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The Jim Henson Company Auction with Archivist Karen Falk · Muppet Fan Podcasts with ToughPigs.com

0:04
Drake Lucas here with toughpicks.com As you may have
0:07
heard, the Jim Henson Company is holding an auction later this
0:10
month. They're letting go of more than
0:12
400 items, including puppets, props and memorabilia.
0:16
Items range from an Uncle Travelling matte puppet and
0:19
shoes worn by Miss Piggy to a Crunchy Stars cereal box.
0:23
That puppet from the Hoobs? You know the one that's in there
0:26
too. We took the opportunity to sit
0:28
down with Karen Faulk to get answers to fans questions about
0:31
the auction and some of the stories behind the items that
0:34
are up for sale. A full list of auction items can
0:36
be found on the Julian's Auctions website.
0:40
I'm very pleased to welcome Karen Faulk, Archives Director
0:43
for The Jim Henson Company, to talk more about the auction and
0:47
how it came about. Thanks so much for having me.
0:49
Thanks for joining us. So can you give a little
0:51
background on what you do for the Jim Henson Company?
0:54
So as director of the archives, I'm in charge of all of our
0:59
archival activities so that the very most basic level is
1:03
collecting and preserving items for our archives.
1:07
But then on a much, you know, more active scale, I work with
1:10
museums to do exhibits with people who are doing books to
1:16
help support their work or we create books in house ourselves.
1:20
We do a lot of stuff with our corporate communications and
1:23
marketing and PR to make sure people know our story and know
1:27
about our history and make connections between our current
1:31
projects and our historical projects.
1:34
So I I do a variety of things, but all related to the history
1:37
of the company and our effort to help fans connect with our
1:42
history and maybe take inspiration from Jim Henson and
1:48
of course all the people that work here now and create our
1:52
programming now. And how long have you been with
1:55
the Jim Henson Company? 33 years I've been here so and I
1:59
have a great staff. Is there something that drew you
2:02
in particular to work at the Jim Henson Archives, or was it
2:06
something you fell into? Before I came to to Henson, I
2:10
worked for Christie's auction house.
2:12
So this auction is kind of full circle for me.
2:15
But our offices were down the block from the Muppet Workshop,
2:19
and I used to see the puppet makers walking up and down the
2:22
street wearing jackets with Kermit the Frog on the back.
2:26
And I used to think, well, boy, wouldn't it be fun to work for
2:29
Henson. But I'd really didn't see a
2:32
intersection of what I did and what they did until I saw an
2:36
advertisement for the exhibition department and and followed that
2:39
lead and ended up getting hired by Jane Henson, missus Henson to
2:44
to do the archives. And and when we talk about the
2:48
archives, how big are the archives?
2:50
Our media collections is in LA and that you know, we have a
2:54
database with like 95,000 items in it which could be a tape or a
2:59
reel of film or something. Plus we have a big photo archive
3:05
that's both digital and physical out in Los Angeles.
3:08
Here in New York, we mostly collect production materials and
3:13
design work, art, flat art, files, scripts, that kind of
3:19
thing. Correspondence, as well as we
3:21
have Jim Henson's papers and framed art and licensed product
3:27
that's in storage off site. And of course now we have a big
3:31
digital archive as well because so much is now creative
3:35
digitally. So our scripts and things like
3:37
that are digital. For the auction, Why decide to
3:42
do an auction now? You know, over the years we've
3:44
made this effort to sort through our puppets because to be
3:48
honest, they're the hardest to care for and they require the
3:53
most specialized storage and that sort of thing.
3:56
We've talked about doing a museum or having a museum, and
4:00
we decided to partner with existing institutions to share
4:05
Jim's story. And it's actually worked out
4:07
much, much better than I ever imagined than having a a
4:11
freestanding museum. But we have several institutions
4:14
that have permanent Jim Henson collection.
4:17
So the Museum of the Moving Image, which you know well, the
4:20
Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, the Smithsonian in
4:24
Washington, we've given quite a few things to the Museum of Pop
4:28
Culture in Seattle. And then the Academy Museum has
4:31
dark crystal and labyrinth items.
