James Maury Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an Americanpuppeteer, animator, creative producer, and director who achieved worldwide notability as the creator ofthe Muppets. Henson was also well known for creatingFraggle Rock (1983–1987) and as the director ofThe Dark Crystal (1982) andLabyrinth (1986).
In 1969, Henson joined the children's television programSesame Street (1969–present) where he helped to develop Muppet characters for the series. He and his creative team also appeared on the first season of thesketch comedy showSaturday Night Live (1975–present). He produced the sketch comedy television seriesThe Muppet Show (1976–1981) during this period. Henson revolutionized the way puppetry is captured and presented in video media, and he won fame for his characters – particularlyKermit the Frog,Rowlf the Dog, and the characters onSesame Street. During the later years of his life, he founded theJim Henson Foundation andJim Henson's Creature Shop. He won theEmmy Award twice for his involvement inThe Storyteller (1987–1988) andThe Jim Henson Hour (1989).
James Maury Henson was born on September 24, 1936, inGreenville, Mississippi, the younger of two children of Betty Marcella (née Brown, 1904–1972) and Paul Ransom Henson (1904–1994), anagronomist for the United States Department of Agriculture.[3] Henson's older brother, Paul Ransom Henson Jr. (1932–1956), died in a car crash on April 15, 1956. He was raised as aChristian Scientist and spent his early childhood in nearbyLeland, Mississippi, before moving with his family toUniversity Park, Maryland, nearWashington, D.C., in the late 1940s and later toBethesda, Maryland.[4] He remembered the arrival of the family's first television as "the biggest event of his adolescence",[5] being heavily influenced by radio ventriloquistEdgar Bergen and the early television puppets ofBurr Tillstrom onKukla, Fran and Ollie andBil and Cora Baird.[5] He remained a Christian Scientist at least into his twenties, when he taught Sunday school, but he wrote to a Christian Science church in the early 1970s to inform them that he was no longer a practicing member.[6]
Henson attended a variety of grade schools in his youth, including Hyattsville High School until it was closed in 1951. He completed his high school career at the newly openedNorthwestern High School, where he joined the puppetry club.
He enrolled at theUniversity of Maryland, College Park, the following fall as a studio arts major, thinking that he might become a commercial artist.[7] As a freshman at the university, Jim took a newly offered puppetry class mostly populated with seniors, including his future wifeJane Nebel. He graduated in 1960 with aBachelor of Science degree inhome economics.
Henson began working atWTOP-TV (now WUSA-TV) in the late spring of 1954, at age 17, hired to "manipulate marionettes"[8] on a Saturday morning children's show calledThe Junior Morning Show, until the show was cancelled only three weeks later. This first break into the television industry was short-lived, but his talent landed him and his puppets an opportunity to continue working at WTOP-TV,lip syncing on Roy Meachum'sSaturday show.[9]
Henson's employment at WTOP-TV lasted only until August, whenSaturday was also cancelled. Meachum then referred Jim to the local NBC-affiliate station WRC-TV, where Henson continued performing his puppets with Jane's help. The two were eventually offered a nightly segment[10] for which they createdSam and Friends, a three-to-five-minute puppet show that afforded Henson much more freedom to develop his own creative work. The characters onSam and Friends were forerunners of the Muppets, and the show included a prototype of Henson's most famous character, Kermit the Frog.[11] He remained at WRC untilSam and Friends aired its last episode on December 15, 1961.[12]
