20 Years Later, Remembering Jim Henson

It’s been 20 years since the world lost Jim Henson, and I still can’t think about it without tearing up a bit. His death at age 53 was sudden and catastrophic, like being hit by lightning on a cloudless day. Along with countless others around the world who had never met him, I felt like a close friend was gone.

Five of my fellow GeekDads and I have put together this article as a tribute to his memory. On the following pages are our thoughts on this anniversary of his passing, and at the end are videos from his memorial service in 1990, which are some of the saddest and most wonderful things you are ever likely to see. Please take a few minutes to read and watch, and then add your own tribute in the comments.

Photo by Jonathan Liu This is my now-six-year-old, back when she was about 2 1/2, at the Children’s Museum in Portland, Oregon. They were having a Sesame Street exhibit, and in one of the stations, kids could dress as a furry Muppet. There was also a bit with a blue screen behind a brick half-wall, so you could appear on the TV with various Muppets, just like other little kids from the show. My daughter at this point hadn’t watched much TV before, but she loved being on TV and it didn’t seem to bother her at all that there wasn’t an actual Muppet next to her.

I remember growing up with two Sesame Street books in particular: The Monster at the End of This Book (starring Grover) and Cookie Monster and the Cookie Tree. I managed to find copies of both books when my daughter was little, and I loved reading it to her and doing the voices. (I can manage a pretty good Grover and Cookie Monster, sometimes Ernie, and I get by on the rest.) More recently, when I was helping with an after-school program and trying to read books to second- and third-graders, I discovered one day that the only thing that got them to sit still and listen was when I read a book as Grover. They were immediately hooked.

— Jonathan Liu

When I think about Jim Henson, I think about my childhood, Muppets and his ’70s sense of style. I think about his voice, which he changed slightly (or more than slightly) for Kermit, Ernie, The Swedish Chef and others. I grew up watching Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, and later Fraggle Rock, so I knew Jim Henson’s work very well. We even had two Sesame Street records that we listened to until they were filled with skips. I still have them to this day.

As a grown-up, I bought some Sesame Street music on CD. Knowing that Jim Henson died far too early in life, the song “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon” never fails to bring me to tears. It is an interesting song, and doesn’t have particularly sad lyrics. But the music is so melancholic, and it is sung by Jim Henson, so it always makes me sad, but in a happy way. He left behind so much beautiful work, and he brought joy to so many millions of children. Fortunately, his company continues to do so.

Now that I have kids of my own, I’ve been delighted to share my love of Jim Henson’s work with them. We get The Muppet Show from Netflix, we watch Fraggle Rock on the DVDs I bought many years ago. But at the same time, the older I get, the more sad I get about Jim Henson’s death. I realize more and more just how much we have missed out on all these years, not having him with us to make more wonderful things. He was such a champion for kids’ television programming, and he created such wonderful worlds for us and our children. Thank you, Jim Henson. Your life touched mine, and countless others.

— Jenny Williams

I was born in 1976, the same year The Muppet Show premiered on CBS. It was a simpler time; we had no commercial internet, an almost obscene number of telephones were still rotary and television was limited in most areas to around a half-dozen measly channels. We Gen Xers prefer to paint this era as the golden age of children’s entertainment, but, as is often the case with nostalgia, we delude ourselves.

Still, Jim Henson’s Muppets were one of a few blessed exceptions. Whether they were teaching us about life (and death) on Sesame Street or dazzling us with parody skits in prime time, the Muppets truly connected with viewers. They spoke to us.

Every kid of my generation had a favorite. Some related to the good-natured but neurotic Kermit the Frog; others, the affable second banana Fozzie Bear, and even relatively underexposed characters like The Swedish Chef had their rabid fans. While I was (and remain) more of a Gonzo the Great kind of guy in real life, my Muppet of choice was understated wise-ass Rowlf the Dog.

Though Rowlf is likely remembered as the cast’s pianist and occasional soap opera star, his defining moment, for me at least, occurs in 1979’s The Muppet Movie.

Therein, this humble canine, cast as a player at a piano bar, sings a duet with Kermit entitled “I Hope That Somethin’ Better Comes Along.” It’s a simple scene meant to introduce Rowlf as a secondary character as much as it is to expound upon the romantic problems inherent in a frog-pig relationship, but it does so much more. It doesn’t merely paint Rowlf as a sympathetic ear for our green hero; it establishes him as a complex character with a strong (if slightly misogynistic) personal philosophy.

