I was in the first wave of Sesame Street fans; the show premiered less than a year before my birth, so they were still trying to figure out what they were doing when I first began to watch it in the early seventies. I loved it. I loved it so much that I had Bert and Ernie puppets that I got for Christmas, so I could do my own skits with them. That was my first exposure to the Muppets.
By the time I got too old for Sesame Street, the Muppets were on the air. I loved that show to death, even though a lot of it was pitched way over my head, because the show was a love letter to forms of entertainment which had died before I was born. But the show did an incredibly good job of creating something which adults like my parents and kids like me could both enjoy. By the time it ended, I was old enough to understand that TV doesn’t just magically happen; there are people who make it.
Lots of people dramatically reject the stuff of their childhood around the age of 10-12, trying to become all grown up when they aren’t. I never did, though some things quietly dropped out of my life in my quest for new horizons. But I continued to watch the Muppet movies, I watched Fraggle Rock and I tried pretty much anything Henson made; I actually enjoyed The Dark Crystal, unlike most of humanity.
I attended the same university as Jim Henson, though that was purely by chance; I was there when he died and I have rarely been so incoherently angry in my entire life; he died pointlessly because he refused to get help until it was too late and that was a tragedy.
He made me laugh and made me cry and made me think and I can offer no higher tribute to an artist than that. He was a creative genius and he made millions of people happier than they would have been without him. So I mourn him on this day. God, I’m crying as I type this and it’s been decades.
The muppeteers are dying, one by one. Many of my childhood icons are. (Somehow, you expect them to be immortal, but no one is. Death comes to us all in the end.) I just wish he could have had another twenty years. But part of growing up is learning there’s some things you can’t control.
Anyway, I miss him and the work that he did and the joy he brought. Good lives too often end too early and his was one of them.
God bless you, Jim Henson.
A place for anything Muppets and Jim Henson.
Submission of all kinds welcome! Ask anything!
Established on Frank Oz's birthday, May 25th 2011. Created by Lara.
Muppets.com | JimHensonCompany.com | ToughPigs.com | MuppetMindset.com
Submission of all kinds welcome! Ask anything!
Established on Frank Oz's birthday, May 25th 2011. Created by Lara.
Muppets.com | JimHensonCompany.com | ToughPigs.com | MuppetMindset.com
Posts tagged fans.
Scientific Podcast Goes Boink, Episode 34: Kermit the Frog Believes in You
On the anniversary of Jim Henson’s death, we have a special podcast. Things get earnest.Jim Henson died 23 years ago today. Bill and I devoted an episode of the podcast to talking about why the Muppets mean so much to us. It’s because they’re funny, but it’s also because life is hard and sometimes you feel really, really along, but there’s always a felt frog who is there for you. Always. It’s because in this world people are very often quite mean to each other, but there’s another world where things are different, and if we want is bad enough we can make our world a little more like their world.
It isn’t long, an hour or so. Give it a listen won’t you?
P.S. apologies in advance for the dozens of Muppet sketches I am going to tumblast today
The Muppets and Me: Thoughts on the Anniversary of Jim Henson’s Death
I’ve forgotten to upload our Labyrinth cosplays. =__=
We have already finished these costumes in February, because there was a wonderful cosplay ball in Erfurt/Germany which we attended.
“Labyrinth”, a movie from Jim Henson and George Lucas is one of my favourite childhood movies ever! I loved it so much and I still do it. Because David Bowie is awesome in leggings. And he and Jennifer Connelly as Jareth and Sarah are so wonderful together. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you should do it quickly.We still need to work out some details. Suzu’s wig is to pale and light and my dress is not big enough.
Jack as Sarah Williams
Suzu as Jareth, the Goblin King
Photo taken by Cage.
Yes, I visited the set of The Muppets… Again! yesterday. No, I can’t say anything. Yes, Dave Goelz and Peter Linz are incredible. Yes, the movie is going to be awesome.
You should all be increasingly jealous of Muppet Mindset’s Ryan Dosier (and Tough Pigs’ Matt Wilkie) for gettin gto visit the set of The Muppets… Again! in California yesterday.
I know I am!
I’ve not changed that much since I was 5. #throwbackthursday #tbt #WaltDisneyWorld (at Muppey Vision 3D)
JON YOUR FACE. Ooh, guess where Jonathan is now? WORKING AT DISNEY WORLD!