4:33
So we've been able to sort of spread the wealth and make sure
4:35
that people can learn about the Henson story and different
4:39
contexts with different historical focuses.
4:44
We still have lots and lots of stuff here and it's always an
4:47
effort to figure out, you know, how best to store it, share it,
4:52
utilize it. After the end of the production
4:56
for Dark Crystal Age of Resistance, everything went into
4:59
storage. And then that was in the UK and
5:02
then we closed our London storage.
5:04
So we moved everything here and we chose a really robust
5:09
selection of items for our archives.
5:12
And the Netflix archives also chose a big collection because
5:16
it's the show is on Netflix and they have a nice archive
5:20
division. And then we also reached out to
5:24
all the museums that we worked with to offer them items.
5:28
So the Museum of the moving Image has a big collection.
5:31
Center for Puppetry Arts has a big collection.
5:33
Mopop in Seattle has a big collection.
5:35
We gave a couple to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
5:39
But even after all of that archiving and making sure all
5:43
the most special items are saved, we ended up having a lot
5:47
leftover. You know, a lot of it was the
5:49
biggest puppet production ever. So that's really what got us
5:53
thinking about, you know, what is the best way to, you know,
5:57
sort of ensure that these items will go on.
6:00
And it seemed like sharing them with fans was going to be the
6:03
way to do it. So originally it was just the
6:06
Dark Crystal Age of Resistance stuff.
6:07
But then we also started reviewing our storage and
6:11
realized that we really had a lot of material that it didn't
6:14
make sense to keep holding on to.
6:16
Although of course, the auction only has 400 and something lots.
6:20
And you know, we have 10s of thousands of items in our
6:23
collection. How did you go about choosing
6:26
which ones to put up for auction?
6:28
What we wanted to represent sort of the entire history of the
6:32
company. So we wanted to have something
6:35
from most productions or related to at least most character
6:41
groups and that kind of thing. And we knew from as we prepared
6:46
for our new Fraggle Rock back to the Rock series that we still
6:50
had a lot of Fraggle Rock stuff in storage that had not been
6:54
accessed for in literally decades.
6:57
So that was a place to start to look for other puppets that we
7:02
would want to sell, because that's the biggest group of
7:05
puppets I think that we have in the auction.
7:09
We again have given lots and lots of Fraggles to many
7:12
museums. We have them in our archive
7:13
collection. But there were a lot that that
7:16
we were able to choose to include in the auction.
7:19
And then we started just sort of going through our storage
7:21
inventories, you know, not Even so much archives, but from our
7:25
production storage as well, which is sort of where things go
7:29
after a production. And we were able to, you know,
7:32
really find some great things that we could include that would
7:35
be really representative of the different, different character
7:38
groups. When you include puppets, is
7:41
there any special preparation you need to do for them to put
7:43
them up for action? Oh.
7:45
Absolutely every single puppet that we pulled, including the
7:49
new ones from Age of Resistance got, you know, sort of restored
7:53
by our creature shop. You know, the newer puppets
7:55
didn't really need very much work, but we want them to look
7:58
good. But the older ones like the
8:00
Fraggles, they were all, you know, the interior of of 40 year
8:03
old puppets is crumpled foam. And so all of that foam was
8:08
replaced and they were cleaned, you know, if there were missing
8:12
parts or anything that was repaired.
8:15
And then everything was mounted on custom made stands by our
8:19
creature shop. So everybody would everybody,
8:22
everything would look its. Best and were all these used in
8:26
production? Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
8:29
everything. Is there anything that you're
8:31
really excited about that's in the auction?
8:35
Well, there's, there's different things.
8:36
I think all of the stuff from Fraggle Rock is so special and
8:41
each Fraggle has so much personality and it's, I think
8:45
they just a really wonderful representation of that brand in
8:50
effect. I mean, you know, whether it was
8:52
a from the original show, I mean, we don't have anything
8:54
from the new show in the sale, but I think the sort of
8:57
longevity of these characters and how they continue to have an
9:02
impact is because of their, the charm of their design and
9:07
everything. I think you see that in in the
9:09
ones that are in the in the sale.
