After visiting this temporary Smithsonian exhibit on the life and work of Jim Henson, I rifled through the gift shop for a poster. I knew what I wanted. I didn't know if I'd find it, because I had no reason to believe it existed. I wanted to buy a poster containing some behind-the-scenes photo of Henson at work, say with one hand up a Muppet, another clutching a stick - standing six feet below a Viking ship or a news desk, with that weirdo headband around his head, the kind that made him and all of his fellow Muppeteers look like a very particular technologically savvy brand of post-60's superbearded hippies but which was only there to hold the microphone near his mouth, doing all this while sporting a fitted plaid or paisley button-down that men in the 70's ALWAYS wore tucked in, and which his totally lean, long frame seemed to carry off so well.
I wanted this still shot, or something like it, for my wall. I didn't see it in the gift shop. Just drawings of Kermit or Miss Piggy. (Drawings... p'shaw.) I know it must be around somewhere - photos like these were all over the exhibit - and I wanted it in some kind of poster form that I could hang up on my wall back in Brooklyn, where I am due to return in 9 days. Not because I'm any kind of Henson freak (although after seeing this exhibit I might need to become one), but because - god-damn it - Henson created this UNIVERSE that did not exist anywhere on this planet before his arrival. And I guess I still have this idea that that's what I want to do too. Somehow.
And it was a universe of 3-D objects! Not just a universe made of stories, or images, or music - but a world in which all of these things were combined to serve a galaxy of walking talking three-dimensional life forms that you had to make move around with your bare paws. You actually had to work to make them. And perhaps what gets me the most about Jim Henson - more than his imagination that never stopped to rest on its laurels and seemingly spent every waking moment inventing new shows, movies and characters, more than the fact that he was already on TV doing MUPPET STUFF by the time he was 18, more than the fact that the man insisted no one wear black at his funeral - what gets me is that the guy was REALLY funny. Like, his sketches, even his 8-second commercials for Wilkins Brand coffee in the 50's - they still make me laugh. Any scene with Kermit the Frog - I maintain - is hilarious, from both an acting and writing viewpoint. WAY funnier than Radar O'Reilly on M*A*S*H, who always seemed to me like a sad Kermit knock-off.
Jim Henson - comic genius. That's why he lasted.
I want to create the Truppets, or whatever they'll be.
Please God, inspire me to create The Truppets.
And then tell me what they are, and can I get someone else to make them for me.
2 comments:
Although, I have to say, there could have been more in the exhibit about Henson's influence. For me, I couldn't stop thinking about Terry Gilliam. I wonder if there was a pollination there. Or on Python and British comedy in general, which, like Henson, seemed to embrace the surreal and loved explosions. Plus, I would have loved to have heard commentary from other puppeteers, filmmakers, artists, and children's TV programmers who would be zilcho nothing in nowheresville without The Muppets.
Again, none of these observations bring me closer to making a start on The Truppets, and, worse, neither do they save me from the shame of having just commented on my own blog.
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