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

[Oscarfan]

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),

Most of the episodes are on YT right now.

 

[minor muppetz]

It says that the reason Kermit only had a small part in Sex and Violence is because Jim Henson was considering not performing on the show, or not performing often, but then he performed Nigel in that special, in addition to many other characters. I don't quite understand why he would perform the lead in a pilot for a show where he was considering not performing.

 

[D'Snowth]

I agree, that did seem like a contradition that didn't quite make sense. Not to mention, even then, there was the Swedish Chef and such, so it's not like Jim wouldn't have not been performing regularly on the show in some capacity, or another.

After having finished the book, I was so choked up during the last chapter that it didn't occur to me till now that I'm a little surprised there wasn't much detail about Steve taking on Kermit after Jim's death... come to think of it, I don't recall reading anything about THE MUPPETS CELEBRATE JIM HENSON either. But oh well.

 

[minor muppetz]

It's also interesting how when talking about Saturday Night Live, Frank oz speculated the problem with the sketches was Vash's first performer, throwing the timing off from the other performers. Rhonda Hansen only performed Vash in the first sketch, and she wasn't really in that much of the sketch (pretty much just one scene), and of course she would be replaced with Fran Brill in Vash's next appearance.

 

[D'Snowth]

One other thing that I find particularly interesting about Jim is how his mindset seem to have shifted over the years about certain aspects of his career.

Like first and foremost, he never intended on pursuing a career in puppetry, and he only got involved with it as a means to an end (which we pretty much already knew), and aside from SAM AND FRIENDS, really had no intentions of even continuing to do more with puppets afterwards, but after his European vacation, and seeing what a viable artform puppetry really is, sparked his interest, and inspired him to not only continue doing things with the Muppets, but trying to reinvent puppetry for future generations of audiences (which he did perfectly).

But even more interesting is we know Jim wanted to avoid the children's entertainer stigma as much as possible, between cringing at Ed Sullivan introducing the Muppets as, "Something for the kiddies," to being apprehensive about becoming a part of SST, to even flat-out telling people that puppets aren't just for kids and reminding people he's done adult stuff as well... though by the time we get to FR, he no longer seemed to be bothered by that, and even wanted to do projects specifically for children.

 

[minor muppetz]

It's interesting that Jim Henson chose not to be a director on Sesame Street because he thought it'd slow him down as a performer, because he had directed a lot of productions he performed in, both before and after. I assume he directed every episode of Sam and Friends (well, maybe not the ones made during his trip to Europe), Time Piece, The Cube, Hey Cinderella, The Frog Prince, The Muppet Musicians of Bremen, The Dark Crystal, The Great Muppet Caper, and others.

Many performers (both puppeteers and actors) have also acted in the works they performed in, and I would think that it'd be easier to perform and direct the same thing when you're a puppeteer, since they can watch their performances on monitors (people can also watch their own performances on monitors if they use a web cam).

Of course I also find it interesting when a director appears as an extra in a movie they direct. I think Alfred Hitchcock was an extra in most of his movies, and Frank Oz appeared as an extra in The Muppets Take Manhattan.

 

[D'Snowth]

Jim surely must have done some directing on SST; if you look at some of these old home videos (The Best of Ernie and Bert, for example), you'll see his name listed under the directed by credits.

 

[minor muppetz]

Jim surely must have done some directing on SST; if you look at some of these old home videos (The Best of Ernie and Bert, for example), you'll see his name listed under the directed by credits.

Yeah I had that on the back of my mind and was going to say that but forgot.

 

[minor muppetz]

When the book talks about The Jim Henson Hour's time slot, it says that the show had no "real competition", mentioning that it was on opposite Beauty and the Beast (which I hadn't heard of, but afterwards learned that it had at least three seasons) and Perfect Strangers and Full House. So Perfect Strangers and Full House weren't real competition? I know those shows were successful for a number of years, both of which had been on the air for a few years before. I've seen people look down on those shows and (in the case of Full House at least) question their success, but they were successful shows.

 

[minor muppetz]

It says that throughout post-production of The Muppets Take Manhattan, Frank Oz kept asking Jim to have the opening credits say "A Frank Oz Film", and Jim just saying "we'll see" before he finally got what he wanted. But most films have "A (directors name) Film" before the title. I wonder why that might not have. I know that The Muppet Movie didn't have "A James Frawlry Film" there (it said "A Jim Henson Production", but I don't think Jim Henson produced MTM), but that's one exception.