9:12
And of course the Doozer is so special 'cause he's just
9:16
adorable. It's funny because my husband
9:19
was saying, Oh well, the he's so small relative to the Fraggles.
9:22
I said, well, a Doozer is knee high to a Fraggle.
9:25
So of course you know, that's, that's the size he's going to be
9:28
in real life too. So I think those, all of that
9:31
Fraggle Rock material is really special.
9:33
There's a poster in the exhibit. It's, it's sort of small, but
9:37
it's from the Muppet Valentine show.
9:39
And the artwork was done by Ted Kakonis, who was a Hollywood
9:44
poster designer. He, he did Fiddler on the Roof,
9:47
I mean, a few really, really famous ones.
9:49
And of course he did the artwork for the Labyrinth poster.
9:53
But this was back, you know, in the early 70s that he did this
9:56
poster for Jim. And, and it's, it's always been
9:58
a favorite of mine when I see it in the archives.
10:00
So I was really happy that we were able to include one in the
10:04
sale. Is there anything that you've
10:05
been surprised about that was more popular than you expected?
10:10
Well, you know, we, we worked with the Henson family to find
10:14
some items that were personal to Jim.
10:16
And so they looked in their home in London and you know, what
10:21
they have in their homes here and in the States and, and chose
10:25
some items that they thought would be of interest to fans and
10:29
that they, I guess, were willing to part with.
10:32
And one of them was something that Jim had in his office from
10:37
the original Hollywood sign. It was a part of a fundraiser to
10:42
help preserve the Hollywood sign.
10:44
And I was kind of surprised that that's gone as high as it has
10:48
already. But I think people are are
10:50
interested in Jim Henson and what he was interested in and
10:54
anything personal to him is meaningful to fans.
10:57
Aside from the props, the costumes, puppets from
10:59
production, there's some things that really speak to the history
11:03
of Jim Henson, The Muppets, the importance of it.
11:07
I'm thinking of something like the Muppet Stuff banner.
11:10
Can you talk a little bit about what the Muppet Stuff was?
11:14
Well, Muppet Stuff was a retail store that was on Lexington Ave.
11:18
around 64th St. something like that in Manhattan.
11:22
And it was a store where the licensing department could
11:26
showcase all the different products from all the different
11:29
brands. And at the time, you know, Jim
11:32
was very involved in the whole licensing side of things.
11:35
He loved the idea of seeing his characters out there in the
11:38
world in these different products.
11:40
And there was a big art department that made a huge
11:43
effort to ensure the quality of the products, how the characters
11:47
were depicted, that it was always, always looked great.
11:51
And so there was a lot of pride in, you know, sort of the
11:54
creation of these products and the dispersal of them.
11:57
And so it was great to be able to have a, a retail store where
12:00
you could find Fraggle items and Sesame items and Muppet items
12:05
and all under one roof. It was sort of ahead of its
12:08
time. It was before there was a Disney
12:10
Store or Warner Brothers store or any of those, you know, M&M
12:14
store, whatever. But it, and it was just down the
12:17
street. And so the staff at the store
12:19
was like part of the company. And there was a yearbook.
12:23
It's actually, there's one in the, in the sale of the
12:27
amphibian that was kind of a parody of a of a high school
12:31
yearbook, but it was for the company in 1986 around the time
12:35
they were celebrating the 30th anniversary.
12:37
And the Muppet Stuff store staff is in the yearbook and they were
12:42
part of the company. So there's a lot of love for it.
12:45
I think the banner probably hung outside the store at some point,
12:50
although I don't have documentation of that, but it
12:53
was fun to find things like that in the in our storage that we
12:56
didn't ever show showcase. That's great.
12:59
I wish that store existed now. It's so much easier than than
13:03
Internet searches. Another thing that caught my eye
13:07
was it was an invitation to one of the masquerade balls.
13:11
In the 1980s Jim hosted 3 or 4 masquerade balls.
13:15
I think it started when he was in London.
