Jim Henson's Funeral

[Infinity Sirius]

I have seen clips and read detailed accounts of Henson's funeral, but is there any way to get a hold of the funeral on tape?

 

[scarecroe]

I believe you mean the public memorial service held in NYC at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine which we see footage from in the Brian Henson intro to the Harry Belafonte episode of The Muppet Show. The funeral was a private family event.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

There was reportedly a video made of the event but it is not available to the public. Understandbly this was very emotional and personal event for the family and Henson employees.

To answer your next question (this subject has come up before)...no, they're probably not going to make an exception.

All I have ever seen released is a few photos and there was (I think) a clip in one of the specials about Jim Henon's life. It was a wide shot a very, very short if I am remembering correctly. I think it may have been in the A&E Sesame Biography.

 

[Infinity Sirius]

Family

I can understand the Henson family and Hensom employees wanting to keep the funeral private. But as for the A&E Biography, do they have a tape of that somewhere in the archives?

 

[scarecroe]

Again, to clarify: you're confusing the funeral with the memorial service. A&E, People Profiles and the in-house team who produced the Brian Henson TMS intros would have only received clips even of just the memorial. I doubt any of them got a full tape.

Speaking of the Peopel Profiles special, it's a nice piece covering Jim's days with thoughts and reflections from friends and family. There are also a number of articles related to the subject that you can dig up from circa 1990, starting with the Life and People Magazine articles I've transcribed and archived on my site linked in my signature.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Just to clarify, my earlier post referred to the memorial, not the funeral which is what I assumed you were referring to as well.

Check out the stuff on Scott's site. It's really good.

 

[Phillip]

The entire memorial service was recorded by JHC. Reportedly, it was about 2 1/2 hours in length.

 

[leliebel]

I have seen clips and read detailed accounts of Henson's funeral, but is there any way to get a hold of the funeral on tape?

I think this is a very strange and disrespectful question. Unless you do mean the memorial, in that case forget I ever said anything.

 

[Infinity Sirius]

I did mean the memorial service and only that. I wrote funeral instead of memorial service, because I misinterpreted what words to use. Memorial service and funeral mean the same thing in my dictionary. I did not mean to be disrespectful and now I do understand there is a difference between the two.

Thanks Buck-Beave and Scarecroe!

 

[scarylarrywolf]

My grandpa gave us a bunch of old tapes that he had recorded Green Acres episodes on, and on one of them there was a news flash about Jim's memorial service. It showed a couple clips and I think I remember seeing Big Bird walking down the aisle. I'll have to watch that clip again, but I know it was different from any of the ones I had seen on biography films.