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Who Was Jim Henson? · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, everybody.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Dirtnap City.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Alex.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here with my buddy Kelly.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: How's it going, Kelly?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Alex, I'm doing great.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I noticed something.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't think I've ever heard you say hello that way, except on the show.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only it's the only time you ever say hello.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I say that way to all my friends all the time.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, unless not you were your friend, because I had never heard it till now.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I appreciate it.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Kelly, I just got finished watching a TV show that was very popular last year.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: It seemed like everybody loved the show.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: 2022?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: And in 2022, that's right.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you on social media, I saw that you were the only person I saw that did not like this show.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I am here to tell you that I agree with you.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: I did not like the Squid Game.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it was one of those things, you know, when you you think you're supposed to like something because everybody seemed to really dig it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I kept waiting for the turn, like hoping that it was gonna get better.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: When is this actually it actually got worse?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, um, I don't mean I can handle violence and I can handle that kind of stuff.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: I just didn't think it was very good.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was it kind of was a cultural phenomenon, but I did just didn't want to invest my time in something that was gonna depress me.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's funny because um sometimes I'm all in on these uh cultural events and I'm I'm in on at the same time, and and and sometimes I'm a year or two or five late.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I think when you do that, you can actually look at it with a more critical eye and not kind of uh um everybody else is doing this, not get swept up in the in the hoopla.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I I didn't I didn't like it at all.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: There's a season two that I think they're filming, and I was um I was gonna ask you if you've planning on watching it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: I guarantee you're not gonna watch season two.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, not.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm waiting for season two of Ted Lasso.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's more uh more my speed.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think season two already came out on Ted Lasso.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, season three, sorry.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but one and two have been out.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: What would it say about me if I actually watched season two?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Is that good or bad?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Squiggy, something I know I'm not gonna like.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just I I would you want my analysis of what that would mean about you?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, number one, uh, it could mean that you are the type of person that really wants to find the good or the joy or the um the value in something, so you keep trying.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: But number two, it would also say you don't know when to quit, and just say cut your losses.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you've heard of sunk costs, right?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: You already because sometimes people watch other shows or watch season two because they watch season one.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm already invested in it, you know, I've already spent this time, but you just got to go with the sunk costs, and then number three, it would tell me you have way too much time on your hands.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna watch a show that you don't even like, um, then you should really be doing something else.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a good, that's a good point.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: All right, well, enough squid game talk.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Today um is the opposite of squid game.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: We have uh somebody that's uh more uh your style.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and by that I mean uh happy and um jovial.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's what I like.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so you ready to get started?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Let's hear it.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: And again, uh Kelly doesn't know who we've picked.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know because you've clicked on the link, so you know who it is.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: But Kelly, I'm gonna have you uh try to guess who this person is.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna guess.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: Born in Greenville, Mississippi in 1936.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Greenville, Mississippi, 1936.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know I was born in Mississippi?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think I did know that.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's one of those fun facts about me.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because because really, you know, you think of yourself more of as a Michigander or a Texan, but but really I'm a son of the South.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Son of the South.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Died in New York City in 1990.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: So um he was only fifty three when he died.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, okay.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Which is sobering because that's like our age.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he wasn't maybe he wasn't very sober and that's why he died, but we'll find out.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Not the case.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Not the case.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh multiple Emmys, in fact, in the Television Hall of Fame.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Also an Academy Award nomination, but for a song.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, that song is was deemed worthy of preservation by the Library of Congress, which very few songs are.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's considered culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant um at the time.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: There is a statue of him outside the student union at the University of Maryland.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: There was a stamp made of him, and he's in the banjo Hall of Fame.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, the first banjo person I think of is Steve Martin, but I think he's still alive.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is still alive.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then Roy Clark?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Not known for playing the banjo.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's a little bit of a misdirect, but but the song that I was just talking about was deemed um important enough that it got put the banjo on the map in the 70s.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Was it uh was it uh dueling banjos?
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh was it a was he a country and western style?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so so that wasn't his music.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Wasn't even a singer.
