There was a man, whose birthday is today. He would of been 77 years old if he was still alive. Though he only lived a short 53 years, and died 9 days before my 5th birthday, he's left an indelible mark on my heart, mind, and soul. That man is Jim Henson. Jim is the name in puppeteering and has been for the past 50+ years. This is what Jim Henson means to me.
I grew up, like most people my age, on Sesame Street. I grew up watching a giant menagerie of diversity, engulfed in the magic of talking animals and acceptance. That was my introduction into puppets and puppeteering. Though I didn't realize how impactful Sesame Street would be in my life at the time, I did want to know how it all worked. My dad was the first to foster a love for the felt personas that inhabited my childhood by taping everything muppet related he could for me but my mom took it to the next level, buying me my first puppet.
I would sit with my puppet and make little sketches that I would perform in front of my brother to make him laugh. I emulate the master puppeteers on The Muppet Show, which was in syndication at that time. I would focus on weird voices, which all came out the same as a kid. Then something beyond horrible happened. I grew up.
At least I thought I was growing up. On retrospect, I was putting "childish" things to the side and focusing on becoming a teenager. I put my puppet fantasies on a shelf and got heavily into animation and comics. I would watch cartoons that seemed to deal with "adult" subject matter that I now realize was just as childish as the puppets I put away. I would catch shows that's siblings would watch, like bear in the big blue house and old episodes of fraggle rock but there was no magic there. I was extremely wrong. I was about 12 years old when I caught an old show starring Jim Henson, where he took apart his creations and really talked about them in great detail. In this hour long show I learned more about film making and puppeteering than the years at film school. Though I don't remember the name of the special, I do remember just about everything I learned.
My teenage years got significantly harder around age 14. My mom took my siblings and left me with my dad. To fill the void I picked up drama and starred in my middle school productions of Babes in Toyland and Peter Pan. But occupying my time in theater wasn't enough so when I got to high school I got into pot and booze. The rest of my time in high school when I cleaned up a bit was spent with the drama geeks ( mostly the techies and stagehands) I finally found people who understood the technology of the arts I loved so much. People I could talk to about puppets and have real conversations with.
My dad unfortunately had a choice at this point. Either quit his job or move to Arizona. This was pretty much the beginning of the Internet the way it is now and I was able to devote time to researching everything from playing guitar to understanding YouTube. I rediscovered Jim and wondered why I hadn't thought about bring puppets back. I watched as much muppet based material as I could looking for any way to recreate the magic.
Since then, I've written more and stylized my writing a bit from what I saw from Jim. A lot of people think that because he showed the blueprints to the illusion, that he some how ruined the magic he created. I tend to think a different way. I believe that he made the magic obtainable. But what do I know? I'm just a big almost 30 year old who is very thankful to a man who passed away 23 years ago.
-Ted
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