In the show, Henson began experimenting with techniques that changed the way in which puppetry was used on television, foregoing the convention of pointing the camera at a stationarypuppet theatreproscenium and instead using the image created by theTV camera andlens to dynamically engage with his characters.[13] He believed that television puppets needed to have "life and sensitivity".[14] Rather than carving wooden puppets Henson built characters from softer, flexible materials like foam rubber;[15] his first iteration of Kermit was made from a halvedtable tennis ball and fabric from an old coat belonging to his mother, with denim from a pair of jeans forming the sleeve for the puppeteer's arm.[16]
Though Henson told people that "Muppet" was aportmanteau of "marionette" and "Puppet",[17] many early Muppets were actuallyhand puppets,rod puppets, or some combination of the two. Direct control over the puppet's mouth, in combination with the softer construction materials, allowed the puppeteer to express a wider range of emotions and to more accurately move the puppet's mouth along with the character's dialogue or while lip syncing to music. Commenting on his puppet design philosophy, Henson said,
"A lot of people build very stiff puppets—you can barely move the things—and you can get very little expression out of a character that you can barely move. Your hand has a lot of flexibility to it, and what you want to do is to build a puppet that can reflect all that flexibility."[18]
Sam and Friends was a financial success, but Henson began to have doubts about going into a career performing with puppets once he graduated. He spent six weeks in Europe during the summer of 1958, originally with the intent to study painting, but was surprised to learn that puppets were considered just as serious of an art form as painting or sculpture. After returning to the United States he and Jane made their partnership official, creating Muppets, Inc. in November of that same year,[19] then marrying each other in 1959.[20]
Henson spent much of the next two decades working in commercials, talk shows, and children's projects before realizing his dream of the Muppets as "entertainment for everybody".[5] The popularity of his work onSam and Friends in the late 1950s led to a series of guest appearances on network talk and variety shows. He appeared as a guest on many shows, includingThe Steve Allen Show,The Jack Paar Program, andThe Ed Sullivan Show. (Sullivan introduced him as "Jim Newsom and his Puppets" on September 11, 1966.) These television broadcasts greatly increased his exposure, leading to hundreds of commercial appearances by Henson characters throughout the 1960s.[21]
Among the most popular of Henson's commercials was a series for the local Wilkins Coffee company inWashington, D.C., created for a campaign managed by advertising managerHelen Ver Standig.[22] Most of the Wilkins advertisements followed a similar formula: two Muppets, in this case namedWilkins and Wontkins (usually both voiced by Henson), would appear. Wilkins would extol the product while Wontkins would express his hatred for it, prompting physical retaliation from Wilkins; Wontkins might be shot with a cannon, struck in the head with a hammer or baseball bat, or have a pie thrown in his face.[23] The Jim Henson Company has posted a short selection of them.[24] Henson later explained, "Till then, advertising agencies believed that the hard sell was the only way to get their message over on television. We took a very different approach. We tried to sell things by making people laugh."[21]
The first seven-second commercials for Wilkins were an immediate hit and were later remade for other local coffee companies throughout the United States, such asCommunity Coffee,Red Diamond Coffee, La Touraine Coffee,Nash's Coffee, and Jomar Instant coffee.[22] The characters were so successful in selling coffee that soon other companies began seeking them to promote their products, such as bakeries likeMerita Breads, service station chains such asStandard Oil of Ohio and thedownstreamassets ofMarathon Oil,[25] and beverage bottlers such asFaygo. Over 300 "Wilkins and Wontkins" commercials were made.[21] The ads were primarily produced in black and white, but some color examples also exist.