@cwgabriel - Watching the Muppets and drawing Monday’s comic on my #surfacepro http://sdrv.ms/ZhiUkO
1 photo/day 799: so today I met the French Elmo. @karokass and I had met up to exchange contraband before my trip tomorrow, and of all places she chose the spot where they were having the Caesars (French Oscars) to meet. We were talking about the differences in celebrity culture between France and the US when a guy with a puppet walked in.
Turns out it was Christophe Albertini, and he agreed with my assessment and joined in to say he loved American positivity. Obviously I had to prove my point about Americans caring more about celebrities than the French by getting my photo taken with him. I think it made his night (but then again he was already a happy guy to begin with).
#storyportrait #paris #elmo #sesamestreet #muppets
I’ve always had a bit of an obsession.. #ThroughBackThursday #TBT #Muppets
No foolin’, kid! :D
OMG you’re young enough for a Muppet Treasure Island bedspread! I didn’t even know they MADE those!
The reason I’m so excited to celebrate this Fraggle Friday, is not only because are Fraggles effing cool and Jim Henson created them, but because 30 years ago (on Jan 10th to be exact, and yes I know it’s the 11th LET ME EXPLAIN) Fraggle Rock aired for the first time on HBO, and it has been a running hit ever since. Fraggles soon went from puppets to cartoons, to books etc.
Now my excitement to celebrate them on a Friday is because, The Jim Henson Company dedicates Fridays to Fraggles, hence the #FraggleFriday tag. I’d be overwhelmingly excited if it were a Monday (day + date it aired) but since it didn’t land on a Monday, oh well.Anyways, if anything from my childhood has survived in such vivid memories its between Barney and Fraggle Rock. I remember the first real moment I had watched those frisky Fraggles and fell in complete love with the show. i was 4 or 5 (I judge this based on either or because we lived in San Diego around that time) and my Mom was off doing something in her bathroom and Im sitting on her bed near the edge holding my stuffed purring Nala toy, and then I heard the opening theme “Dance your cares away, Worries for another day, let the music play, down in Fraggle Rock!..” It was the episode that the Fraggles decided not to eat the dozers structures, but ended up in the end eating them because if they didn’t the dozers wouldn’t have any space to build, thus having no purpose anymore. Im not sure why this is the episode my brain chose to remember first of them, I know from talking with my parents that i had been watching the show since i was in diapers, yet watching them didn’t stick in my memory til much later.
I love The Muppets, absolutely adore them, they’re charismatic and dramatic. Jim chose to create such an amazingly vivid world of creatures with human like actions and train’s of thought. I learned so many useful facts and a great deal of morales I keep engrained in my brain, and these little quips come out every so often to remind me of what it means to be ever compassionate and to always keep wondering, but first and foremost have fun while doing both! Part of those quips that keep me sane, came from the brain of my hero, Jim Henson. Without Jim’s creations in my early life, I don’t know what kind of person I’d be today. My sense of humor came from watching the witty puppet comedy The Muppet Show, the endless ways I solve a problem came from Fraggle Rock, my understanding of the ABC’s came from Sesame Street, I learned how to use my imagination with The Labyrinth, and I learned how to persevere through the dark times with The Dark Crystal. So many more “I learned -this-” from Jim’s creations, I know they’re not the only things that have shaped me, but I give most of the credit to the Henson Creature Shop, I mean even my beloved Ninja Turtles came from Jim’s creature shop (the live action suits, not the actual comic and banter.)
Jim Henson sparked my thirst for fairytales and myths with The Storyteller series, my favorite still being the tale of the boy “Fear Not “and how he learned what it felt like to fear.
Emmet Otter taught me that to sacrifice is the biggest gift to receive, for in the end my charity will not go in vain but will flourish with Love and admiration.This is so jumbled and off track!!!!!!!
It’s just a big circle and Ill continue to praise Jim Henson up til my last breath, so Ill just say how amazing I think The Muppets and The Fraggles are.
Kay, Im done.
That is SO COOL! Too bad you can’t really remember it though. Still, and I mean this in all sincerity, despite Paul’s face:
Pepe the King Prawn tries to flirt with my dog Sweetpea, but she’s having none of it.
Dat is one cute doggie, okay?
My Muppets collection just got a bit more epic!!!! (Taken with instagram)
SO JEALOUS!
Technicolor Muppet madness at this Austin wedding
more pictures and information here: (x)
My. Heroes.
