated it, however, I loved how imaginative it was and visually, they accomplished an awesome universe, and they managed to accomplish it all in an abandoned cement factory... if they did that movie today, you can bet the grass the surroundings would be CGI.

Well, I ended up saying more than I thought I would, so I guess I'll stop now. I will that this chapter will crush more than a few people who want to believe that the idea that Jim was a bit of a womanizer was just a rumor.

 

[D'Snowth]

Still working on "Twists and Turns".

All I can say, so far, is that I wasn't aware that Jim disliked the term "Muppeteer", but that kind of explain why, even though we basically refer to them as "Muppeteers", they are always credited on-screen as "Muppet Performers".

 

[minor muppetz]

It's odd in the Muppet Show chapter when it says that Jerry Nelson once asked why he didn't do more. He performed more characters than any other performer on The Muppet Show, had the biggest number of recurring characters, and performed almost every major one-shot character.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Muppeteer sounds too much like Mouseketeer, I can kinda understand a grown man not wanting to be called that, hehe.

 

[D'Snowth]

I didn't think I was ever going to finish "Twists and Turns", but I finally did... boy, that was a doozy of a chapter.

I haven't seen LABYRINTH in years, but I've noticed one criticism the movie kept getting is something that kind of got me as well when I watched it; granted, the movie itself is something to behold, I really liked it (my older sister loves it, but then again, I know she's often wished I would be kidnapped and taken away by goblins), but I too noticed that Sarah really had no personality to her whatsoever... I mean no personality. She's exactly the same character from the beginning of the movie to the end of the movie, she doesn't evolve, grow, or develop, she's just so bland and uninteresting.

Other than that, didn't really learn much that I didn't already know from this chapter, though it was interesting to read about not only the increasing friction and sibling rivalry between the Muppet Workshop in New York and the Creature Shop in London, but it seemed just about everybody working for Jim were basically all in bouts of siblingly rivalry, as if Jim was the father of all of them, and each of them were desperate for his attention.

 

[D'Snowth]

All I'll say now is "Storyteller" was certainly a breather or a chapter, heh.

 

[D'Snowth]

After finishing "A Kind of Craziness", like THE DARK CRYSTAL, I never really got a chance to see THE JIM HENSON HOUR (though I have seen a GORILLA TELEVISION segment on YouTube, and that looked really interest - that Ubu is one wicked-looking puppet), but in reading this chapter, as well as, "The World in His Head", I really got the sense that perhaps, maybe, storytelling just really wasn't quite Jim's forte, and I can totally see why that would cause problems for a project, if it doesn't have a steady plot for people to follow.

Other than that, the rumor that Jim and Daryl Hannah were dating has been put to rest.

Now I'm not really looking forward to the rest of the book, but I can't stop now, I'm finally like almost 3/4 done with it.

 

[D'Snowth]

Finished reading, "So Much on a Handshake", and I got to thinking... I know Jim changed the name of his company from Muppets, Inc. to Henson Associates, to Jim Henson Productions... but why was it that up till the JHP renaming, the Muppets on SST were always copyrighted under Muppets, Inc. instead of Henson Associates?

 

[D'Snowth]

Finished the book this afternoon (I see that it's not so much 600 pages, because the last hundred of pages or so are basically just notes and acknowledgements).

The last chapter was really difficult to read, especially when it went into the details of Jim's symptoms, as well as the details of what went on during his final hours in the hospital. Very hard to read, very saddening.

It was such an incredible book, I'm really surprised at how quickly I got through it (well, quicker than I thought: a month and a half, considering it seems like practically everyone else got through it in days).

 

[minor muppetz]

Finished reading, "So Much on a Handshake", and I got to thinking... I know Jim changed the name of his company from Muppets, Inc. to Henson Associates, to Jim Henson Productions... but why was it that up till the JHP renaming, the Muppets on SST were always copyrighted under Muppets, Inc. instead of Henson Associates?

I've seen images from some of the Atari Sesame Street games which have copyrights for both Muppets, Inc. and Henson Associates.

And also, it seems like the book says that the company changed it's name to Jim Henson Productions after Jim Henson decided to sell to Disney, which was after The Jim Henson Hour was canceled, but the Jim Henson Productions logo appears at the end of Sesame Street: 20 and Still Counting and The Jim Henson Hour (I think the Jim Henson Productions logo also appeared at the end of the Play-Along Videos).

After finishing "A Kind of Craziness", like THE DARK CRYSTAL, I never really got a chance to see THE JIM HENSON HOUR (though I have seen a GORILLA TELEVISION segment on YouTube, and that looked really interest - that Ubu is one wicked-looking puppet), but in reading this chapter, as well as, "The World in His Head", I really got the sense that perhaps, maybe, storytelling just really wasn't quite Jim's forte, and I can totally see why that would cause problems for a project, if it doesn't have a steady plot for people to follow.

It seems like Jim Henson didn't actually write a lot of stuff in the 1980s. He might have came up with the ideas, but he wasn't credited as a writer very often. I think The Dark Crystal is the only movie he got a writing credit for (the book does say that he contributed to the writing on Labyrinth, but the book also says it had too many writers). So it could have been the fault of the other writers, not neccessarily Jim's.

And a lot of the stuff the company did during Henson's lifetime were either really short stuff (Sam and Friends episodes, commercials, variety show sketches) or productions that didn't really focus on a plot (or at least where plot wasn't the most important thing). Things like Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and the various Muppet specials were full of songs and sketches. During Jim's lifetime A Muppet Family Christmas and The Muppets at Walt Disney World were really the only Muppet specials to have a plot (and even then those specials focused more on music numbers, running gags, subplots, and scenes with very little to do with the story). The various Muppet movies focused on plots, as did the various non-Muppet Show, non-Sesame Street specials (and some of the Sesame Street specials had more plot focus), Fraggle Rock, and Muppet Babies. And Jim's involvement with Sesame Street specials, Fraggle Rock, and Muppet Babies was limited.

When it mentions that Jim had pitched a Sesame Street documentary that Sesame Workshop rejected, I wonder if that's what all the early 1980s behind-the-scenes/interview footage was shot for. Though when I read the book say the documentary was rejected, I get the feeling that it was rejected before shooting. And if it was Jim's idea, I would think it would have been done by Jim Henson Productions instead of CTW (much like the 20th anniversary special was), and Sesame Workshop was able to put that footage on two Sesame Street DVDs.