Jim Henson: The Biography (85 page)

1
a log cabin near Beaver, Utah
The Encyclopedia of Television
, 2nd ed., ed. Horace Newcomb (New York: Museum of Broadcast Communications, 2004), 854–55.

2
while tilling a potato field
Neil Postman, “Philo Farnsworth,”
The Time 100: Scientists and Thinkers
, March 29, 1999.

3
“There you are”
Ibid. See also
The Encyclopedia of Television
, 854.

4
prohibited his own family
“Biography of Philo T. Farnsworth,” The Philo T. and Elma G. Farnsworth Papers, University of Utah, Marriott Library, Special Collections.

5
“the simultaneity of television”
Settel, 53.

6
“I loved the idea”
WAMI
, 4–5. See also JH Quotes.

7
the boxy Admiral
For typical newspaper advertisements for televisions in 1950, see display ads in
The Washington Post
, September 1, 1950.

8
“I badgered my family”
WAMI
, 4. Emphasis in original. There are some differences of opinion as to exactly when the Henson family purchased its first television. Alison Inches speculates it may have been 1949 (see Inches, 14), while others suggest 1950. For purposes of this chapter, I have deferred to the timeline provided by Jane Henson for the program for the September 26, 2006, presentation at the University of Maryland,
Jim Henson: Creativity and Other Inspirational Stuff / Jane and Friends: The College Park Legacy—A Casual Conversation with Jane Henson
, which sets the date at 1950.

9
There were four television channels
Federal Communications Commission, “History of Communications,”
http://www.fcc.gov/omd/history/tv/1880-1929.html
.

10
more time watching TV
WAMI
, 4.

11
“I immediately wanted to work in television”
Ibid., 5.

12
Ernie Kovacs
Jim’s enthusiasm for Kovacs is described in ibid., 4.

13
“I don’t think I ever saw”
JH, interviewed by Judy Harris, “Jim Henson,”
http://users.bestweb.net/~foosie/henson.htm
. This is hereafter cited as Harris.

14
In March of that year
Christian Science Monitor
, March 17, 1950, B13.

15
“Walt Kelly put together a team of characters”
Gerald Volgenau, “Henson’s Offstage Voice Surprises Muppet Family Christmas Visitor,” Knight-Ridder News Service, December 16, 1987.

16
Paul to the University of Maryland
“Naval Officers Killed in Crash,”
Evening Star
(Washington, D.C.), April 16, 1956. Paul would also briefly attend Principia College before transferring back to Maryland.

17
“He always wanted to fly”
Tommy Baggette interview.

18
“I hit a bad lob”
Joe Irwin interview.

19
based on Jim’s beloved Pogo
Bob Payne interview.

20
“When I was old enough”
WAMI
, 7.

21
“You’re not fooling anyone”
Thomas C. Reeves,
The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy
(Lanham, Maryland: Madison, 1997), 635.

22
little trouble getting dates
Joe Irwin interview.

23
he pleaded with his mother
Jane Henson interview.

24
“I would have a nice little proper date”
Joe Irwin interview.

25
“youngsters twelve to fourteen”
See
Evening Star
(Washington, D.C.), May 13, 1954.

26
“When I was a kid”
WAMI
, 8–9.

27
a small, skinny hand puppet
Ibid., 8. Jim later added as an afterthought that he might also have built “a couple of birds.”

28
“Three of the program’s participants”
Harry MacArthur, “On the Air,”
Evening Star
(Washington, D.C.), June 25, 1954.

29
Meachum even landed
Roy Meachum, August 26, 2003, post on
kidshow.dcmemories.com
: “Jim Henson, Jane [
sic
] and Russ were hired to cover records on
Saturday
, the show’s name. It ran from March through August.
Saturday
was a spinoff to
Roy Meachum in the Morning
. That show ran from June 1953 to March 1954.”

30
“It was interesting”
WAMI
, 8–9.

31
his performance had caught the eye
Jim’s move from WTOP to WRC involves a bit of detective work, intuition, and supposition, as nearly all accounts differ. According to one story, Roy Meachum phoned Kovach to recommend Jim. (See Chuck Knight, “Sam and Friends,”
Old Line
, May 1958, 25.) That differs slightly from the version Michael Davis reports in
Street Gang
, 75–78, in which Kovach—during his unsuccessful recruitment of Meachum—spotted Jim at
Junior Morning Show
and then later recruited him to join the cast of
Afternoon
. Given that
Junior Morning Show
only lasted three episodes—and that Meachum immediately hosted another show on which Jim worked—it seems likely that Kovach approached Meachum during his run on
Saturday
. From there, it follows that he brought Jim to WRC to do other work first, before finally inserting him into the
Afternoon
cast. That version of events more consistently aligns
with Jim’s own recollections that he went to WRC and began working on “these little local shows” before finally landing
Afternoon
. It also fills in a roughly seven-month gap in the story reported by Davis—the time in which Jim, by his own admission, worked alone. This information is further supported by
Jim Henson—the Early Years on WTOP and WRC
(K. Falk JHCA 2010).

32
put through a brief audition
WAMI
, 15.