• 6:00
  unknown: Okay.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: He just had one song.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just happened to have one song.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And did not sing in his actual voice.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: Put on a character.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh oh.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a second.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a second.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Are we talking Jim Henson?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: We are talking Jim Henson.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yes, it's not easy being green.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and the song, of course, was Rainbow Connection.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Someday they'll find it.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: The the Rainbow Connection is considered one of the um songs in the Library of Congress that was deemed preservation worthy.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and the banjo, uh it had a banjo.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was just Kermit and his and his banjo basically that started off that song.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think when you told me he played it in character, that really kind of helped me get there.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, just a quick aside, um, so you know that I had the opportunity to meet Mr.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Rogers um because I used to work for an event company and we did events for PBS, um, not just not local channels, but like PBS as a network.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So there were a lot of Sesame Street things involved in that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I never met Jim Henson, but I did get to meet uh the guy, Carol Spinney, who played um Big Bird.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um the guy whose name I can't remember, who was Elmo, even though he wasn't Sesame Street, um, and a few other people involved in um children's television workshop.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think his name was Kevin, was it Kevin Clatch that played Elmo?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Kevin Clatch.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, Jim Henson, what a what a guy.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I don't know about you, but when I was coming up, as they say, uh, I was all in on Sesame Street.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: The Sesame Street started uh uh the year before I was born, probably the year you were born.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: We kind of grew up, yeah, we kind of grew up with with Sesame Street.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then of course, as we got older, the Muppet Show, um Which was hilarious, was was was great.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll tell you a little bit about how that all that came to be.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm really, really happy to be sharing uh Jim Henson with you.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I I dig it, and I totally agree.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's um Sesame Street was iconic and and definitely broke a lot of ground with um you know racism and and gender issues, you know, but not beating you over the head with it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they were doing it in a really kind of subversive, that sounds really bad, but a you know, a way that you didn't feel like or people didn't realize they were being taught something.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's interesting because we've already talked in in season one, we've already talked about Mr.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Rogers and we talked about Dr.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Seuss.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: So those are people that were really important to children of that same generation that we come from, but this guy attacked it from a completely different perspective, um, but had the same kind of influence on us as the other two, I think.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and honestly, you know, those characters, the Muppets, are still very relevant today.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think most kids could identify Cookie Monster or um Kermit the Frog, as you said.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um like Miss Piggy, I don't feel like she was ever part of Sesame Street, was she?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, she wasn't, she was only on the Muppet Show.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, Miss Piggy, and and and the you know, my favorite, of course, everybody loves Animal, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And but uh those two old guys, which I think they actually have names.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um Scatler and Waldorf.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, nicely done.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Scatler and Waldorf.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we always come here?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I guess.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Love those guys.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like a kind of torture to have to watch a show.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: Careful, they're copyright uh oh.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I was I was surprised you didn't start singing the Rainbow Connection also.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what's funny is I was thinking you were referencing it's not easy being green, but um, but now that you say it, I he also had a song called I Don't Want to Live on the Moon.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that one?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: No, but it's not easy being green.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: They actually sang at uh his funeral.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: I was reading about his funeral, and um all of his friends came with their Muppets in character and sang.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: He said he had said that he didn't want anyone to wear black at his funeral, and so they passed out like these foam butterflies for everybody, like pink and purple butterflies for everyone that was there.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then all the all of his friends came in character and started singing songs.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not easy being green was the one that kind of brought the house down.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I'm sure you can only imagine how touching that was.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: But they said everyone left kind of in a better mood than when they got there.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because he died pretty suddenly, also.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: He was just on the Arsenio also a week before it happened.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he died uh pretty suddenly.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: But I'll we'll get into all that.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um so okay.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: So when Jim Henson was he he grew up in Mississippi, but then moved to uh the uh Maryland, around the University of Maryland area uh when he was in high school.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: And uh when he was in high school, he actually created Puppets for a morning show in Washington, D.C.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then went on to the University of Maryland, and then he created a show, kind of a five-minute comedy short form show called Sam and Friends when he was a freshman.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: And he created it with a with a senior who he had ended up marrying later on.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: But um, that show actually included Kermit the Frog.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And here's something that's I think is kind of uh interesting is that you know why they call him Kermit?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that common of a name, right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, uh I'm glad you said that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've only ever known one Kermit in my whole life, and that was a friend of my grandparents in Kansas City.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: His name was Kermit.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so that was probably the same around the same age, it's kind of an older name that he he was born in 1936, right?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: I guess that's a little younger than your grandparents, but yeah.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um so he said that when he was a kid, Jim Henson, he only had two close friends and they were both named Kermit.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: So when it came time to create a puppet, of course he named him after the only friends that he ever had, or his best friends that were both named Kermit.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's pretty funny because, like you said, I've only known I've known of, I don't even know anybody, I know of somebody, a basketball coach named Kermit, um, or a basketball player named Kermit Washington.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was a basketball coach, Kermit Davis.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess I know two people named Kermit, not personally, both involved with basketball, but it is now naming your kid Kermit, it's impossible to detach the Kermit the Frog significance from it, right?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's immediately that's probably what they would be called all their life, right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like kids would tease them.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, eventually it would turn into like froggy, frog legs, and then legs.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, why do they call you legs?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my name's Kermit and Kermit the Frog, which became Kermit the Frog Legs, which became legs.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: If any of our listeners are named Kermit, yes, please let us know and let us know how it's how that experience has been of being called Kermit.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you if it you you like it, because I mean it's not like being named Adolf or something.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's not a bad presentation to be named Kermit, but I could see that you might get teased and tell us if that bothered you or not.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And let us know if you spell it with a K or a C.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: I've never heard of it spelled with a C.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: No, I haven't.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: That would probably be Kermit, yeah.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's Kermit, damn it.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: So he started as a studio arts major.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: He was a very creative guy, but he took a puppetry class, and then through the puppetry class, he was introduced to the craft and textiles department in the home economics um department at uh at Maryland, and he ended up getting his degree in home economics.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: He was fascinated with trying to find the perfect material to make puppets with.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: And he did a lot of forks and knives go.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: But he uh he did a lot of experimenting with different materials, different textiles.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and you notice that at the time, I guess most puppets were made out of wood.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so by um by using kind of uh foam rubber and then uh and then you know um just other yeah, cloth and uh over foam rubber, you were kind of able to do more freedom and of movements, um and you move.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: As opposed to like the the ventriloquist puppet, right?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: The the more traditional which were made out of woods and yeah, and their mouth up and down, right?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: So and also so the word Muppet was a cross between puppet and marionette.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and the marionettes, if you can picture those, kind of you have the wood uh cross and then the strings, and you uh those were strings that you move, and Muppets are actually the arms are moved by rods, not yeah, from from below from below or from the side.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you ever see interviews with him?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, sometimes he'd he'd have the Muppet just like on his like next to him, and he would kind of move the arms.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was watching an interview with uh on uh he was on Johnny Carson and he had uh Dr.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Teeth.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know remember who Dr.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Teeth was?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, he was one of the Muppets.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was like a rock rock star kind of guy.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, I do remember and it was amazing.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Just you you just forget that it's not that it's controlled by him.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: He's sitting there and he's like arguing with him, but not in a whole other person, yeah, not in the old ventriloquist way, although there was a lot of that in there, but it was like he'd be talking, or and then and there was another part with Kermit, and he would be talking about Kerm, about the Muppet Show, which Kermit wasn't on at the time, and Kermit would just be shaking his head the whole time he was talking, Kermit is reacting to Jim Henson talking about this great show.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And Kermit was shaking his head and he was saying, It's it's trash, this show's no good.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: A little jealousy, and it was really funny because he was playing with envy the whole time he's talking, he's reacting with his hand.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was unbelievable.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you if you want to go watch uh YouTube, the Johnny Carson interviews, uh, there's a ton of things on of Jim Henson just on talk shows.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So so quick question about that.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I wonder, and maybe you know the answer, maybe you don't, because this isn't something that would be common, but I wonder if when he started, you know, puppets aren't necessarily designed to be uh like ventriloquists, right?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if especially those, they they were always by themselves, right, doing their thing on Sesame Street.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Punching Judy.
