- Smoke, honey?

- No.

- What are you trying to prove?

- You know what I want?

- If you're not here in time to sing this song, I'm not paying him.

- You said to take word, you said to take.

- The vote was close, 74 to 70, and Hallock the winner.

- Bye-bye, honey.

I'll see you for dinner.

(audience laughs) - [Announcer] "Sam & Friends."

- And then I got interested in jazz.

- Oh, I don't like jazz.

- Jazz has a very different look to it.

It moves, see.

Like this.

(upbeat lively jazzy music) - [Dana] What makes Jim Henson a great artist is that I like to use the word polymath, and I think of Leonardo da Vinci, or artists who come from different fields.

They are immensely curious about the world around them.

- [Christopher] Prior to Jim, when you saw a puppet show, there was always this stage set for you.

For Jim, he didn't want that stage.

He wanted the television to be that full point of view, that full perspective.

- Through the course of his life, he explored ideas as big as time, but also as simple as a rubber ducky.

♪ Oh rubber ducky you're the one ♪ ♪ You make bath time lots of fun ♪ ♪ Rubber ducky I'm awfully fond of you ♪ ♪ Voh-do-do-de-oh, rubber ducky ♪ - Jim was experimenting his entire life.

He started puppeteering in high school, and really wanted to hone his craft, try new things, try and push puppeting in directions it hadn't been before.

But that early work shows threads that carried through all of his work.

He was one of the first kids on his block to have a television.

He begged his family to get a television, and after a lot of begging and a lot of exasperation on the end of his parents, they caved and got him a television.

So from a very young age, he was exposed to moving pictures and knew very early that he wanted to be a part of that, but not necessarily settle for what was being done.

He wanted to do new things, exciting things, to push television in directions that he hadn't seen it yet.

- How does he push those boundaries?

Where do we see it?

- We see it starting in his early work.

So in college, he had a PBS special twice a day on the local television station for five minutes.

Only five minutes.

But he used those five minutes as much as humanly possible, including creating puppets for all of the commercial breaks so that that full five minutes was his work, and he being able to practice the craft in ways that others weren't.

- The platter they're playing on this TV show seems to have gotten stuck.

(upbeat swinging music) It's got a swinging beat, but it's repetitious, man.

(upbeat swinging music) Maybe if I just hit the television like this.

♪ Oh black magic has me in a spell ♪ ♪ Oh black magic that you weave so well ♪ ♪ Those icy fingers up and down my spine ♪ ♪ The same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine ♪ - [Patrick] He's born in 1936 in Mississippi.

What are his influences at an early age?

- He had seen some of the early television shows.

"Kukla Fran and Ollie," some of people may remember that.

That was one of the pioneering puppet shows.

Burr Tillstrom, also, Ed Bergen was another early entertainer, and so I think of Henson as a polymath artist.

I'm a art historian by trade, and one of the things that's always interesting to me for in looking at an artist's work is how did they get started, A?

B, what was so original?

What were the pivotal elements of the early years and the early successes that propelled any artist, but especially him, I think he's like a Renaissance man like Leonardo Da Vinci.

Working in different media, working in different fields, and Jim Henson sort of fulfills that.

So that's why some of the elements of this exhibition why they dive really deep into the early years, is so important.

My favorite elements or objects in the show is this little handkerchief, with a pompom nose, and magic marker, eyes and a smile.

And he does so much.

You can watch the film next to the object.

We have the film where he was doing these puppet shows and sketches with the most simple elements.

(audience laughs) (soft gentle music) - He's pushing these characters in ways that removes them from the confines of being a puppet, and turns them into characters within their own world.

- As you've learned more about Jim Henson, who is he?

Do you get a sense of his personality, his character?

- He's a wickedly funny, creative genius I guess is the best way that I would describe him.

He was committed to his craft in ways that I don't think people really understand or can relate to.

He wanted, more than anything, to share his stories with the world, and I can think of very few people who have been able to achieve what he has.

- In the art world, where do you place him?

Who do you compare him to?

- That's an excellent question.