Henson sold the rights to Wilkins and Wontkins to the Wilkins Company, who allowed marketing executive John T. Brady to sell the rights to some toymakers and film studios. However, in July 1992 Brady was sued by Jim Henson Productions for unfair competition in addition to copyright and trademark infringement. The Henson company claimed that Brady was incorrectly using Henson's name and likeness in their attempts to license the characters.[26]
In 1963, Henson and his wife moved to New York City where the newly formedMuppets, Inc. resided for some time. Jane quit performing to raise their children, and Henson hired writerJerry Juhl in 1961 and puppet performerFrank Oz in 1963 to replace her.[27] Henson credited them both with developing much of the humor and character of his Muppets.[28] Henson and Oz developed a close friendship and a performing partnership that lasted until Henson's death; their teamwork is particularly evident in their portrayals ofBert and Ernie, Kermit andMiss Piggy, and Kermit andFozzie Bear.[29] In New York City, Henson formed a partnership withBernie Brillstein, who managed Henson's career until the puppeteer's death.[30] In the years that followed, more performers joined Henson's team, includingJerry Nelson,Richard Hunt,Dave Goelz,Steve Whitmire,Fran Brill, andKevin Clash. In 1964, he and his family moved toGreenwich, Connecticut, where they lived until 1971, when they moved toBedford, New York.[31]
3 commercials for McGarry's Sausages in 1964 featuring Kermit the Frog and Mack, following the typical snappy, wordplay-based violent format of a Wilkins & Wontkins commercial
Henson's talk show appearances culminated when he devisedRowlf, a piano-playing anthropomorphic dog that became the first Muppet to make regular appearances onThe Jimmy Dean Show. Henson was so grateful for this break that he offeredJimmy Dean a 40-percent interest in his production company, but Dean declined, stating that Henson deserved all the rewards for his own work, a decision of conscience that Dean never regretted.[32] From 1963 to 1966, Henson began exploring filmmaking and produced a series of experimental films.[33][34] His nine-minute experimental filmTime Piece was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1965. He producedThe Cube in 1969. Around this time, he wrote the first drafts of a live-action movie script with Jerry Juhl which becameTale of Sand. The script remained in the Henson Company archives until it was adapted in the 2012 graphic novelJim Henson's Tale of Sand.[35]
During this time, Henson continued to work with various companies who sought out his Muppets for advertising purposes. Among his clients wereWilson Meats,Royal Crown Cola, Claussen's Bread,La Choy, andFrito-Lay, which featured an early version of his character Cookie Monster to promote theirMunchos line of potato snacks. Like the Wilkins Coffee ads of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the formula stayed fairly similar. For instance, one of the Claussen's commercials featured Kermit the Frog dangling from a window while a character named Mack asks him if he brought a loaf of the company's bread; when Kermit says he did not, Mack closes the window on Kermit's fingers and causes him to fall, suggesting he "drop down" to the grocery store to buy a loaf.
In 1969, television producerJoan Ganz Cooney and her staff at theChildren's Television Workshop were impressed by the quality and creativity of the Henson-led team, so they asked Henson and staff to work full-time onSesame Street, a children's program for public television that premiered onNational Educational Television on November 10, 1969. Part of the show was set aside for a series of funny, colorful puppet characters living on Sesame Street, includingGrover,Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie,Oscar the Grouch, andBig Bird. Henson performed the characters of Ernie, game-show hostGuy Smiley, and Kermit, who appeared as a roving television news reporter.
Henson's Muppets initially appeared separately from the realistic segments on the Street, but the show was revamped to integrate the two segments, placing much greater emphasis on Henson's work. Cooney frequently praised Henson's work, and PBS called him "the spark that ignited our fledgling broadcast service."[5] The success ofSesame Street also allowed him to stop producing commercials, and he said that "it was a pleasure to get out of that world".[22]