• 17:17
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You mean before, yeah, before Sesame Street, yeah.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm talking about I'm talking about Sesame Street, though.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Those puppets or Muppets were controlled from below some sort of a surface.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: There'd be a wall or a chair or something that the human was hiding behind.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so they didn't have to um not move their lips, they could move their lips, they could they didn't have to ventriloquise or whatever it's called, right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I wonder if he started like you know, if he was doing the puppet and he was just bah bah bah bah like moving his mouth, but then he eventually started not moving his mouth so he could do it with the puppet and him at the same time.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, when he's on the talk shows, he doesn't really it's not a great ventriloquist act, like he's moving his mouth, but you don't really care either.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And he, Jim Henson, was kind of a soft-spoken guy, and actually his real voice is very much like Kermit's, it's just more affected, maybe, when he talks like Kermit, but it's he it's not like he's trying to put make you really think that that is another person, but you actually end up thinking that because he's just so good with his hand movements, it's just pretty amazing, yeah.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: But he did experiment with letting the puppeteer work off camera, and the idea, like you say, where they would just be sitting in a chair and everything would be filmed above them or to the side, and giving the front the whole camera frame belong to the puppet them themselves, so putting the the puppeteer off camera, and it seems so obvious to us now, but it was pretty revolutionary, and it was kind of marrying the old Vaudeville, vaudeville ventriloquist with television, which was a you know fairly new medium, and there were people were experimenting, and he was on television very early.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're talking this five-minute show that he did when he was a freshman, this was 1958.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that was the early days of television, yeah.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Black.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: There were still people, yeah, there were still people getting their first TVs in the late 50s.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, so yeah, he he definitely started experimenting with this stuff.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then when he graduated, he moved to Europe, and he didn't really think of being a puppeteer as a job that he would have, but he started studying some of the European puppets that take they take that stuff very seriously, and he started seeing how they looked at that.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think he had decided I can really change the the art form here.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: So when he came back, um he and his wife Jane founded Muppets Inc.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: that later became the Jim Henson Company in uh 1958, and he used to go on talk shows like Steve Allen and Jack Parr and Ed Sullivan and Ed Sullivan before Sesame Street?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: This was in the in the 60s.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Sesame Street didn't start till 1969, so this is all throughout the 60s and late 50s.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: So he was a puppeteer entertainer, like he he was a guy that like came onto these shows and was known for you have these crazy things called Muppets.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: What's that all about?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, when you'd watch like Ed Sullivan, you would only see the puppets, and then at the end, maybe he'd bring them out.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, Ed Sullivan called him Jim Newsom and his puppets.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: But um, but he started getting into advertising, and he he had these two characters called Wilkins and Wonkins, and it was kind of genius.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: When you think of probably the way advertising was back in the 50s, it was very much buy this product, here's all the features, not a lot of humor, just kind of these are the bare bones.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: And he had these two puppets, and Wilkins always loved the product, and Wontkins always hated the product.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Wilkins and Wontkins, right?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like Goofus and Gallant.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: And like just like Statler and Waldorf, they kind of would bicker, and Wonkins would always hate whatever that was they were trying to sell.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And you can imagine in the 50s pitching an idea to a company saying, Well, here's an idea.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: This character's not gonna like your product, and they're gonna bicker.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: That was probably really breaking a taboo, right?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: He went into uh he went into uh Marlborough and said, you know, Wilkins is gonna just puff away and Wilkins will be like, Oh, don't do that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's not good.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't they didn't do any cigarettes, but he would but these characters would advertise lots of different things.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: So you'd see them on a coffee commercial or uh gas station are there YouTube videos with Wilkins and Wilkins?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think so.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, uh Cookie Monster actually uh started out.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: As a character for a Frit Olay snack called Munchos.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Ah.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: That was when F Cookie Monster was first introduced.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't Cookies, it was this snack.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Will Wilkins and Wilkins uh were kind of the first thing.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: And he was really making puppets, not for kids, but for advertising.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh he hired Frank Oz in 1963.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and Frank Oz, you know, became a later collaborator.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's Yoda, right?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Frank Oz was Yoda.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: The two of them were Bert and Ernie, they were Kermit and Miss Piggy, and they were Kermit and Fozzie.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Kermy! Some great chemistry in those teams, and it was him and Frank Oz.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: In 1969, Sesame Street had already started or had he didn't create Sesame Street.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: Sesame Street was already, you know, about to go into production, and they liked his commercials, and they approached him about hey, why don't you join us and create little puppets for what we're trying to do, which is educate kids in a different kind of way through public television?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not like he started Sesame Street.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know if that was Children's Television Network?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Workshop?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: Children's Television Workshop.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Children's Television Workshop.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Was that was that who started Sesame Street?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or was that something that came later?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: It was.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: It was uh yeah, it was it was Children's Television Workshop.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that was not him, that wasn't Jim Hansen.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: He he he collaborated with Children's Television Workshop or was employed by them or contracted with them.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: But okay, so that that was a misconception because I think about it.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and when you think about it, Sesame Street doesn't just create uh consist of Muppets, that's just a part of it, right?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: They kind of populate the street and they have little little skits and things like that.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: But there's other parts of Sesame Street that don't the Muppets.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_02: And actually he said, This is be great to join these people because I'm kind of tired of doing commercials.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: So he walked away from the commercial game and started doing Sesame Street in 1969.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now by 1975, he was kind of chumping at the bit to, you know, not that he was sick of doing kids programming, but he didn't think that puppets were just for kids, and he kind of wanted to get back to that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if you remember this, but um he actually was on the first season of Saturday Night Live, they actually had segments with his Muppets.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: No, really didn't work.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: The writers on Saturday Live didn't uh one of the writers said, I won't write for Felt.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't feeling it, he wasn't it wasn't felt by him.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_02: So it just did they it just didn't work.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: They couldn't figure out what the tone should be for the Muppets.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: So if you watch some of the early, early episodes, I think George Carlin was the very first host of Saturday Live in 1975.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was only that season they would have these little interstitial uh pre-recorded things, I think, and it never really worked out.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: But were they were they sort of uh PG 13 uh you know, late night comedy kind of stuff?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: They were very like hippie kind of uh kind of kind of things, and I don't think they were necessarily body, but they weren't for kids.
• 25:26
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: But even you know, even when he would go on Johnny Carson, he would not he would say things like so Johnny Carson in this episode with Kermit the Frog, he'd say, So uh Johnny would say, So Kermit, how's your love life?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: And Kermit goes, he goes, I work on Sesame Street.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: How do you think my love life is?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: He goes, he goes, but he's like, but but I work on a kid's show.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Why would you ask me about my sex life?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and it was just kind of fun like that.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't like forbidden that right, right, but but just kind of playing around with them, yeah.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: So in uh he was he was doing Sesame Street and he was, you know, Saturday Night Live didn't really work out, but in 1976, he decided, well, why don't I just make a bunch of new Muppets only for uh not for Sesame Street, but for a more uh adult oriented, but not again, not dirty or anything.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: More of a primetime show, like a variety primetime show, yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: And had the idea for the Muppet Show.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: So he went to every network and all the networks turned them down.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: They said we don't want kid shows in prime time.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: He said it's not a kid show.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: They said, Yeah, but we don't need Sesame Street in Primetime.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: He said, It's not Sesame Street, they said, Yeah, go sell it somewhere else.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and all the networks turned them down.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: So he went to the UK and they loved the idea.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: So they they the entire Muppet show, all this uh it was from 1976 to 1981, all those episodes were filmed in the UK, and it was syndicated.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so it was on for five five years.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, worldwide syndication.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so they would each episode would get like 235 million people watching.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Just to give you an idea, today, you know, the uh a hit show maybe has 20 million people watching it.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So 10 10 times that audience.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember watching the Muppet Show like live, you know, on TV, NBC, or whatever it was on at the time.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember actually that was something that uh we all laughed at.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like my parents thought it was funny.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: My my sister and I both thought it was funny, and so it was it was kind of a cool uh there he really did a good job of putting the humor at a lot of levels, and then I remember a lot of really famous actors and actresses were guests.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: That was kind of the the thing, was they'd bring on um I don't know who sings the song, but A-less people, like you would not you were nobody unless you got on the Muppet show.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I remember um I remember Baby Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know that song, Baby Baby, don't get hooked on me.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think uh Miss Piggy's like a mermaid and she's like swinging on a hook or something.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Glenn Campbell, who is that?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Mac Davis.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Mac Davis, that's right.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Lubbock's own Mac Davis, actually.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Lubbock.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was the the Muppet Show was it was brilliant, and I'm glad it was accepted when it was because I feel like it might have been either behind its time or ahead of its time.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it was it was just a weird little maybe it was ahead of its time.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it would work today.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: Super corny, but at the time Hee-Haw was on, and you know, the Sonny and Cher show and all these really cheesy, corny things.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we there was a lot of variety shows.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you're right, it probably wouldn't work today.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it definitely worked at at the time.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you might have uh also remember Brishnikov was on an episode and he and Miss Piggy danced to Swine Lake.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I actually don't remember that, but that's awesome.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, you know, if you're a 10-year-old kid, how else are you gonna know who Brishnikov is, right?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, Swine Lake or Swan Lake, you know, what Yeah, I mean that's what's cool is that class kind of introduce little kids to stuff that we weren't wouldn't really know about otherwise.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm more cultured because of his little jokes and the sides that he would put in there.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: Now he quit the Muppet Show in uh 19 and Muppet Show stopped in 1981.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: He actually quit to to do movies.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Was it was it canceled or or uh do you know he he he stopped doing it because he wanted to concentrate on movies, yeah.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_02: And the Muppet Movies.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: Muppet movie came out in 1979, and that was Rainbow Connection, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't win.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: But uh 1981 was the Great Muppet Caper.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember that one?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I do.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then in also in uh 1981 was uh uh George Lucas approached him and said, Hey, here's a character I'm I want to uh I'm I'm thinking about.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: Can you make a puppet of like this old uh sage?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and Yoda was created out of that.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then originally Jim Henson was gonna voice that, and he said, No, I'll have Frank Oz do that instead.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: But that was Jim Henson's creation, that collaboration.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: And Yoda, you know, is still with us today.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, baby Yoda and Yoda's more popular than ever.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: 1982 he made a movie called Dark Crystal.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Did you ever see that movie?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, Skexies and Gelflings.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's your that's kind of your wheelhouse, I guess.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was not critically acclaimed.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Gelflings can be friends.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was it kind of sounded like Yoda, actually.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't think they had much range.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, compared to like Mel Blank, yeah, uh, I don't think the voices, there wasn't a lot of variety.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: It was either everything either sounded like Jim Henson or Frank Oz.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I mean Miss Piggy sounds just like Yoda.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, true, true.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: And Bert, right?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then Kermit sounds just like uh uh all the rest of them.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: So uh Muppets Make Take Manhattan came out in 1984.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I definitely remember that one.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then in 1986, he made a movie called Labyrinth with David Bowie.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: And was can now it's like a cult classic, but at the time it wasn't well received, and that really bothered him.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: That was kind of the end of him trying to do kind of adult things.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think it really hit him hard, much like uh the uh Lady Godiva book uh hit Dr.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Seuss hard.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was maybe maybe I'm not maybe I can't do things for adults, maybe I just better stick to uh little kids.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: So then after that, he created Fraggle Rock and Muppet Babies.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah, that was kind of awful.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, right.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel like Labyrinth was kind of his jumping the shark, right?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: What when yes, yes, to go back to uh see evil can evil uh episode.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he created something called the Jim Henson Hour that was an NBC show that he thought that maybe he could mix in kind of kind of like a Muppet show, but mix in some more adult humor.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that um I think it lasted maybe 12 episodes and was canceled, and that really hit him.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: He decided that he wanted to spend more time with his family.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: The only way his his kids got to spend any time with him was by working for the company.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was just all in.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: So he he felt that stress of not being able to spend time with his his family, so he sold uh the Jim Henson company to Disney for uh 200 million dollars in 1989.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: But in doing so, I think they were playing hardball with him, and it was a pretty rough negotiation, and um he ultimately died of a bacterial infection, like it was actually toxic shock syndrome, but from like a um like almost like a strep kind of infection, and they said elevated stress levels.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: If he would have got to the doctor just a little bit earlier, it might have saved him.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: But Frank Oz says that the Disney negotiations might have killed him, that that it just because he he kept getting sick and he wouldn't recover, and then that's and how awful is that to you know work so hard all those years, build this thing that you're proud of.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, whether you agree with people cashing out or not, I think a lot of people want to do that.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they've worked hard, they want to sell the company, they want to have the money to leave for their family, to to have some amazing experiences with your family, travel, all that sort of thing, and then just to die a year later.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's I know.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the worst part is the 200 million he never even got because, or his family never got, because once he died, then Disney said, Well, we're not paying, we were paying for Jim Henson, and he's not around anymore, so we're not giving you 200 million.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think they s so they sued Disney and I think they ended up settling at like 50 million.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: So because they were buying the guide.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess I guess he might have he might have stayed on and said that the Muppets tasted like uh wallpaper paste or something.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's just it's just another example of once you start uh negotiating with the big guys, they're you know, they they they're gonna own you, I guess.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_02: Now he's on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as himself and as Kermit.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: And there's only three other people who are on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as themselves and a character.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to guess who any of them are?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um they're all kids kids characters.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um would one of them be Barney?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, you don't know who that Barney creator is, though.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: These are people that are famous and their creators.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: They have a character that's famous too.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know, man.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Hit me.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: So Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: Mel Blank and Bugs Bunny.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then the third one, maybe, maybe not as obvious, Mike Myers and Shrek.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, Shrek was a Shrek is still a big deal.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and Mike Myers outside of Shrek is a big deal.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, it's interesting that they would put that there would be fictitious characters on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but then their actors, you know, because Mike Myers did a lot of other stuff besides Shrek, right?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: So he's, you know, he kind of earned it outside of Shrek, and then Shrek was its own thing.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas with um Jim Henson, you know, I would say his crowning achievement was Kermit the Frog, or his most famous thing was Kermit the Frog.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so you think Kermit should be in, but not Jim Henson?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe no fictitious characters.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, no.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean, almost, yeah.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Almost, I mean, like Walt Disney, he he uh Disney is synonymous with so many things, and then Mickey Mouse, yes, of course.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: I get that.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, who was the other one you said?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Mel Blank and Bugs Bunny.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, did Mel Blank do much besides Bugs Bunny?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know he did other voices, but you mean like in his career, did he do anything other than Looney Tunes?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he did, like on the Jack Benny show and things like that, but yeah, it was his biggest biggest yeah, yeah.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Huh.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I I feel like Mel Blank and Jim Henson are a little questionable as Hollywood.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, but then again, you know, they had a huge impact.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I guess are directors and producers allowed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you're creating a TV show with 200 million people watching, you know.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um like I said, he's in the channel.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not hitting on Jim Henson, he's a good guy.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: So some of the Sesame Street Muppets that you may be familiar with are, of course, Bert and Ernie.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_02: And and um, so I'll say some of these people, and and if you want to, there's a there's a interesting kind of Wikipedia thing about kind of the characteristics that some of these characters have or we're supposed to teach kids about.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, like well, there's a lot of questions about Bert and Ernie's relationship, right?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what was what was that all about?