13:18
He had a sort of a Renaissance themed party and I don't know
13:22
whether it was on the occasion of his new home there or I can't
13:26
remember exactly, but but I think he really enjoyed the sort
13:29
of fancy dress costume party. And so he hosted a couple of
13:34
these masquerade balls, so New York and invited celebrities and
13:38
friends, family, that kind of thing.
13:40
So they were really carefully planned.
13:43
A lot of thought went into them. And of course they each had a
13:46
distinct invitation that went with the whatever the theme of
13:50
the night was. So it's fun to have those kind
13:52
of corporate memorabilia pieces in the auction or the set of
13:56
Christmas cards, I think is really nice.
13:59
I think a lot of collectors have over the years been able to find
14:03
this card or that card on online or something, but it's rare to
14:07
have a full, almost a full collection of the cards.
14:12
For Miss Piggy fans, there's some really fun items that show
14:15
off her, like massive diva power.
14:18
Can you talk us through some of those items?
14:21
Sure. Well, that was the thing.
14:22
We really wanted to make sure that Miss Piggy was represented
14:26
in the auction. Of course, I mean, how can you
14:28
not? And we have those wonderful
14:31
calendars that were art directed by Michael Frith that really
14:36
showcased Piggy in the early 80s when she really sort of came
14:39
into her own as a true star, I would say.
14:45
So it's really fun to have those calendars and then have some of
14:48
the related items like from the Miss Piggy's masterpieces, from
14:52
the Chromatage calendar photo shoot.
14:56
We have some of the props and costumes that were so carefully
14:59
made by our creature shop for those characters for those photo
15:03
shoots. We have that banner.
15:07
I don't know if you said that sort of Art Nouveau banner.
15:10
Beautiful. It is so beautiful and again we
15:14
had it in storage. We never used it for anything,
15:17
you know, historical. We never used it in an exhibit
15:20
or anything because it was created for a Toy Fair party.
15:25
When the hence a company participated in licensing show
15:28
or toy fair every year, they would usually host a big party,
15:31
usually would have a theme. And so that year, the theme was
15:36
sort of a la Belle Parque, you know, Miss Piggy and the Art
15:40
Nouveau style. And they created that banner.
15:44
They used some of Michael Fritz's artwork for part of it.
15:47
And then another artist embellished that.
15:50
And then it's all hand painted and it was just a decoration for
15:55
a party. But it's so captures her beauty
15:59
and her spirit and the sort of overall care that was taken with
16:03
her image over the years. So I think it's a really fun
16:07
thing, but it's big. It's big so.
16:11
Yeah, yeah, it's about 8 feet tall, so.
16:13
Oh wow. OK, so more than life-size of.
16:18
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting in the in the
16:20
dark Crystal items and dark Crystal and Dark Crystal Age of
16:24
Resistance really shows how everything was created.
16:28
It created this whole world, you know, down to the food and the
16:34
the side tables and the, you know, each little piece.
16:38
Are there a few favorite items in there that you would want to
16:40
highlight? The puppets of course, are so
16:43
beautiful, but I, I love there's an essence file.
16:47
It's sort of looks like it's glass with, you know, sort of
16:51
decoration. And I feel like that really
16:53
captures, again, the care and the design and the fabrication
16:59
and everything. And it's of course, an important
17:01
part of the storyline. I love some of the little
17:04
creatures. There are two Thresh Pogs in the
17:08
exhibit. And again, it was this whole
17:10
idea that Jim, Jim and Brian Fratt had a world where the
17:14
plants were alive or there wasn't necessarily a distinction
17:19
between flora and fauna. And the Thresh Pogs sort of grow
17:24
out of the walls and things like that, but they're very much
17:27
animals. I know at least one of them you
17:29
can manipulate and make the face turn and what have you.
17:33
But they were nicely mounted by our creature shop in Los
17:36
Angeles. I think there's a really great
17:39
in general, just looking at the the props, which were made
17:43
mostly by the art department on the production and then the
17:46
creatures that were made by our creature shop.
