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{{creator}}
[[File:Jim-Henson-Muppets-725792.jpg|frame|How come when he makes up imaginary friends it's cool, but when I do it...]]
In 1955, WRC-TV, a Washington DC television station, began airing a short five minute puppet show named ''[[Sam and Friends]]''. In addition to the manic title character and a skull-like omnivorous creature named Yorrick, it featured a lizard like creature made from an old green sweater and a pair of ping pong balls named Kermit. This was the humble beginning for both Kermit, who would eventually be refined in his design into a frog with a collar, and his creator and performer, '''Jim Henson'''.
Kermit, Sam and the other primitive creations of this show were the first [[The Muppets|Muppets]], and ''Sam and Friends'', as well as the concurrently produced commercials for Wilkins coffee, set a new standard for puppetry. Henson's techniques of setting the camera's point of view right at puppet level rather than using a traditional puppet show stage, and using a TV monitor so a puppeteer could see his own performance, were the first in a series of innovations he and the team of talented men and women who came to work for him made in the field. The Muppets would become popular features on variety shows, once even taking over ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show]]'' for a christmas special, as well as Jim's character Rowlf the Dog being a regular on the ''Jimmy Dean Show''. Henson even experimented with non-puppet films such as the surreal short, ''Time Piece'' which was nominated for a Live Action Short Oscar. However, it wasn't until Joan Ganz Cooney, and a show [[Sesame Street|brought to you by the letters "P", "B" and "S"]] came into the picture that the Muppets would become an institution.
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In the mid-70s, after both a season performing new characters on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' and a couple specials that would serve as pilots, ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' launched on first run syndication. Like the early variety show appearances, the Muppets used [[Slapstick]] so over the top it's a wonder [[Moral Guardians]] of the time didn't have a heart attack from all the explosions, Muppets eating smaller Muppets, and general mayhem surrounding the Muppet Theatre. Henson, in addition to Kermit and Rowlf, performed characters ranging from trippy keyboardist Dr. Teeth to the masculine and very dense Link Hogthrob. He also performed Waldorf to Richard Hunt's Statler, giving the theatre its [[Statler and Waldorf|heckling, cackling and long suffering]] [[Greek Chorus]].
A couple years later, Henson took a major gamble, bringing his characters to the movie theatres with the aptly named ''[[The Muppet Movie]]''. Much like [[Walt Disney]] with ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]]'', Jim knew he had to top anything his team had put out to that date. Complex sequences ranging from Kermit riding a bicycle to the Electric Mayhem rocking an old church to its rafters, made the Muppets believable in a more or less undiluted real world setting. The movie was a critical and commercial success, paving the way for ''[[The Great Muppet Caper]]'' and ''[[The Muppets Take Manhattan]]''.
Later Henson-helmed projects were met with more sporadic success. ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'' was one of the earlier successes in its initial run on TVS, [[CBC]], and [[HBO]]. While the show was produced by him, neither Henson nor Frank Oz took on regular recurring roles in it, instead opting for Jerry Nelson, Steve Whitmire and others to take the lead. Two big-screen efforts into non-Muppet fantasy arrived in [[The Eighties]] -- ''[[The Dark Crystal]]'' was a minor success, but its spiritual successor ''[[Labyrinth]]'' was mostly considered a disappointment in terms of its financial record. (Both films went on to be [[Vindicated by Cable]].) ''[[The Jim Henson Hour]]'', which would feature segments from another series, ''[[The Storyteller (TV series)|The Storyteller]]'', only lasted for about half a season. Then there was ''[[Muppets Tonight]]'', which set to update the concept of ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' for the 90's by introducing new characters, a new host, a new setting, and new skits, but it only lasted a few seasons before slowly dying into obscurity.
In the meantime, Henson's Creature Shop had become a major font for further advancing puppetry. Building on full body characters like the Gorgs from ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'', the Creature Shop was responsible for the title characters of the [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (film)|1990 movie version]] of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (film)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', and its sequels. As well, the Shop also did forays into CG animation, namely Waldo, a gusty experimentation of a manually-controlled virtual 3D character who appeared in both ''[[The Jim Henson Hour]]'' and ''[[Muppet*Vision 3D]]'' which runs at Disney theme parks to this day.
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Jim Henson died of a severe and sudden strep throat infection on May 16th, 1990. At the time, he was negotiating with Disney to turn over the rights to his characters so that he could focus on production and performing, and did not wish to visit the hospital (his wife would later state that the refusal was likely due to his desire not to be a bother to people). The Muppets carried on in his absence with mixed success. While ''[[Sesame Street]]'' still runs strongly, the Muppet Show cast has had a more spotty record as of late trying to get their prominence back. Other productions by the Jim Henson Company and its performers, ranging from ''[[Dinosaurs]]'' and ''[[Farscape]]'' to ''[[Bear in the Big Blue House]]'' and ''[[Dog City]]'', continued Henson's legacy with new characters for new generations of fans. Today, Disney, who now owns the Muppet Show and its characters, has been slowly releasing the program on DVD in season box sets, after sporadic single disc releases from Time Life. The Muppets have been making fewer and shorter appearances in any area of entertainment, even surfacing with their own recent [[YouTube]] channel of original skits. The Henson Company in New York City produces mainly CG series, internet material, and Sesame Street.
The ''Muppet Show'' characters were finally bought by Disney in 2004. [[The Muppets (film)|The 2011 Muppet film]] set out to keep the original cast of ''The Muppet Show'' fresh without changing them as characters, and so far, it appears to be succeeding. A few photos of Jim Henson are visible in the film, including [[Tear Jerker|a large one of him and Kermit in Kermit's office.]]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSE1Mtnnm4Y&feature=related His funeral was pretty awesome]. The downside was that it was never televised. Not once. And most of the videos of it have been taken down off [[YouTube]]. [[Keep Circulating the Tapes]], they're absolutely worth tracking down.
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{{creatortropes}}
* [[Author Avatar]]: Those who knew him say that Jim was a lot like Rowlf the Dog -- except he wasn't as good a pianist.
** Of course, there was also Kermit - the sanest member and leader of a group of crazy performers. Though unlike Kermit, Henson was far less likely to complain or criticize - apparently only saying "Hmm" if he disliked something.
{{quote|"He can say things I hold back."}}
* [[Author Existence Failure]]: One of the most heartbreaking examples in recent memory.
* [[Badass Beard]]: [http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~kattanas/Images/young_henson.jpg Here's the reason he originally grew it.]{{Dead link}}
* [[Beyond the Impossible]]: Henson pioneered several incredible techniques that sounded downright preposterous for the time, such as CGI Puppetry(1989) and fully animatronic characters that could ''walk on their own.''(The Doozers from ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'')
* [[Cash Cow Franchise]]: the Muppets
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* [[The Fun in Funeral]]: He personally requested that his funeral not be a dour occasion and demanded a dixieland jazz band play. Everyone had to wear ''colorful'' outfits, and everyone was assigned a basic puppet on a string to play with as they watched. It's true there were sad moments but the whole thing crested when Kevin Clash, using his [[Sesame Street|Elmo]] voice broke out into the bawdy "Lydia the Tattooed Lady".
* [[Gray Eyes]]: Types 1 and 3.
* [[He Also Did]]: Henson did a surrealistic teleplay called ''[[The Cube (film)|The Cube]]'' in the 1960s about a man trapped in a small cube who's visited by various strange people as he tries to find his way out.
* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: With Frank Oz.
* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: Most of Jim's characters spoke with variations of the same two or three voices.
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[[Category:Producers]]
[[Category:Jim Henson]]
[[Category:Names to Know in Puppet Shows]]
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