Henson was also involved in producing various shows and animation inserts during the first two seasons. He produced a series of counting films for the numbers 1 through 10 which always ended with a baker (voiced by Henson) falling down the stairs while carrying the featured number of desserts. He also worked on a variety of inserts for the numbers 2 through 12, including the films "Dollhouse"; "Number Three Ball Film"; the stop-motions "King of Eight" and "Queen of Six"; the cut-out animation "Eleven Cheer"; and the film "Nobody Counts To 10." He also directed the original "C Is for Cookie" andTales from Muppetland, a short series of TV movie specials that were comic retellings of classic fairy tales aimed at a young audience and hosted by Kermit the Frog. The series includedHey, Cinderella!,The Frog Prince, andThe Muppet Musicians of Bremen.[36]
Henson, Oz, and his team were concerned that the company was becoming typecast solely as purveyors of children's entertainment, so they targeted an adult audience with a series of sketches on the first season of the late-night live television variety showSaturday Night Live. ElevenLand of Gorch sketches were aired between October 1975 and January 1976 onNBC, with four additional appearances in March, April, May, and September 1976. Henson likedLorne Michaels' work and wanted to be a part of it, but he ultimately concluded that "what we were trying to do and what his writers could write for it never gelled".[22] TheSNL writers were not comfortable writing for the characters, and they frequently disparaged Henson's creations.Michael O'Donoghue quipped, "I won't write for felt."[37]
Henson began developing a Broadway show and a weekly television series both featuring the Muppets.[22] The American networks rejected the series in 1976, believing that Muppets would appeal only to a child audience. Then, Henson pitched the show to British impresarioLew Grade to finance the show. The show would be shot in the United Kingdom and syndicated worldwide.[38] That same year, he scrapped plans for his Broadway show and moved his creative team to England, whereThe Muppet Show began taping atATV Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire.[39] The show featured Kermit as host, with a variety of prominent characters, notablyMiss Piggy,Gonzo the Great, andFozzie Bear, in addition to its large cast of supporting characters such as the Muppet musiciansDr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem with their chaotic drummerAnimal. Henson's teammates sometimes compared his role to that of Kermit: a shy, gentle boss with "a whim of steel"[29] who ran things like "an explosion in a mattress factory."[40]Caroll Spinney, who performed as Big Bird, remembered that Henson would never say he did not like something. "He would just go 'Hmm.' ... And if he liked it, he would say, 'Lovely!'"[4] Henson recognized Kermit as an alter ego, though he thought that Kermit was bolder than he; Henson once said of the character: "He can say things I hold back."[41]
The Muppets appeared in their first theatrical feature filmThe Muppet Movie in 1979. It was both a critical and financial success;[42] it made $65.2 million domestically and was the 61st highest-grossing film at the time.[43] Henson's idolEdgar Bergen died at age 75 during production of the film, and Henson dedicated it to his memory. Henson as Kermit sang "Rainbow Connection", and it hit number 25 on theBillboard Hot 100 and was nominated for anAcademy Award forBest Original Song. The Henson-directedThe Great Muppet Caper (1981) followed, and Henson decided to endThe Muppet Show to concentrate on making films,[3] though the Muppet characters continued to appear in television movies and specials.[44]
Henson also aided others in their work. During development onThe Empire Strikes Back (1980),George Lucas asked him to aid make-up artistStuart Freeborn in the creation and articulation ofYoda. Lucas had also wanted Henson to puppeteer the character, but Henson instead suggested Frank Oz for the role;[45] Oz performed the role and continued in the subsequentStar Wars films. Lucas lobbied unsuccessfully to have Oz nominated for an Academy Award forBest Supporting Actor.[46]
In 1982, Henson founded theJim Henson Foundation to promote and develop the art of puppetry in the United States. Around that time, he began creating darker and more realistic fantasy films that did not feature the Muppets and displayed "a growing, brooding interest in mortality."[29] He co-directedThe Dark Crystal (1982) with Oz, "trying to go toward a sense of realism—toward a reality of creatures that are actually alive".[22] To provide a visual style distinct from the Muppets, the puppets inThe Dark Crystal were based on conceptual artwork byBrian Froud,[47] and it was a critical success, winning several industry awards including theSaturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and the Grand Prize Winner at theAvoriaz Fantastic Film Festival.[48] The film was less financially successful in theaters, but later claimed an enormous following and revenue when it was introduced on VHS for home entertainment.[49] Also in 1982, Henson co-foundedHenson International Television withPeter Orton andSophie Turner Laing as his partners. The company was a distribution company for children's, teens' and family television.[50]
Henson worked with Oz again onThe Muppets Take Manhattan (1984), this time with Oz as sole director.[51] The film grossed $25.5 million domestically[52] of a budget of only around $8 million,[53] and ranked as one of the top 40 films of 1984.[54]
Labyrinth (1986) was a fantasy that Henson directed by himself, but—despite some positive reviews;The New York Times called it "a fabulous film"—it was a commercial disappointment.[55] This demoralized Henson; his sonBrian Henson described it as "the closest I've seen him to turning in on himself and getting quite depressed."[29] The film later became a cult classic.[56]
In 1984 Henson traveled to Moscow, where he made a film aboutSergei Obraztsov.[57] Henson also donated four dolls to the puppeteer to replenish the Moscow Museum of Obraztsov Puppets: Fraggle, Skeksi, Bugard, and Robin the Frog. Of the show's guests, the Henson Archivist points out that Jim Henson placed a special importance on meeting Obraztsov: "As a teenager learning to make puppets, Jim checked out some books from the public library for instruction – one was Obraztsov’s 1950 book,My Profession"[58][59][60]
Henson continued creating children's television, such asFraggle Rock and the animatedMuppet Babies. He also continued to address darker, more mature themes with the folklore and mythology-oriented showThe Storyteller (1988), which won an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program. The next year, he returned to television withThe Jim Henson Hour, which mixed lighthearted Muppet fare with more risqué material. It was critically well-received and won him anotherEmmy for Outstanding Directing in a Variety or Music Program, but it was canceled after 12 episodes due to poor ratings. Henson blamed its failure on NBC's constant rescheduling.[61]
In late 1989, Henson entered into negotiations to sell his company and characters (excluding those fromSesame Street) toThe Walt Disney Company for almost $150 million, hoping that he would "be able to spend a lot more of my time on the creative side of things" with Disney handling business matters.[61] By 1990, he had completed production on the television specialThe Muppets at Walt Disney World and theDisney-MGM Studios attractionMuppet*Vision 3D and he was developing film ideas and a television series entitledMuppet High.[4]
Henson and fellow puppeteerJane Nebel were married on May 28, 1959, in a small ceremony at Jane's family home.[62] They had five children:Lisa (born 1960),Cheryl (born 1961),Brian (born 1963),John (1965–2014),[63] andHeather Henson (born 1970).[64] Henson and his wife legally separated in 1986, but never divorced. While he had a few short relationships with other women, he remained close to Jane for the rest of his life.[65] Jane said that Henson was so involved with his work that he had very little time to spend with her or their children.[65] His children began working with Muppets at an early age, partly because "one of the best ways of being around [Jim] was to work with him", according to Cheryl.[14][66]
Henson took an interest in theSeth Material byJane Roberts, a series of mystical-philosophical documents which Roberts claimed to have received via supernatural means. Brian Jay Jones reports inJim Henson, the Biography, 2016, page 209: "...on July 30 [1974], [Henson] drove toElmira, New York, to pay his respects to Roberts and her husband. 'I find this inspired material very beautiful,' Jimsaid of the Seth Material. 'It puts everything into a harmonious totality that I just love.'"
Henson appeared with Kermit onThe Arsenio Hall Show in Los Angeles on May 4, 1990. This was his final television appearance. Shortly afterwards, he privately disclosed to his publicist that he was tired and had a sore throat, but he believed it was a minor illness. On May 12, Henson traveled toAhoskie, North Carolina, with his daughter Cheryl to visit his father and stepmother. They returned to their home in New York City the following day, and Henson cancelled a Muppet recording session that had been scheduled for May 14, 1990, due to his ill health.[4] His wife came to visit that night.
Henson was having trouble breathing when he woke up at around 2:00 a.m. EDT on May 15, and he began coughing up blood. He suggested to his wife that he might be dying, but he did not want to take time off from his schedule to visit a hospital for his illness, feeling that it would resolve on its own.[68] Two hours later, Henson agreed to be taken by taxi to the emergency room atNewYork-Presbyterian Hospital inManhattan. Shortly after admission, he stopped breathing and was rushed into the intensive care unit. X-ray images of his chest revealed multipleabscesses in both of his lungs as a result of a previousstreptococcal pharyngitis he had apparently had for the past few days. Henson was placed on a ventilator but quickly deteriorated over the next several hours despite increasingly aggressive treatment with multiple antibiotics. Although the medicine killed off most of the infection, it had already weakened many of Henson's organs, and he died at 1:21 a.m. the following day. He was 53 years old.[69]
David Gelmont, the hospital's intensive care unit director, announced that Henson had died fromStreptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterium that causesbacterial pneumonia.[5] However, on May 29, Gelmont reclassified it as organ dysfunction resulting from streptococcaltoxic shock syndrome caused byStreptococcus pyogenes.[70][71] Gelmont noted Henson might have been saved had he gone to the hospital just a few hours sooner.[72]
Medicine reporter Lawrence D. Altman ofThe New York Times also stated that Henson's death "may have shocked many Americans who believed that bacterial infections no longer could kill with such swiftness."[70] A lack of common familiarity with fast-developing bacterial infections, combined with the recentAIDS-related deaths of several prominent men (includingRock Hudson,Liberace, andRoy Cohn), led to a false but widespread rumor that Henson had died of AIDS. This rumor was swiftly and directly refuted by Gelmont.[73] Frank Oz believed the stress of negotiating with Disney contributed to Henson's death, stating in a 2021 interview: "The Disney deal is probably what killed Jim. It made him sick."[74] His remains were cremated, and in 1992, his ashes were scattered nearTaos, New Mexico.[75]
News of Henson's death spread quickly and admirers of his work responded from around the world with tributes and condolences. Many of Henson's co-stars and directors fromSesame Street, the Muppets, and other works also shared their thoughts on his death. Numerous outlets covered his death alongside that ofSammy Davis Jr, who died the same day.[77][78] On May 21, 1990, Henson's public memorial service was conducted in Manhattan at theCathedral of St. John the Divine. Another was conducted on July 2, atSt Paul's Cathedral in London. At the former,Harry Belafonte sang "Turn the World Around", a song that he had debuted onThe Muppet Show, as each member of the congregation waved a brightly colored foam butterfly attached to a puppet performer's rod.[79][80] Later,Big Bird (performed byCaroll Spinney) walked onto the stage and sang Kermit's signature song "Bein' Green" while fighting back tears.[81]Dave Goelz, Frank Oz,Kevin Clash,Steve Whitmire,Jerry Nelson, andRichard Hunt sang a medley of Henson's favorite songs in their characters' voices, ending with a performance of "Just One Person" while performing their Muppets.[82]
In accordance with Henson's wishes, no one in attendance wore black, and theDirty Dozen Brass Band finished the service by performing "When the Saints Go Marching In". The funeral was described byLife as "an epic and almost unbearably moving event".[29]
The Jim Henson Company and theJim Henson Foundation continued after his death, producing new series and specials.Jim Henson's Creature Shop also continues to create characters and special effects for both Henson-related and outside projects.Steve Whitmire, who had joined the Muppets cast in 1978, began performing Kermit the Frog six months after Henson's death.[83] He was dismissed from the cast in October 2016, andMatt Vogel succeeded him in the role of Kermit.[84]
The Children's Television Workshop was renamedSesame Workshop, which retained theSesame Street characters in 2000.[85] On February 17, 2004, the Muppets and theBear in the Big Blue House properties were sold to Disney.[86][87][88]
One of Henson's last projects was the attractionMuppet*Vision 3D, which opened atDisney's Hollywood Studios on May 16, 1991, exactly one year after his death. Muppet*Vision 3D at Disney's Hollywood Studios closed to guests on June 8, 2025. However, Disney cast members were given the opportunity to view the show a final time on June 10.[89]
The Jim Henson Company retains the Creature Shop as well as the rest of its film and television library, includingFraggle Rock,Farscape,The Dark Crystal, andLabyrinth.[90]Brian Jay Jones wrote the bookJim Henson: The Biography. It was released on what would have been Henson's 77th birthday, September 24, 2013.[91]
The moving-image collection of Jim Henson, which contains the film work of Jim Henson and The Jim Henson Company,[92] is held at theAcademy Film Archive.
In 2019, theYouTube channelDefunctland released a six-part miniseries on the life and legacy of Jim Henson.[93]
In March 2022, it was announced thatRon Howard planned to direct a documentary on Henson's life, withBrian Grazer'sImagine Entertainment collaborating withDisney Original Documentary to produce it. The project was reported to have "the full participation and cooperation of the Henson family".[95] In April 2024, it was announced the documentary was titledJim Henson Idea Man. It began streaming onDisney+ on May 31, 2024.[96]
In 2024, Henson was portrayed byNicholas Braun in the biographicaldramedySaturday Night, which chronicles the production of the first episode ofSaturday Night Live.[97]
In 1971, the University of Maryland'sNational Residence Hall Honorary chapter was founded as the Jim Henson Chapter. The UMD NRHH Chapter is still the Jim Henson Chapter to this day. The Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library created an exhibit from 2019 to 2020 highlighting Jim Henson's time at the university.[103][104]
The Jim Henson Exhibit, located in Leland, Mississippi, features an assortment of original Muppet characters, official certificates from theMississippi Legislature honoring Henson and his characters, and a statue of Kermit in the middle of the stream behind the museum.[111]
The classes of 1994, 1998, and 1999 at theUniversity of Maryland, College Park, Henson's alma mater, commissioned a life-size statue of Henson and Kermit the Frog, which was dedicated on September 24, 2003, on what would have been Henson's 67th birthday. The statue cost $217,000 and is displayed outside Maryland'sstudent union.[114][115] In 2006, the University of Maryland introduced 50 statues of its school mascot, Testudo theTerrapin, with various designs chosen by different sponsoring groups. Among them was Kertle, a statue designed to look like Kermit the Frog by Washington, DC–based artist Elizabeth Baldwin.[116]
Our Atlan, Thibaut Berland, and Damien Ferrie wrote, directed, and animated a 3D tribute to Henson entitledOver Time that was shown as part of the 2005 Electronic Theater atSIGGRAPH.[118][119]
On September 24, 2011, which what would have been Henson's 75th birthday, Mississippi town Leland renamed a local bridge to "The Rainbow Connection" to honor Henson and his work.[122] He was also honored with aGoogle doodle to commemorate his 75th birthday; the Google logo had six Muppets that were clickable using the "hand" buttons.[123]
TheCenter for Puppetry Arts inAtlanta opened a gallery of Muppets exhibits within theWorlds of Puppetry exhibition at the Center in November 2015, a greatly scaled-down version of what was announced in 2007 to have been a wing honoring Henson.[124][125][126]
In July 2016,Hyattsville, Maryland installed a memorial to Jim Henson in the city's Magruder Park, featuring a large planter embossed with images of characters fromSam & Friends and benches inscribed with quotes from Henson.[127][128]
In 2018, theAmerican Banjo Museum inducted Henson into itshall of fame, for his positive portrayal of the banjo in his shows and inThe Muppet Movie.[142]
On September 7, 2021, a blue plaque was unveiled at Jim Henson's former Hampstead home, 50 Downshire Hill NW3[144] to honor his artistic creativity. Henson purchased his London home in 1979 after ITV commissioned the Muppet series, filmed at Elstree Studios.
An area outside Studio 6B at NBC'sRockefeller Center headquarters in New York City includes a set of pipes that Henson and his team of puppeteers had painted while waiting to perform onThe Jack Paar Show in 1964. While the artwork has been preserved over time – Henson showed it toGene Shalit onToday in 1980 and Paar tookDavid Letterman over to see it during an appearance onLate Night which taped across the hall – it wasn't untilJimmy Fallon, host of the studio's current tenantThe Tonight Show, brought it up that NBC officially made the pipes part of its studio tour. Frank Oz attended the ribbon-cutting for the exhibit in 2010.[145]
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