33
“I took the puppets over to NBC”
Ibid., 9.

34
stammer and giggle
Jane Henson interview.

35
“The three of us had lunch”
J. Pendleton Campbell,
On the Edge of Greatness (But No Cigar): An Autobiography of Radio and Television Performer Joe Campbell
(Xlibris, 2003), quoted in an email from Bob Bell to Karen Falk, “New Revelations: Jim Henson and Circle 4 Ranch” (JHCA).

36
work solo for the next eight months
Ursula Keller, “ ‘Muppets’ Win Way,”
Christian Science Monitor
, December 15, 1959, 14.

37
“I was very interested in theatre”
Harris.

38
University Theaters’ publicity director
Knight, “Sam and Friends.”

39
designed and printed posters
Harris; interview with Anne Turkos, archivist, University of Maryland.

40
“My first year”
Harris.

41
“[My] puppetry teacher said”
Ibid.

42
Jane Nebel
Description of her family and quotes are from Jane Henson interview.

43
“Back in those days”
Harris.

44
“They would have a cooking segment”
WAMI
, 15.

45
2:15
P
.M
. “TV Highlights,”
Washington Post and Times-Herald
, March 7, 1955, 35.

46
“51% ownership of muppetts [
sic
]”
See “Jim Henson—The Early Years on WTOP and WRC” (K. Falk JHCA 2010).

47
“It was really just a term”
Harris.

48
“As I try to zero in”
Being Green
, 25.

49
“just by sitting down”
Lawrence Laurent, “The Straight Man Totes the Load,”
Washington Post and Times-Herald
, May 15, 1955.

50
“integrated chaos”
Ibid.

51
“The work I did in those days”
Harris.

52
“in his stumbling unsure way”
Lawrence Laurent, “They Call It Plain Old ‘Muppetmania,’ ”
Washington Post
, October 23, 1977.

53
“Jim Henson was a very nice young guy”
Jim Naughton, “Jim Henson and Friends: Where It All Began,”
Washington Post
, May 17, 1990.

54
“The kid is positively a genius”
Laurent, “The Straight Man Totes the Load.”

55
“to do spots for children”
WAMI
, 15.

56
“We very often would take a song”
St. Pierre, 37.

57
“I guess it had a quality of abandon”
WAMI
, 15.

58
“falling down”
Naughton, “Jim Henson and Friends: Where It All Began.”

59
“Those kids knocked us all out”
Ibid.

60
a prime piece of TV real estate
While it is usually reported that Jim received
the pre–
Huntley-Brinkley
6:25
P
.
M
.
slot concurrently with the 11:25
P
.
M
. one, that cannot be the case, as
Huntley-Brinkley
would not debut until October 29, 1956—seventeen months after the debut of
Sam and Friends
. And once it did appear, it aired at 7:45
P
.
M
.
While Jim would soon receive an early news hour slot, it was initially as part of the
Footlight Theatre
lineup. There would be quite of bit of tinkering with the WRC schedule before Jim finally landed both the pre
–Huntley-Brinkley
spot and the pre
-Tonight
show slot. See the next chapter for more details.

61
“A choice time slot”
WAMI
, 15.

1
“Harkness; Wthr. Sports; Muppets”
“Monday TV Programs,”
Washington Post and Times-Herald
, May 8, 1955.

2
“I made him originally”
Phil Geraci, “Sam’s Best Friend,”
Sunday Star Magazine
(Washington, D.C.), December 8, 1957.

3
“are actually within him, within Sam”
Jane Henson interview.

4
slowly dying of heart failure
JH audio interviews.

5
“Kermit started out as a way of building”
WAMI
, 19–21.

6
“milky turquoise,” “I didn’t call him a frog”
Harris.

7
“Those abstract characters”
Ibid.

8
similar to a habit Burr Tillstrom
A May 23, 1949, feature in
Life
contains a photograph of Tillstrom watching his performance on a television monitor, with the rather tangled caption, “To watch operation, Tillstrom uses backstage TV screen on which he sees how puppets look to camera.”

9
“you can actually see what you are doing”
Donna Hudgins, “The Ancient Art of Puppetry … Hidden Hands That Teach,”
Fifteenth Dimension
, January 1970.

10
“You’d perform but you’d also be the audience”
Jane Henson interview.

11
“After you go through working”
Harris.

12
“What Jim came to love”
Jane Henson interview.

13
“Many of the things I’ve done”
Being Green
, 54.

14
“Burr Tillstrom and the Bairds”
Eleanor Blau, “Jim Henson, Puppeteer, Dies; The Muppets’ Creator Was 53,”
New York Times
, May 17, 1990.

15
“We pretty much had a form”
Harris.

16
“Very early on”
JH Quotes.

17
“[They were] puppets that didn’t look like puppets”
JJ, archival interview (Henson Family Properties).

18
“the most brilliant newcomer”
Bernie Harrison, “On the Air: Gobel Persuades Chicago Buddy to Try TV Again,”
Sunday Star
(Washingon, D.C.), July 3, 1955.

19
“It was so short”
Layne Mandell Bergin, quoted by Bob Bell,
http://kidshow.dcmemories.com/sam4.html
.