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they were friends, man.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: They uh they were roommates, they were friends.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't think even in later days, I don't think they ever uh claimed to be uh more than friends.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: But if they were, that's fine too.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even know if they were adults, were they?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I kind of felt like uh they were balding a little.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they had some hair.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: They had kind of receding hairlines, though.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Bert was Ernie's best friend, and uh he uh was fascinated by pigeons.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: He liked oatmeal, uh he collected paper clips and and bottle caps, and and Ernie was kind of the more mischievous one, right?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he laughed like this.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he would take baths with let's face it, if it was just Bert, that wouldn't be very rubber ducky.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: Bert was a great straight man, though, right?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh rubber ducky, you're the one.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: You make bath time so much fun.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Rubber ducky, you're the rubberest ducky, I know.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: There's another copyright claim that we'll have to do something about.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, hold on, I'm gonna say this, and I don't know if it'll make the episode or not, but uh maybe maybe we make a maybe we make a bonus cut for our you know Patreon supporters.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I have a friend uh named Jim.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: He always does this where he'll uh fart really loud and then he'll go, What Ernie?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: We go, it's like saying Bert.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: What Ernie?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds like a lovely guy.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's a good guy, actually.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the only thing he does.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's not why he would be on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the Jack Benny show for him.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: We are we already talked about Cookie Monster.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: CS for Cookie, that's good enough for me.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: CS for Cookie, that's good enough for me.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: Kids today, like little kids today, still know Cookie Monster.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: The licensing uh for that stuff has been unbelievable.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember Count though?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember the County?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: Von two three the count, his name, his full name was Count Von Count.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: I went to uh the Texas Renaissance Festival.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever go to that in Magnolia?
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I got a count.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was like the Sesame Street Count puppet.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like I actually had that puppet for a long time.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, ah, one, two, three, four.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so your kids must have loved that.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: That was when this is when I was a kid.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: But but now, haven't they seen it?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no, the puppets gone.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was uh victim of a dog.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: We've already talked about Elmo a little bit.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: Elmo came in um actually according to Wikipedia, Elmo came in in 1979.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think Elmo got popular later.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: I do think Elmo was a sort of side character, a smaller character on the show, but but became popular in later days.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it said Kevin Clash did him from 1985 to 2012.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's probably when he was big, it was in the late 80s, early 90s.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Grover, you know, Grover.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: Anchor me, baby.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what's your perception of Grover?
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: He was I loved Grover.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: He was the party guy.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: He was kind of uh he did this with his arms and he would kind of, you know, and he had the googly eyes.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I loved Grover.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: He was known as the infamo infinitely optimistic one who was also honest and wise.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't like he wasn't like the guy who got his uh yucks by putting other people down.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: He just was always in a good mood.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, no, I I I d I'd kind of forgotten about Grover, but I dug on Grover.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: What about Guy Smiley?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember Guy Smiley?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was the game show host and TV, like sort of making fun.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was sort of the Troy McClure.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: You remember Troy McClure from The Simpsons?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think Guy Smiley was early on, too.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think he was one of Jim Henson's favorites, was Guy Smiley.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_02: He was the talk show.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone's favorite talk show host, Guy Smiley.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: I loved Guy Smiley, yep.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, Kermit was the first, basically the first Muppet, right?
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: They called him the calm and the eye of the storm.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: He was the voice of reason among all the insanity of all the the monsters.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop doesn't own Kermit.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're one of he's one of the few ones that they they don't own.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's owned by uh because he was probably created before he joined Sesame Street, and so it was still Jim Henson's.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas some of them that were created while he was being paid by Sesame Street maybe belonged to Sesame Street.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's talk about Oscar the Grouch.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think Oscar the Grouch is a really interesting character.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: It uh they said that Oscar gave kids permission to feel grouchy and to demonstrate differing opinions, and as a lesson for how to adapt to different personalities, because everybody else had to deal with Oscar and being kind of grouchy.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oscar was a a miserable character, but he didn't hate him.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: He just he was just having a bad day.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_02: He was literally the likable grouch, right?
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: He was like he got dealt some a bad hand, right?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: Lived in a trash can.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: But but no, but you know what?
