Jim Henson, the innovator who gave the world Kermit the Frog and The Muppet Show, is getting a permanent tribute in New York City nearly 30 years after his death.
If rarely seen on camera, Henson lived and breathed television, hooking adult Americans on puppets, turning puppetry into prime-time entertainment and for 25 years gave life to Kermit, the world’s most famous puppet.
Not only did he create The Muppet Show and several of Kermit’s contemporaries, he gave birth to Elmo, Big Bird, Bert and Ernie of Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock and movies Dark Crystal (1982) and Labyrinth (1986).
Photo: AFP
The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens today is to open a permanent exhibition exploring Henson’s work, challenging visitors to look beyond his most famous creations at the astonishing breadth of his career.
The exhibition brings together more than 300 objects, among them a Kermit the Frog and more than 180 items bequeathed to the museum by the Henson family.
In the US, puppets were for children when Henson came to see it as a serious art form, inspired partly by a trip to Europe in 1958, the Jim Henson Exhibition curator Barbara Miller said.
“The work and the projects that he developed — they were always fighting against this notion that puppets are just for kids,” she said. “The Muppet Show was obviously the most successful way that he broke that barrier. It was programmed as prime time on Sunday nights. It was family hour so it was everybody.”
Merging comedy, fantasy, poetry, music and song, it was a surprising blend that ran from 1976 to 1981, defined a generation and inspired eight feature films from 1979 to 2014.
However, Henson walked away when the show was still in its prime, although he continued to give voice and movement to Kermit until his sudden death from pneumonia in 1990 at 53.
“He was worried he was going to start repeating himself. The last thing my dad would want is that Kermit just keeps doing the same thing,” his son Brian said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. “My dad’s number one thing was don’t repeat yourself. Innovate. Do something new.”
Henson demonstrated that innovation time and again with short, Oscar-nominated 1965 surrealist film Time Piece, then with Dark Crystal, Fraggle Rock and Labyrinth starring Davie Bowie.
Each time, he created a new universe made possible by advances in technology.
The purpose of the exhibition is not only to showcase his work, but to illustrate “how things happened and what the creative processes were,” Miller said.
“I wanted people coming in with an idea of who Jim Henson is and leaving with a more complex idea of who he is and maybe more questions than they had when they came in,” she said.
A traveling version of the exhibition is on view at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle and is to travel the US and the world over the next five years.
“We know The Muppets, we know the characters on Sesame Street, maybe a couple of other things — but one of the goals is to really deepen our understanding of Jim Henson as an artist, as a creative thinker, as an experimental filmmaker and really see a bigger picture of him as a creator.” Miller said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese