Picture from Elizabeth Street
I might have saved my blog about the new version of The Muppet Show until today if I had realised that today marks twenty five years since the death of Jim Henson. Most of this afternoon was spent on YouTube looking at some of his less well known works. If it wasn't for YouTube then a great deal of material, not just Henson's but an assortment of obscure interviews, radio shows, films, and sketches, would probably not have seen the light of day. It is a pity that such a service wasn't available when the BBC were busy wiping tapes to make room, thus ruining history by recording over Top of the Pops, Doctor Who and countless others.
To the layman who only knows about The Muppets, Sesame Street, and Fraggle Rock, it is worth looking into the early work and the development of characters that eventually became world famous such as this early version of Cookie Monster or what could be Kermit the Frog with a few adjustments. The most interesting find was a short film from 1965 called Time Piece, at just over eight minutes long it is a film that doesn't seem to go anywhere but you can't help watching just to make sure, a bit like the feeling that anyone who watched Christian Marclay's 24 hour long film The Clock will remember.
Jim Henson was lucky to live in an era where you could try anything once and be allowed to be creative. It has been reported recently that he never intended to make a full time career in the puppet business which makes me wonder what direction his work would have taken had he not died so young. Films such as Labyrinth and the later series The Storyteller moved him away from the light-hearted work that he had become known for. Part of me wishes I had never known this because it is obvious that The Muppets were treated as extended family and something he cared about, to think that he died unfulfilled creatively is another tragedy altogether (and something I am scared of happening to me). Once he had sold The Muppets to Disney he would have had the luxury of enough money to experiment just as he had all those years ago, and with technological advancements improving all the time there is no telling what he might have achieved.
No podcast this week.
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May housekeeping
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