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: He loved trash.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I think he actually had a song called I Love Trash.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: He does.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was like an ode to trash.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: So he no, I don't think I wouldn't say he was dealt a bad hand.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think he just um there are certain people, and I know a lot of people like this who give sort of a grouchy persona in sort of a cute and clever way, so it's a lovable grouchy persona, and I think that was where he was coming from.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: But well, the aforementioned Carol Spinney did his voice as well.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and he said he based his voice on a a New York City cab driver that he encountered.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that that voice was just like a real person.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's like if you ever did a voice for a puppet and it was based on uh Smitty, the hot dog salesman in New Orleans.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: Right, exactly.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Now there was a character I watched an episode recently.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: I make it sound like I watched the show pre recently.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: I in prep.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: research yeah that's that's what that's what you tell uh your wife is uh honey i'm just doing research there's a great episode in 1980 where they have a character called ronald grump and ronald grump ronald grump was uh a real estate developer that came and uh tricked oscar uh uh into moving into uh grump towers and ultimately kicked oscar out of his trash can because evicted him evicted him wow he's like this horrible evil character um who tricked tricked him and just to make money was pretty awesome Ronald Grump Ronald Grump wow did you know just as an aside did you know that the Simpsons um there was an episode of the Simpsons in the 90s uh where they are doing a um you know look forward like a future like it's showing the what the future is gonna look like and Donald Trump is the president I know I I know I think Lisa was vice president or something yeah yeah she was yeah yeah yeah it's crazy do you remember Snuff Elepogus?
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh absolutely he was the one that uh was he was he was um big bird's friend that they didn't believe existed right because only he was like people thought it was big bird's imaginary friend right and it wasn't it wasn't because only big bird could see him he just always conveniently disappeared when um when other people appeared it was like yeah he would be talking to him and then all of a sudden okay big bird I gotta go and then big bird would turn around and there'd be the whole gang what were you doing big bird I was talking to Mr.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: Snufflophagus I was talking to Mr.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Snufflophagus and then and then they turned back and he wasn't there and he was huge like where did he go?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: I know right you know there was a kind of a a decision that they made in 1985 they decided that they didn't want him to be an imaginary friend anymore and I remember that reveal him you were 15.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: I know but I I I do remember that because as as a news story or as I don't remember like but I remember that them making that decision because they didn't want kids to feel like they couldn't have an imaginary friend.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think they would always sort of chastise Big Bird about it.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah it said they revealed him as real to teach children that their perceptions could be trusted.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_02: So then everybody could see Snuffilepagus yeah Snuffy.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was more fun when it was kind of the Shakespearean mistaken identity like you couldn't where did he go and that I thought that was fun.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_02: So those were the kind of the uh Sesame Street specific Muppets but then there was some great ones too that they'd they'd have from time to time that they'd bring like Placido flamingo and um Merrill sheep and um you know just like nods to the to the parents I think I remember I think I remember Charo being a guest on on the Muppet Show one time.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well when you think of Muppet Show the Muppets there were like of course Kermit but not Kermit a lot.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: He would like introduce it in fact on that Johnny Carson episode he was complaining because he only had one line that was like they brought him in to introduce but then he was kind of he it always seemed like be behind the scenes he was almost like uh the announcer stage manager yeah yeah stage manager or announcer like uh and and didn't he at the beginning go hey everybody it's the Muppet Show yeah yeah yeah and then uh and then Miss Piggy was of course the breakout star of yeah yeah and she had a crush on Kermit right right then Fozzie Bear you remember Fozzie Hey hey hey it's Fozzie Bear he was the host of the show right like he was like an old the whole thing was like old vaudeville right I didn't mind Fozzie he wasn't one of my favorite characters he he was but he was like bright red and wore a hat wore a top hat he was supposed to be like a vaudeville comedian and a really bad comedian he he was almost like who's the guy who got no respect um Rodney Dangerfield yeah almost like Rodney Dangerfield of the Muppets according to Frank Oz Fozzie's such a bad comedian that he can't afford good joke writers and he can't write good jokes but he's still a good character.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: Miss Piggy you know was strong and feminine but domineering and demanding yeah yeah I mean and then Gonzo was Gonzo with big nose.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't know exactly what species he was yeah he was very unusual looking.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: But then in Muppets from Space he was revealed to be an alien.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I remember Muppets in Outer Space.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: Then do you remember Rolf the dog?
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: They played a piano?
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah yeah oh yeah he didn't really talk too much he mostly just played piano right they say that he actually started in Purina dog commercials um and he was a master of the double take also which is really cool to be able to do with your hand uh to you know to do the double take is what does that mean the double take with your hand like when you look at something and then you then you look away and then you look again like that old comedic uh trick that you do.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh oh so it just has a funny like just kind of what what and then of course you have animal yeah animal was the drummer for Dr.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_02: Teeth whose Dr Teeth band was Dr.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_02: Teeth and the electric mayhem that's right oh man well done I mean animal was just like a a rock drummer you know he was just going crazy all the time he's uh there's a lot of there's a lot of animal in Dave Grohl yeah you know with the the hair and the just that kind of rock star skinny going everywhere just skinny rock star with the bandanas on his hands you know and uh just really a cool I had forgotten about Dr.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: Teeth such a great name wow yeah these are great characters do you think Jim Henson came up with most of these do you like do you think he was directly involved in all these I do yeah I I really do I think he came up with the the care the idea of the personalities and really they really mimicked what you'd see kind of the caricatures of characters that we saw in rock music or hippies.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of kind of hippies uh that were that were up yeah I remember some of them with like beads and kind of their uh like you know flowers on them and stuff like that there was a a a female character like that I don't remember her name but lips maybe was she was she she had kind of beads hanging down like uh braided hair with with uh and then lots of flowers and yeah that was her name was lips okay and yeah she had big lips she had totally in a name of somebody that would have been famous back then yeah she had kind of like a Goldiehan uh vibe to her yeah yeah yeah well I didn't remember her name do you remember Dr.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker?
