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Jim Henson Bio
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Jim HensonMuppet mogul Jim Henson was born on Sep 24, 1936, in Greenville, Mississippi. When Henson was in high school his family moved to Maryland so that his father could pursue a career as a meteorologist. It was there that a teenage Jim was hired on to work for a Saturday morning children’s show. By the time he reached university, Jim was in charge of the puppets on the children’s show Sam and His Friends.
While working on Sam and His Friends, Henson developed the concept of the Muppet – a marionette/ puppet hybrid. In his early twenties, Henson fashioned his most popular Muppet, Kermit the Frog, from his mom's overcoat. Henson’s profile rose as more and more of his Muppet creations became stars in their own right, appearing on TV commercials, The Jack Paar Show, The Today Show, The Tonight Show, and The Jimmy Dean Show. More recently, Kermit and Miss Piggy have guest-starred on 60 Minutes, and Cookie Monster has appeared on Martha Stewart Living. As the Muppet cast expanded, assistants were required to provide them with voices, which were originally performed by just Henson and his partner, Frank Oz.
In 1969, the Muppets moved into the neighborhood on Sesame Street. At this time, a ruffled collar was added to Kermit’s neck to cover the joint which connected his neck and body. Although it seemed as though Henson had found the perfect niche market for his Muppet characters, he was leery of being typecast as strictly a children's entertainer. Reportedly, ABC neglected to pick up the The Muppet Show in 1975 for this reason. The show went into syndication, becoming one of the most successful non-network programs in television history.
In 1979, Henson released the highly-profitable Muppet Movie, starring inter-species couple Kermit and Miss Piggy. The decade that followed would see Henson creating a string of profitable films beloved by both children and adults. In addition to the 1981 movie The Great Muppet Caper, he also made the characters for The Dark Crystal in 1982, and created creatures based on conceptual artwork by Brian Froud for Labyrinth in 1986, starring David Bowie as a goblin king.
In 1984, Henson teamed up with Marvel Studios to produce the Emmy-award winning Saturday morning cartoon series Muppet Babies. Towards the end of the 80s, Henson worked on developing creature characters for other producers’ films, such as the mega-marketed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990). That same year, Henson had positioned his Muppet conglomerate to sell it to Disney Studios. However, he was suddenly stricken with pneumonia, which claimed his life at the age of fifty-three.
Henson’s legacy was honored with a special memorial service which turned into an elaborate production itself. The service featured Kermit the Frog singing with an orchestra of over fifty puppets and a special appearance by Big Bird.
In 2004, the Muppets were eventually sold by Henson’s son, Brian Henson, to The Walt Disney Company. The Jim Henson Company retained its film and television library including Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. The company also retains Jim Henson's Creature Shop, which has most recently built puppets for sci-fi series Farscape (1999-2003) and the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 2005. YUDDY |
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Yuddy top celebrities
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