I don't know if I have an answer to that.

I've never been asked that.

That's very interesting.

One thing that we grappled with when we were deciding to bring this exhibition with us is, is there a place in the art world, as we traditionally think of the art world, for something like this for Jim Henson?

You know, here at Graham, we are committed to art, creativity, and design, and we look broadly at what those concepts mean to our community.

There's no specific artist that I can think of that compares to Jim.

I also think he's a true artist in and of himself, and to a degree, it might be doing him a disservice to try and compare him to someone else.

He truly is a unique person, both in what he was able to achieve, and the passion that he had for his work, and for the legacy that he has left.

- The television was, for him, a canvas.

It was a stage, it was also a storytelling realm, and it was a delivery process.

And so he didn't only work in one mode of television, he created commercials.

So that was one element that brought in money, but also gave him a creative outlet.

So he had the most amazing commercials and also corporate training films, and so they hired him to do that.

So those were steps that led to eventually in the late '60s, his experimental films which are really quite awesome, and mind expanding in a number of ways.

And so that was what's wonderful about Jim Henson's career is he goes through multiple points, but he gets exposure, and also a platform to try out new things.

(bell ringing) - Last week, I'm telling you, you were very big.

How'd it feel to be a big TV star?

- Oh, oh, I'm not a big, I'm not a big TV star.

- For many years, Ralph the dog was the main character.

He did the "Jimmy Dean Show" for about three years, and that was like 20 years ago.

17 to 20 years ago, I think.

But for a while, he was the big star, and nobody wanted to hear about this frog.

- Kermit originally was not a frog.

He was simply Kermit.

It was only 10 years after his creation that Jim committed to him being a frog.

Prior to that, he was Kermit.

Occasionally referred to as a lizard, but for the most part it was simply Kermit.

The original Kermit was actually made from Jim's mother's coat.

She had a wonderful green coat.

He fell in love with that material, and decided that it needed to become a puppet.

- He started studying the history of puppetry, and also thinking in transformative way of rather than the way that puppets were used on stages or marionettes, he started using sticks within the arms, and also using the television frame as the focus so that he could be below the TV coming in from the sides.

And so there's wonderful documentation, and it really is in some ways acrobatic.

There's a wonderful film when he was on the "Johnny Carson Show" with these mop puppets, and you first see just the mop puppets bouncing up and down, and then they pull out and you see there's six adults jumping around and gyrating in order to make this very expressive sort of modern dance.

♪ R-A-G-G-N-O-P-E Ragg Nope - [Patrick] He meets his wife during this period as well.

- Jane, another name that a lot of people don't immediately recognize when they think of Henson, but someone else who, again, is just as important to the Henson legacy as Jim was.

Jim was known as the creative genius, Jane got things done.

So she was the one that was finding puppeteers for the Henson company, training them, and onboarding them, and they really worked wonderfully together over their careers.

- There's "Sesame Street," and PBS approaches Jim Henson to be a part of this.

Does he jump in cautiously, or is this an opportunity for him?

- It's both.

Again, Jim was really focused on this adult audience.

He never wanted to pigeonhole his work.

So there is a certain hesitancy with committing to something that is so directly geared towards children.

But again, this is an opportunity for him to hone his craft, for him to try new things, for him to approach puppeteering in a new and exciting way.

So of course, that's an opportunity that Jim is going to be interested in.

But if you look at, you know, really early "Sesame Street," and still to this day, but very noticeably in its early days, you know, there are concepts being explored, there are conversations that are happening, there are jokes that are meant for an adult audience.

- Even before he took the "Sesame Street" job, he really I think he did his due diligence and asked really hard questions.

Why is "Sesame Street" gonna be different from a Saturday morning cartoon show?

And he said, "I've done many of these things before," and then he got it and it was really revolutionary.

And so each time he upped the ante, or he said, "You know what?

I'm gonna go in a different path," with his earlier was experimental films.

And there's these amazing animations, which I love, because you can see the documentation of he's basically he moved around pieces of paper and did stop animation pictures, and then when it all comes together, it's a blizzard of color.