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: I remember Beaker I didn't know Dr.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: Honeydew's name but yeah I remember Beaker uh uh what what did he say he was like beep beep beep beep beep beep beep or something like that me that was it me me and then what about the Swedish chef the Swedish chef was the best right chop chop yep and then the the funny part about the Swedish chef the reason that that was so funny is that that was a originally that was a collaboration between Jim Henson and Frank Oz where Jim Henson would be the the puppet and Frank Oz would be the hands.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh so so if you've ever seen like an improv game where they one one person's the hands and one one person is the voice and then they can't control the hands so they don't know what's gonna happen.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah it was kind of their way of improvising so I don't think later on when like I don't know if it was always like that but that's how that's how that that came out and then of course uh you had uh Sam the Eagle do you remember Sam the Eagle?
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah yeah he was kind of uh older like kind of had an old old guy vibe he was bald yeah and he was supposed to be like a cross between Uncle Sam and Richard Nixon yes I didn't know that but I remember Sam the Eagle and then of course Statler and Waldorf that we already talked about yeah um and uh yeah there's some just some great uh great characters that you probably hadn't thought of in uh in a long time oh you just you named a whole bunch of them just now like like lips and the eagle and guy smiley I hadn't thought of guy smiley in forever.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: What's cool is that these were monsters a lot of them were monsters but none of them were scary at all.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: They had a great way to make these things just look lovable.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about that in in uh Dr.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Seuss as well like the monsters were never scary they were always approachable they always had big eyes really empathetic and expressive and yeah I agree I think and I might have even said in the Dr.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: Seuss episode I might have even said kind of like the Muppets.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: That is probably easier said than done though.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I I remember reading about Mickey Mouse on how the reason they give him gloves is because it's unseemly to just have these rats' hands they they don't make it there's nothing cute about rats yeah yeah you just imagine their talons cutting into your flesh or something exactly so you put on gloves and all of a sudden he's cuddly but these these monsters these furry monsters were all cuddly I think also didn't Jim Henson make the I didn't see this in my research but didn't he make the monsters for where the wild things are you ever see that movie?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah maybe so maybe so I mean that was um that was a book right and then it was was it made into a movie?
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah it was I don't think I ever saw the movie for that but I wouldn't I wouldn't be surprised because I do feel like he was behind the scenes in a lot of Hollywood productions where they needed that sort of um what did they call that animatic not animatics um that sort of uh half half computer generated but like like Job of the Hutt for example I'll bet Jim Henson had something to do with Job of the Hutt and that little guy that sat on Jabba's lap you know that little creature with the big ears it kind of looked like Gonzo you know who I'm talking about it was like a little creature that was kind of like cute but it was it was very Muppet looking if you've come for Star Wars trivia I'm not your guy.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're the one with the Star Wars well just just just Google Job of the Hut or creature or Muppet he wasn't cuddly at all he wasn't nice looking at all he did look scary Jabba he didn't look yeah I mean but but but what I'm saying is he was a um he was sort of half um puppet and half computer generated so he was this weird mix of the two and then you know of course you remember like Chuck E.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: Cheese Yeah animatronics.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah like the things at Disney World.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when you would go to Chuck E cheese and they would and they would yeah and they would play the song like they had a little band of Chuck E cheese and his buddies up there that would actually play a song and it was really kind of creepy.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I'm looking at Job of the Hut here and was not I don't think Jim Henson had anything to do with that.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: No I'm talking about the little creature on him.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah uh no that's Job of the Hutt's little creature he kind of did look like the Michelin man though for sure job of the Hut pet.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I just googled.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes Google Job of the Hut pet.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: I remember Pizza the Hut from uh Spaceballs yes oh yeah I see this thing it does look like Konso uh Salacious crumb his name was Salacious B Crum dude what a what a great find what a great pick I can't I can tell you the one I'm working on is the polar opposite of Jim Hanson.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean could not be any further from Jim Hanson.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really interesting um I was in a very different mindset uh because I I was trying to finish it before our call and uh so yeah that'll be later in the season but I think it's telling though that you know maybe because I'm doing the show with you that a lot of these people that I'm coming up with are people from my childhood and you remind me of my childhood I guess in some ways so I'm I keep coming up with these figures from the even though I didn't know you in the 70s I keep coming up with these people from long uh my my past.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah well no Jim Henson is absolutely I mean actually the lot of stuff you told me I didn't know about him.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then just some of the stories about like his funeral and his his Muppet um like how he started the Muppet show after Sesame Street how he didn't own Sesame Street just facts I didn't know about Jim Henson.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_02: All right man well thank you everybody for tuning in to the Dirtnap City the uh show about interesting people who happen to be dead uh join us again for uh another exciting episode we'll go in about somebody who is uh no longer with us but was interesting while they were take care everybody bye