17:49
You just see the care in in terms of the craftsmanship that
17:54
went into making these things. And then of course, the design
17:58
work, which is all based on Brian Frown's vision for that
18:02
world of Thrah. You have some artwork from Carol
18:05
Spinney in there. Carol Spinney, of course, best
18:08
known as the original Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, but of
18:12
course also an artist. Can you talk a little bit about
18:15
choosing to include those pieces?
18:17
We definitely, you know, wanted to have Sesame Street items and
18:21
represented because that's part of our 70 year history and a
18:24
continuing part of our 70 year history.
18:27
And I had been speaking with Debbie Spinney, who is Carol's
18:31
wife, widow, and we were talking about Carol's artwork.
18:34
He was, you know, of course, a wonderful puppeteer, but he was
18:37
also a wonderful painter and cartoonist and has a big body of
18:43
work. She was saying, you know, of
18:46
course she'd really love for people to see it and enjoy it
18:50
and is there a way to exhibit it or I don't know.
18:54
We were sort of throwing around different ideas.
18:56
And we had this auction coming up.
18:58
So I talked to her about the idea of maybe we could include
19:01
some items. And that way people would get to
19:04
see his work. And, you know, we'd have a
19:07
chance to also celebrate Sesame Street.
19:09
It just seemed to be good timing and something that she was
19:13
excited to do. And so we were happy to be able
19:17
to to open it up, to have her join us.
19:21
Yeah, and there are some really, really fun pictures in there
19:23
that are of the Sesame Street characters.
19:26
Yeah, yeah. You know, I know for a lot of
19:28
fans there's a little bit of a disappointment because the items
19:33
are expensive, you know, for a lot of fans that don't have
19:37
hundreds or thousands of dollars to spend on these items.
19:39
Was there any thought given to do like a lottery for items or
19:44
one item that that could help engage and bring fans into it a
19:48
little bit more? Yeah, with this current sale or
19:50
anything, I don't think, you know, we would be able to do any
19:53
kind of lottery or anything, but we really, really did try to
19:56
make an effort to include lower priced items, you know, really a
19:59
range of prices. We knew the puppets would be
20:01
expensive, but there's a lot of things in the auction that were
20:05
estimated under $500, you know, even props and set pieces.
20:10
But also. A lot of ephemera, brochures and
20:15
scripts and things like that. Unfortunately, we can't control
20:18
what things sell for. So if something's estimated at 3
20:21
to $500, if there's a lot of people that want it and are
20:25
willing to pay for it, the price is going to go higher.
20:27
So we can't really set those prices.
20:29
But we really did try to include a range of things that were
20:33
different prices. We also have worked with the
20:36
Museum of the Moving Image and the Center for Puppetry Arts to
20:40
try to put things sort of duplicate items that we have
20:44
into their shops for sale that to help raise money for the
20:49
museums and those things you know, have been available to to
20:53
buyers. As someone who worked in the
20:57
auction world, do you have any advice for people who are
21:01
participating in the auction? Often it's good to sort of wait
21:04
until you know closer to the auction date to decide you know
21:07
what kind of bidding you want to do and you get a sense for the
21:10
market. I think that if there is
21:12
something that you're interested in, don't hesitate to reach out
21:15
to Julian's to get more information.
21:18
They will give you a condition report.
21:20
They'll give you more details about, you know, if you need
21:23
more information about size or anything like that, or even
21:27
shipping. I think something to keep in
21:29
mind, you know, we did the video about how to bid in an auction
21:34
and I hope everybody enjoyed that.
21:37
Just keep in mind that when you bid on something, there is a
21:40
buyer's premium, so there's a fee that the buyer pays on top
21:44
of whatever the hammer prices. And I know that's spelled out on
21:48
the website, but if somebody hasn't been in an auction
21:51
before, that's just something to keep in mind when they're
21:55
deciding how much they want to spend.
21:57
That's helpful, yeah. And also to say that the the
22:00
website is beautiful and if you go in there, there's many
22:03
pictures of all the items and there's some information as
22:05
well. So it's great to just look
22:07
through. There's also the auction book
22:10
that's available. And does that include pictures
22:12
of all the items in it? Yeah, so the the catalog has
22:16
pictures of every item. There are more pictures on the
22:19
website because for each item on the website, you have the front,
22:23
the back, if there's a screen match image that they could
22:27
provide, you can see that on the website or they might have a
22:29
link to a screen match, something that we weren't able
22:32
to put into the catalog. But each each item is pictured
22:35
in all of the information about the provenance of the item, how
22:38
it was used, where it came from is in the catalog as well.