(upbeat percussive-laden music) - In the early days, you know, before the Jim Henson company took off, they couldn't afford to make puppets for every single character they wanted.

So they created something called the Anything Muppet, and the anything Muppet is a core Muppet form, a body, and then all of the characteristics of that Muppet can be applied, or removed, and changed as needed.

So the eyes can be swapped out, different hair can be applied, the mouth can change, noses, ears, all of that, and it allows them to very quickly create a broad diverse cast of characters without having to create new puppets for every single character.

(audience applauds) ♪ It's time to play the music ♪ It's time to light the light - [Patrick] One of the things after he got rolling with after "Sesame Street," he wanted to do a show that was dedicated to the Muppets.

- "The Muppet Show," in particular, was a wild success in the UK at a time when no one wanted to touch it here.

- And he went to the Television corporation and in the US and said, "This is what I wanna do."

And they said, "No, you are too associated with children's television to ever do a primetime TV show."

So he kinda took a step back and then he went abroad, and so that was originally funded and produced in Great Britain to great acclaim, and then it came back.

- What is it about "The Muppet Show?"

It's magical, and there is something about it too where I believe a guest host could only appear once.

- Yep, they never wanted to get old, to get stale, to repeat themselves.

So there were a lot of rules on what could be done and couldn't be done, and repetition was something that was to be avoided.

Everything had to be fresh each and every time.

So yeah, some of those hosts we would probably love to see them again and again, but in order to make sure that things never got old, it was always one opportunity, and then someone else had to have that opportunity.

- Did the guest play a role in the scripting of some of the bits?

- Yes, so the guests got to determine some of the sketches they were in, and most specifically, what Muppets they would appear with.

So if they had a favorite, then they could perform with that favorite.

If they had one that they weren't exactly a fan of, then that Muppet may appear in the show, but not appear in a sketch directly with them.

- There's a close friend and maybe even a confidant.

Frank Oz has quite a presence here as well.

- Yes, so Frank was incredibly important to Jim's work as well.

He was puppeteering right alongside Jim, and actually, within our galleries we have both Jim and Frank's Muppets.

So these are Muppet versions of themselves, and they are, as they were in life, side by side here.

We also see him pushing the techniques available at that time.

You know, he was using computer generated graphics before most people were even aware that that was a possibility, and he was layering these with live action puppet performances, with hand-painted backgrounds, and sets in ways that, you know, today you would look at it, and you would think it was created yesterday where the average computer generated graphic doesn't necessarily hold up to time the way that the work he was doing does.

- So his mind is advanced.

You go back to the early stages, there is a hanker chief puppet that is in the exhibition over here.

- Yeah, literally just a handkerchief.

- [Patrick] And you go from that to animatronics.

- Mm-hmm, yeah, he was using some of the first radio controlled puppets as well.

So the puppeteers would have an armature and a radio controlled controller that would fit on their hand, and then as they moved, the puppets would move.

And he used this for, you know, incredibly small detailed puppets.

Most notably, or probably most recognizably, are the Doozers from "Fraggle Rock."

- You see the guts.

Okay, and you can see how this is a helmet that the performer is wearing, and the eyes are radio controlled with a little rig here.

Bing, bing, bing like that.

This does the mouth.

And so we'd have a second puppeteer, Richard Hunt, in the case of Junior Gorg, and Richard would be doing the voice and the face and he'd be off on the side of the set, you see.

And there'd be another performer, often Rob Mills, and he was inside.

- He's an innovator, and you see this growth in the early '60s especially in some experimental filmmaking, and there's even a nightclub that he designs.

- Yeah, Jim was always trying new things.

From the very beginning of his career to the very end, he never stopped experimenting.

You can see his early stop motion film work.

That is incredibly interesting because it is a divergence from his commitment to storytelling.

There, the visuals are everything.

The image is meant to stand on its own.

There isn't an underlying story that is present.

You mentioned his nightclub.

We have the prototype that was created for that nightclub.

It was meant to be this enveloping domed structure with a performer standing at the center of this nightclub with projections 3D mapped to undulating surfaces surrounding everyone within this space.

