“When we get an idea, we have to look at it from every direction.” – Jim Henson

Every few decades, a talented visionary comes along and helps to shape the world. Walt Disney was a leading pioneer in animated feature films during the early to mid-20th Century. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates changed how personal computing is done by launching Apple and Microsoft, respectively. JK Rowling sparked a revival of the fantasy literature genre with the Harry Potter book series. Mark Zuckerbergaltered the way people communicate by creating the social network Facebook. Yet there is one person who triumphed in television, film, live performance, music, and children’s education.

That would be Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and Fraggle Rock, co-founder of Sesame Street, and the original voice of Kermit the Frog. From his early beginnings in television to running a Muppet empire, he worked across a variety of mediums and gained a great deal of success over the course of thirty-five years. While the concept of puppeteers catering to child and adult audiences was skeptical at first, the Muppets proved to be extremely popular across various demographics and gained a large following. It was Henson’s hope to continue creating and performing after selling the Muppets to the Walt Disney Company, but the deal collapsed when he died in 1990 at the age of 53. Although Disney later acquired the Muppets in 2004, Henson seemed to fade into the cultural consciousness for a while. His story is now told in a recent documentary for Disney Plus- Jim Henson: Idea Man. Directed by Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind), the film sheds a light on the gentle giant and creative visionary who was always thinking and dreaming about what projects he’d like to do next.

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Born in Mississippi amidst the Great Depression, Henson grew up in the Deep South and was among the first generation of Americans to watch television. Seeking to work in that medium, the gangly teenager took a job on a local children’s puppet show titled Sam and Friends. Although the program was low budget with limited production values, it is memorable for the first appearance of Kermit, who was not a frog at this point. As the documentary reveals, Henson created the puppet by cutting up a turquoise green felt coat that his mother threw away and forming two eyes out of ping pong balls. However, the early Kermit was more of an ambiguous type of lizard at the time of his conception. Despite working full time on the show, Henson was attending university as an art major. Taking a puppetry course led him to
meet his classmate and future wife Jane Nebel, who was three years his senior. Jane would also play a major role in the production of Sam and Friends, which featured a lot of off-beat, non-sequitur humour that predated the Muppets’ chaotic anarchy by a few decades. Backstage footage and still photos reveal Jane was also a puppeteer and a close collaborator of Henson in the early days.

After graduating from college, Henson went to Europe on a summer trip and immersed himself in the medium of puppetry. While it was regarded in America as “kid’s stuff”, he came to learn that puppetry is respected and appreciated as an art form. Upon returning from Europe, Henson attempted to branch out into entertainment, but his efforts were unsuccessful. He branched out into advertising and created commercials for various companies. It was during this time he took a young puppeteer named Frank Oz under his wing, and the two would go on to collaborate on various projects for nearly thirty years. Among his early efforts was a series of advertisements for Purina Dog Chow starring the Muppet known as Rowlf the Dog. Next came the Wilkins and Wontkins coffee commercials, which featured a lot of comedic violence and destruction that would be echoed in Henson’s later work. In commercials that were deemed too scary for television, a multi-fanged monster is shown devouring a machine, and this character would be de-fanged and reworked as Cookie Monster. Another early idea was the concept of a frazzled foreign chef making disastrous recipes while spouting nonsensical gibberish, and Henson would later adapt the character into the famous Swedish Chef.

Throughout the 1960s, Henson raised a family with Jane and worked on a number of experimental films without the Muppets, and one of these works, a comedic short titled Time Piece, got nominated for an Oscar. However, he struggled to branch out into television, and he felt stymied by the general disdain adult audiences had for puppet characters. Things changed when the Public Broadcast System decided to create an educational show for children, and Henson was brought in to create what became Sesame Street. In addition to producing, he and Oz created and performed the characters of Ernie and Bert, and Kermit (by now a frog) would make occasional appearances on the series. With the show’s success, Henson tried his hand at creating one-off television specials with the Muppets, and there were attempts at mounting a musical production for Broadway. The stage show never happened, but Henson managed to sell his concept for a Muppet prime-time series to the ABC Network. Consequently, The Muppet Show became a huge success in the mid-1970s, launching Henson and his characters into the pop culture stratosphere. Naturally, Henson’s next step was to the silver screen, and the Muppets starred in three popular feature films from 1978 to 1984.

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During this time, Henson attempted to branch out into other productions that didn’t feature the Muppet characters. The Dark Crystal movie was a hit at the box office, but a number of critics and fans were confused by the absence of the Muppets. Although technically and visually-impressive, Labyrinth was a critical and commercial disappointment. Fraggle Rock was Henson’s next television series, and it had a successful five-year run on the fledging HBO network. However, his next two projects, The Storyteller and The Jim Henson Hour, didn’t last very long on television. It was at this point when Henson decided to sell the Muppets to Disney, so as to do more creative work and performing and not be consumed by the financial matters of business. Sadly, he died of untreated bacterial pneumonia amidst a protracted negotiations period.

