Jim Henson: There and Deeper

As I kid, I was always drawn to puppet centered children’s television. Floppy was a local show that involved Duane and a dog that lived on his lap in a box. The highlight of the Floppy show was when kids got to tell Floppy jokes. The two most common jokes were “Why did the chicken cross the road?” and “Why did the man put the car in the oven?”

But then the Muppets came along and somewhere between The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and Fraggle Rock, Jim Henson became sort of a father figure to me. Only instead of teaching me about money and shoe tying and hair washing, he was teaching me about story telling, movement, character, and the audience. He really was a master craftsman storyteller. The only difference was that Henson told his stories through puppets. And to me that makes a strange sort of sense. Imagine being able to control every part of a character.

Seems a small trade for the limitations of the medium. Limitations Henson pushed hard against culminating most famously with Kermit riding a bicycle. With Henson there was always more. More stories, more characters, more worlds to be build and populated but every project he did revolved around a story. So that it never became about the trick.

Rather, the tricks were in place to reveal the heart of the story.

This is how Henson projects still garner interest, even though the captain of that ship has been gone for quite some time. He built a company on a reputation of quality and depth.

So many story tellers, directors, performers, get to “Here we are!” and never stop and question why. “Here we are!” is just the vehicle for us and the audience to explore why we are here. “Here we are!” is a 90 second show with poor return box office. The only direction to go from there is bigger. “Why are we here?” takes longer to explore. It’s meatier. The only direction it can go is deeper. It touches us. It de-sterilizes us from the isolated island that we all live on. Contact is powerful. Intimidating. Exhilarating.

It’s funny the things that turn out to be so influential. At the time, I only knew Henson had a realness about it that other television didn’t have. 25 year later I finally know why.

P.S. Because he wanted a hot rod. (Get it?)

Tags: Floppy, fraggles, Jim Henson, Kermit, Muppets, storytelling