Jim Henson Documentary (1 Viewer)

[Optimus Prime]

On Disney Plus

 

[Optimus Prime]

Streams tomorrow
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There are moments when the spark of creation suddenly ignites and history stops. Like when the Wright brothers got a plane to fly. Or when Oreo added double filling. Maybe just as resonant was when Jim Henson cut up his mother’s green coat into odd shapes and added ping-pong balls for eyes.

At that moment, he birthed Kermit the Frog, who would go on to enchant generations. Kermit’s humble beginnings are part of the engrossing and enlightening documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man” and it’s apt to start with the sweetly outgoing Kermit, who is in many ways Henson’s alter ego.

The Ron Howard-directed Disney+ movie is a kinetic mix of show clips, interviews, bloopers, behind-the-scenes workplace videos, home movies and artist sketches — as animated as Henson’s Muppets, who educated millions on “Sesame Street” and entertained even more on “The Muppet Show.”

Viewers are walked chronologically through Henson’s early life in rural Mississippi, his teaming up with his wife, Jane, on early late-night TV appearances, his often oddball sensibility, his self-doubt, embrace of educational TV, his marriage crumbling, the red-hot height of fame and then the fall with “Labyrinth.” It’s a definitive as you can get. We even learn why he chose to grow a beard: acne scars.

It’s also a portrait of a driven, brilliant creative man who wanted to be taken seriously as an artist and had lifelong ambivalent feelings about becoming America’s favorite preschool entertainer. Writer Mark Monroe makes it seem as if he often felt straightjacketed, like an arm stuck in a puppet’s felt body.……

Movie Review: Muppets creator Jim Henson gets a documentary as exciting as he was

The origins of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy are part of the engrossing and enlightening documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man.”

apnews.com

 

[El Caliente]

I will never forget where I was when I heard that Jim Henson died. I was 7 years old. It was a rainy morning and my mom was driving us to school (Audobon Montessori). We were at the corner of Broadway and Freret when the reporter on Headline News announced Jim Henson had passed.

The news startled me, but it wasn’t clear (at least to me it wasn’t) what caused his death. When I asked my brothers to explain what killed him my brothers told me that he died from diarrhea, so I panicked and started crying because I had a bad case of diarrhea that week. I thought that I could be next, so I cried all the way to school, and when my home room teacher asked me why I was crying I told her that it was because I had diarrhea, and that is what killed Jim Henson. She started crying but not because I had diarrhea, but because Jim Henson had passed, and he had a profound impact on her upbringing in Mississippi.

Some things stay with you 30+ years later.

My son mentioned this show to me and he wants to watch it. Who am I to deny him the opportunity to watch this show, and learn that no dream is too big?

 

[El Caliente]

If you haven’t watched this one yet, do yourself a favor and do it.

It’s about as real as it’s going to get in telling his story. For those of us unfamiliar with his story, it was eye opening to see how his family was treated as he was building that muppet empire. It’s not horrible how he treated them, it’s probably the way most families are run when one member is building such a successful business, things are just put to the side to achieve the greater goal.