It's weird, it's enjoyable, it is also an incredibly frustrating object, and I understand why it was never built into a full functioning nightclub.

- Was there a particular emotion or emotions that he really liked to explore, or share, or get you to contemplate in his work?

- That's a tough question.

It's very subtle because I think that he uses humor and surprise in ways where you have these aha moments.

- There are notes that Jim Henson left for these characters.

- Yeah, he is incredibly cutting at times in how he is.

He's treating these characters that he developed.

They're friends of his, and as you know, you and I may have that friend that we say some things about them behind their back that we may not ever want to say to their face.

You know, Jim is making those comments about his puppets, his friends, and describing them in incredibly unique and engaging ways.

♪ I got you - The most important thing to know about this Jim Henson show is it's about love.

It is, it's about respect, it's about, and especially these days, we need to bring people together, and in the late '60s, that was also another time of contention.

And so they were moving ideas forward about connectivity that are so important today.

And now we've got generations of people who have learned from his work, whether it was on the "Ed Sullivan Show," or Jack Paar early on, or the local television show that he did with puppets and other characters, all the way up to the last work of the "Labyrinth," and the high tech things that he was doing.

- For most people, there is a time in their life when Jim Henson enters.

For you, when was that?

- I remember it exactly.

My family had gone to an estate sale and bought a box of old VHHs.

We had no idea what was in it, and one of those was Jim Henson's, "The Dark Crystal."

Again, no idea what it was.

It just sounded fun.

For many people, they don't know "The Dark Crystal" specifically.

It's a little more obscure.

When it first came out, it was not well received.

Today, it has a cult following, but it's dark, and it's weird, and it's kind of creepy, and that's what my exposure to Jim Henson was.

It wasn't, you know, the Muppets, it wasn't Sesame Street.

It was this darker storytelling focused work.

- Later on in his life, he started asking himself deeper question about what is the meaning of life?

What is death?

What is fear?

And so in the immersive worlds, it gets much more complex, gets a little darker, but really fascinating I think.

- The experimentation is never ending, and as he's getting older, he kinda goes off into some darker areas.

What happens and why does he explore darkness?

- I think as one gets older and one has children, has a career, but also sees what's going on in the world, I would say he was secure enough in his life to dive deeper into things that were larger questions.

Going back in time, looking at the Greek myths, looking at psychology, looking also at sort on fringe areas, the world of fantasy, and bringing in different collaborators to make it much richer.

I mean, we've got these costumes for "Labyrinth" that are much more complex stories, and so he's, I would say he's in the league of the great filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick of that era that are really using the larger, even larger platform.

Not television, but for the screen and huge film sets in order to create even more powerful and more detailed and richer narratives and stories that really ask the big questions that philosophers have been thinking about across time.

- You consider him an American master?

- Oh, absolutely.

What's wonderful is, that he has such a breadth of material and works that he finished in the most simple and elemental elements such as a handkerchief or the pompom, as well as animatronics and two hour films featuring David Bowie, and also these tremendous landscapes and sets that it was a tragic loss when he died at 54.

It's hard to imagine what he might have done, but still, he's left a legacy that has become a springboard for generations to learn about life, to learn about the world outside, but also about the full range of creativity.

I think he's an inspiration.

♪ Someday we'll find it ♪ The rainbow connection ♪ The lovers, the dreamers, and me ♪ ♪ Ba-ra-ra-ri-ra-ra-ro ♪ Ba-ra-ra-ra-ra-ri-ra-ro - I didn't think I'd live to see it, but for once they've given us something other than second rate entertainment.

- What's that?

- Third rate entertainment.

(audience laughs) (upbeat fast paced jazzy music) (drums banging rapidly) (upbeat fast paced jazzy music) - That's marvelous.

Do a bigger one.

- Now this is where you can get in trouble, but I'll try.

(puppet speaks gibberish) (upbeat staccato music) - It's only getting bigger.

- I know.

- Oh no!

- Yeah.

- Help!

Help!

Help!