The documentary features a number of Henson’s inner circle, especially those who loved and worked with him. His children Cheryl, Lisa, Brian, and Heather all share memories of their father. Director and performer Frank Oz offers insights into how Jim’s mind operated. Even Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly (Labyrinth) shows up to describe what it was like to be directed by Henson. Having collaborated with Jim since the age of 19, Oz remains in awe of the way his colleague came up with ideas. One proposed concept that never materialized was a psychedelic-themed nightclub in which images would be projected onto the walls. While it didn’t happen, this shows how Henson was always creating and looking to push the boundaries of what was technically possible.

Brian Henson is almost the spitting image of his father, and his warm memories of Jim are fascinating and poignant to hear. Cheryl, Lisa and Heather recall how working alongside their father was one of the best ways to bond with him. It should be noted, though, that he was very much in the moment and never preferred fantasy to reality. Unlike ventriloquist Edgar Bergen (who acted as though the dummy Charlie McCarthy was alive both on and off-stage), Henson merely considered the Muppets as being a means to an end, and he was never pretentious or sentimental about his characters. What frustrated him, though, was adults’ disdainful stereotype of the Muppets being merely “children’s entertainment”, and he sometimes felt pigeonholed or typecast as a puppeteer.

Sadly, Jane Henson and youngest son John passed away a decade ago, so they are not able to offer fresh insights. However, archived interviews of Jane provide a glimpse into how her husband felt about his work. The Henson children speak warmly about their mother and her role in keeping them grounded and down-to-earth. As they recount their memories, it becomes clear that Jane was probably the closest person to Jim, and her knowledge about what made him tick is invaluable. There are behind-the scenes clips of Henson at work and at play, cracking jokes and sharing his thoughts on creating characters. “This is not a typical 9 to 5 job,” he wryly says to a journalist. “This is an all-the-time job.”

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Perhaps the most fascinating parts of the documentary are in the footage of Henson’s non-Muppet works. One such example of these are the Wilkins and Wontkins commercials, which are quite amusing to behold in all their comedic hilarity. The characters hit each other, whack each other on the head, and engage in causing explosions. Sure, these aren’t the Muppets, but it gives the viewer an idea that Henson carried these ideas in his head for years before finally getting to use them in television and film. Perhaps the most hilarious part of the film is the evolution of Miss Piggy, who originated as a small part of the Muppet ensemble but gradually gained prominence over time. During his discussion of “The Muppet Show”, Oz recounts a rehearsal scene in which he improvised a karate chop instead of merely slapping Kermit, and that would solidify Piggy’s role as one of the show’s leads. Oz even conceived a backstory of hardship and tragedy- a cold, unfeeling mother and the death of her father in a tractor accident- to explain the character’s tough yet vulnerable personality and why she loves Kermit. The playful “will-they-or-won’t-they” banter between Kermit and Piggy would only make them even more popular. It is essentially the quintessential story of an extra who became a star in Hollywood- albeit one made of latex and felt, but a star nonetheless.

Howard’s direction of the documentary is quite solid. Instead of glossing over the man’s personal life, he does not shy away from revealing how Henson separated from Jane during the mid-1980s, and he tactfully doesn’t delve into rumours, innuendo or lurid sensationalism. There is no finger of blame pointed at either one; it is made clear these two individuals simply grew apart. As an introvert by nature, Jim tended to retreat into himself, while Jane was a more outspoken individual. Over time, Jim felt more focused on devoting all his time and energy to his work, and Jane chose to embrace painting as her new calling. Despite the separation, the pair never stopped loving each other and remained close friends until the end of Jim’s life.

Although the film doesn’t state what shaped or defined Jim’s philosophy on life, there is one somber anecdote that suggests his need to create and work stemmed from a personal tragedy. Years prior to the creation of the Muppets, his older brother Paul died in a vehicle accident at the age of 23. This traumatic event left a lasting impression on Jim, who felt he wouldn’t have enough time to achieve the things he hoped to fulfill in life. His experimental short film titled Time Piece seems even more poignant, considering the only dialogue uttered is “Help” as a man races against the sound of a ticking clock.

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Overall, Jim Henson: Idea Man is a beautifully-made film and a nuanced tribute to a creative, gifted man. Howard keeps the focus on the work and the person behind said art. The documentary shows its subject to have been a gifted and caring, albeit complex, individual who didn’t take himself too seriously. It is a moving, heart-felt portrayal of a visionary who always tried reaching for the other side of the rainbow.