22:42
Are these items up on display now for people to see?
22:47
They are not. They don't have a physical
22:49
display because right now they have.
22:51
They have items in their warehouse.
22:53
They're not. There's not an exhibit of them.
22:55
Is there anything else that people should know about the
22:58
auction or any other items that you want to highlight?
23:01
You know, I'm just, I'm excited about it.
23:03
I think it's been a really fun way.
23:05
I've heard from people who worked at Hanson or worked on
23:08
projects. And of course, in order to do
23:10
the research for this auction, we've had to reach out to lots
23:14
of people because a lot of times things didn't have a maker's
23:18
name or something like that. And we wanted to as much as
23:21
possible provide that information to the collectors
23:24
who are who are going to go home with these items.
23:26
So it's been a a really fun project for me personally to be
23:30
able to do that kind of research and look into it.
23:33
I have to say Julian's did a really great job with the
23:35
cataloging, especially with the age of resistance items.
23:39
They worked with our creature shop in Los Angeles with people
23:42
who worked on the production to again, make sure all the
23:45
information was correct for the different, for the different
23:49
puppets and crops and how they were used.
23:52
So that's been, that's been a fun project and, and very
23:55
different for me than the work. I do say with the curators from
23:59
the museum, it's it's a different, different sort of
24:02
approach, but there was a territorial eye when it came to
24:06
planning the auction. We really were looking for
24:09
things to be able to include that had meaning to our company
24:15
history. So like Dog City was such an
24:18
important project for Jim. It was part of the Jim Henson
24:22
Hour. It was like he had so much fun
24:24
with it, worked with a lot of great artists.
24:27
Bruce McNally designed designed a lot of those characters.
24:30
So it was really fun to be able to include a couple Dog City
24:34
puppets in this. There are dog city puppets at
24:37
the Museum of the Moving Image. They have a big collection of
24:39
dog city puppets down at the Center for Puppetry Arts.
24:43
So it's fun to to make these dogs available to fans as well.
24:47
And they do look adorable. Yeah, You know, they're really,
24:50
and again, our creature shop had so much fun restoring them.
24:54
They are fans, the people that work in our shop and a lot of
24:58
them grew up with this stuff. And so for them to be able to
25:02
work on the characters from Secret Life of Toys or something
25:06
like that was was really fun for them.
25:08
And we, you know, went back into the archives and found photos
25:12
and film clips and patterns and things like that and, and really
25:17
collaborated to try to make things look as as much as as
25:20
they could, you know, in their original state.
25:24
It sounds like a tremendous amount of work.
25:26
How long have you been working on this?
25:28
I guess it's probably been about a year and a half.
25:32
My colleague Susie Tofte went out to LA to work with our
25:36
colleague Shannon Robles on the Dark Crystal materials when they
25:41
came off the ship and and sorting through all of those.
25:45
And it took a lot of people to help get that stuff organized.
25:50
And then of course our creature shops both in LA and in New
25:54
York. I've been working on this as
25:56
well. It's been a company wide effort.
25:59
I certainly appreciate your time today and for giving us more
26:03
information about this auction. Sure.
26:05
It's my pleasure and I, I hope people are enjoying watching
26:09
from the sidelines, even if they're not bidding, because I
26:12
think it's a, it's a window into our work and into our history
26:16
that is from a sort of through a different lens then maybe
26:20
they've been seeing it before. Absolutely.
26:24
Thank you so much. My pleasure.
26:27
Thanks again to Karen Faulk for joining us today and sharing
26:29
some insights about the upcoming Handsome Company auction and
26:33
some Muppet history. For more information about the
26:35
auction, visit the Julian's Auctions website.
26:38
And for all the latest on Muppet news and analysis, visit us at
26:42
toughpix.com.