20
by his own count
Geraci, “Sam’s Best Friend.”

21
“a way that one”
Inches, 27.

22
“like catching flies”
Jane Henson interview.

23
It had taken Paul
“Naval Officers Killed in Crash,”
Evening Star
(Washington, D.C.), April 16, 1956.

24
“When I first started working”
Harris.

25
“I was a kid”
Ibid.

26
“He had a warm glow”
Amy Aldrich, “The Muppets Take Disney World.” Originally slated to appear in the March 1990 issue of the University of Maryland’s
Inquiry
magazine, neither the magazine nor the article was ever published. The article may be found at
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/images/Henson/Articles/InquiryArticle.html
.

27
“All the time I was in school”
St. Pierre, 41.

28
“I had assumed at that point”
JH, the American Film Institute Elton H. Rule Lecture Series in Telecommunications, seminar with Jim Henson, May 6, 1986 (JHCA 7974).

29
angry phone calls and letters
Bernie Harrison, “On the Air: WRC Lifts Whammy on Our Sammy,”
Evening Star
(Washington, D.C.), August 31, 1955.

30
“Don’t be too grateful”
See the collection of
Sam and Friends–
related clips (JHCA
Sam and Friends
folder).

31
WRC bounced its newscast
See the daily TV listings in
The Washington Post
for May 1955 through May 1956.

32
The car veered off the road
“Naval Officers Killed in Crash.” See also “Ensign Dies in Crash,”
Washington Post and Times-Herald
, April 16, 1956.

33
After receiving the phone call
Jane Henson interview.

34
“never got over”
Arthur Novell interview.

35
“The way of carrying on would be to keep a smile on your face,” “good company,” “He shared so much”
LH interview.

36
“When his brother died”
FO interview.

37
“His intention of working”
Jane Henson interview.

38
“a rightness”
Ibid. “Boy, no matter what I say it’s going to be wrong,” said Jane Henson, trying to describe Jim’s religious views. “It’s sort of like, however things went, that was right.”

39
“I believe that we form our own lives”
JH, “The Courage of My Convictions.”

40
“that whole Footlight Theatre was
so
contrived”
Jane Henson interview.

41
pirate named Omar
See “Man of Many Voices” promo for WRC, circa 1956 (JHCA).

42
“He just drove it home”
JH audio interviews.

43
“After all”
WAMI
, 21.

44
“He posed himself beside these signs”
Joe Irwin interview.

45
“Producers got in touch”
Jane Henson interview.

46
“Producers were impressed”
See
Sam and Friends
–related clips (JHCA
Sam and Friends
folder).

47
“This could be their big break”
Evening Star
, circa September 1956 (JHCA
Sam and Friends
folder).

48
“There were times”
Harris.

49
That didn’t make his schedule less hectic
Jane described a typical day to Katharine Elson, “For Jane and Jim, Muppets Set a Merry Pace,”
Washington Post and Times-Herald
, February 17, 1957. Geraci, “Sam’s Best Friend,” also describes a typical daily schedule for Jim.

50
it was his intention
Geraci, “Sam’s Best Friend.”

51
“In his spare time”
WAMI
, 18.

52
“At that time”
JH Quotes.

53
“The atmosphere in the studio”
Jane Henson interview.

54
“We’d use a lot of records”
Jane Henson, remarks at MuppetFest 2001.

55
“I think we were working”
Ibid.

56
“I take it all back”
Stan Freberg to JH, telegram, 1957 (JHCA SF 8928).

57
“who has a knack”
“New Lineup at WMAL,”
Sunday Star
(Washington, D.C.), August 18, 1957.

58
“In the early days of the Muppets”
St. Pierre, 40.

59
“We’d try some really way-out things”
J. Y. Smith, “Jim Henson, Creator of Muppets, Dies at 53,”
Washington Post
, May 17, 1990.

60
“I remember one strange thing”
JH Quotes.

61
“I was convinced”
Smith, “Jim Henson, Creator of Muppets, Dies at 53.”

62
“We have so few local shows”
“Televue Mailbag,”
Sunday Star
(Washington, D.C.), September 22, 1957.

63
“This is one case where I’m certain”
Ibid.

64
The Huntley-Brinkley Report
Barbara Matusow,
The Evening Stars: The Making of the Network News Anchor
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983), 69–73.

65
“We got the
Huntley-Brinkley
audience”
Jane Henson, remarks at MuppetFest 2001.

66
“very shy, a retiring sort of person”
Naughton, “Jim Henson and Friends: Where It All Began.”

67
Jane designed most of her own clothes
Elson, “For Jane and Jim, Muppets Set a Merry Pace.”

68
“Why are you having
your
picture taken with all
my
puppets?”
Jane Henson interview.

69
Jim would usually slouch way down
Ibid.

70
involved with other people
Ibid. Jane’s relationship is also mentioned in Elson, “For Jane and Jim, Muppets Set a Merry Pace,” while Jim’s engagement can be found in “Engagement Announcements,”
Washington Post and Times-Herald
, December 22, 1957.

71
“a cheerleader type”
Jane Henson interview.