Have I ever mentioned what a huge fan I am of the Muppets? Especially of the original incarnation, back when it was mostly Jim Henson and Frank Oz? One of my major regrets is that Mr. Henson passed away not long after telling me he'd find some project where I could work for him. It was one of those "I'd have paid him" moments…but at least I got to meet the man. He was another of those people I felt like I already knew because of the wonderful "connect" that I had with his sense of humor and sensibility.
Like a lot of you, I first discovered the Muppets back when they intermittently guested on TV shows, most notably Ed Sullivan's. I also used to watch The Jimmy Dean Show to see Rowlf…and Rowlf also turned up on a short-run summer variety show called Our Place, which starred Burns and Schreiber and featured The Doodletown Pipers and other performers then represented by Bernie Brillstein. But the Sullivan spots were the best, so I was delighted to see that the company that now controls Ed's old shows has compiled a DVD of Muppet appearances. There were some very clever spots there, about half of which ended with one character eating another. I believe most of them were just Henson and the helping hands of Mr. Oz, who then did not speak much, if at all.
I just ordered this DVD, which you can do by clicking here. Actually, if anyone out there has them, there are two Muppet appearances I'd really like to find on home video. One was an episode of The Dick Cavett Show where he did 90 minutes with them, and I think Henson just emptied out the workshop and brought every puppet he owned over to Cavett's studio. (Actually, there are hundreds of Cavett shows I'd love to find.) The other, more recent Muppet curio I'd like is the special they did to acknowledge Henson's passing. I missed it when it aired but later, someone sent me a tape that also included video of the surviving Muppeteers performing at a public memorial for him, and it was all quite touching. I made the mistake of loaning the tape to someone who promptly made the error of taping a baseball game over it, even though I'd popped the "no record" tabs. I still don't know how they managed that; only that I lost my copy of something I wanted to keep.
I think I'll close this little item by quoting a line that Henson said the one time I met him. He showed a small group of us a "making of" tape for The Dark Crystal, explaining how robotics and remote control devices had enabled the puppeteers to control the characters. At one point, he froze the tape on one monster and said, "There's an important point I want to make here. That puppet cost something like two hundred thousand dollars to build and while he served the story, he was forgotten right after this film came out. I don't remember his name, I don't think anyone in my company remembers his name. I doubt anyone we might run into on the street would know his name…" Then Henson reached into a small purse-like satchel and pulled out, without putting it on, his main Kermit puppet. He said, "On the other hand, this one cost about fifty dollars and it's the most popular, loved thing I will ever do." Now do you see why I wanted to work with this man?