Performed and voiced by Henson himself, Rowlf disappeared from the land of Muppets after his master’s death, and, when he returned, was sadly silent. In recent years, he has once again began to speak and have an active role in that special brand of madness that only Muppets can create, but longtime fans realize that the Rowlf of old is truly no more.

Still, we make do with this new iteration. At least until somethin’ better comes along.

— Z

I’ve only got two words to say about Jim Henson. Actually, it’s one word repeated:

Mahnà Mahnà!

I remember when the episode was on TV back in the day, sitting with my younger sister giggling along beside me, as the two pink fluffy things and orange-haired dude ran through the number.

I remember the school playground the next day, everyone running around singing it — it’s not like the lyrics were hard to learn. I remember hearing the song on the radio a few weeks later and being so excited when I learned that you could buy a “record” and be able to play it whenever you liked. I hounded my parents non-stop until they brought it. I never knew then that it was originally from a film about “wild sexual activity and other behaviour in Sweden.” I remember watching The Muppet Show whenever it was on in the vague hope that the episode would be repeated, these were the dark ages before home video and multichannel cable or satellite.

Years later, when The Muppet Show was finally released on video and then DVD, I finally got to relive the experience. The “best of” DVD has been staple viewing for my little girl now since she was born. I’d much rather put it on for her to watch than Fifi or even Shaun the Sheep. And thanks to YouTube, we can pull it up at a moment’s notice if we’re away from the house.

Whenever we go on a car journey longer than 10 minutes, I always hear a request from the backseat for mahna, mahna, closely followed by, “you be the boy and I’ll be the girls” and then we sing a lovely duet as we go along, bobbing our heads — I dread to think what any onlookers might make it, but that doesn’t stop us. The MP3 is the most played track in my iTunes library and I can now sing along with the ad-lib stylings of the main man. And we even do the Statler and Waldorf skit on the end of the track, too.

So, thank you Jim Henson, for “Mahnà Mahnà,” “Put Da Lime in the Coconut” and all of the other great songs on the most sensational, celebrational, muppetational Muppet Show!

— Nathan Barry

The Dark Crystal was one of the first fantasy films I ever saw, and one that portrayed an alternate world — with unique creatures and flora and fauna — to a degree I never had imagined possible. I can still remember sitting on our plaid couch sometime in the mid-’80s, leaning over, hearing and watching the humming Mystics shamble across the screen, recoiling in horror at the Skeksis, and cheering for Jen and Kira the entire way. The film really affected me, it resonated deeply on an emotional level, and no matter how many times I watch it, I feel the same way. It simply moves me. What’s even more important is that it has all the perfect ingredients for children’s fantasy and never shies away from elements of horror and deeper philosophy.

That I’m a speculative fiction writer today is not surprising. Between Henson’s The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth (a good film, but not as great as The Dark Crystal, in my mind) I learned very early on just how powerful fantasy can be, just how remarkably it can remove us from the world we know and place us somewhere else — and I wanted in.

For his time, Henson’s vision was immense. We can harp on and on about special effects of today, but Henson was nothing short of genius, given what he had access to. And that’s not even to point out the sheer quality of his storytelling, his willingness to question our perceptions of good and evil — something that many blockbuster science fiction and fantasy films today can’t (and don’t) even touch.

— Natania Barron

The Muppets have been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up watching Sesame Street, and later The Muppet Show and the various movies and other series. I can’t imagine how different my life now would be without them, because I can only picture figurative holes in it shaped like Kermit, Ernie, Rowlf and the Swedish Chef.

I can’t even imagine what Jim Henson would have done if he’d grown up before television came along. The Muppets began as a TV show and sketches on variety shows, moved into commercials, and then of course blossomed into the phenomenon they still are today. Their staying power has been proved time and again, with their incredible cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody” taking the internet by storm.

I was 17 when I heard Jim Henson had died. It seemed impossible: He was Kermit, and Kermit was always there. He was only a few years older than my parents, so what kind of world was it where someone that young and that brilliant could die? I was, truly, as sad as I would have been if a friend had died suddenly, and felt the loss as keenly. I was angry, too, when I heard that he had died of untreated pneumonia, angry that he hadn’t gone to the doctor. Angry that the Muppets would never be the same.

I’m not angry any more, but the sadness is still there. I feel it every time I see — or, more accurately, hear — any of the characters he used to play. I don’t envy Steve Whitmire his job: How hard must it have been to pick up Kermit the first time after Henson’s death, put his hand inside the sleeve, and try to sound as much like Henson as possible? I’m glad that the Muppets, and Henson’s former characters, are still around. But they will never quite be the same.

— Matt Blum