Jim Henson: Idea Man
Jim Henson: Idea Man
7.790%
A trip into the mind of creative visionary Jim Henson, from his early years puppeteering on local television to the worldwide success of Sesame Street (1969), The Muppet Show (1976), and beyond.
Jacob O’Neal reviewedJuly 2, 2025
As a young boy I had a stuffed Kermit the Frog that I would cuddle with every night as I slept (I was 3. I haven’t slept with that thing for years…2 or 3 now). One night, as I was curled up in my sleep, Kermit fell from the bed. I reached down to pick him up and saw his little frog legs sticking out of an alligator’s mouth as it smiled back at me with its dead eyes. I jumped from my bed and ran down the hallway and jumped on my 9 month pregnant mother’s lap as she screamed, startled at the intrusion. That was the first time I ever had a moment where I was still in my dream state as woke up. I mention this because nearly 50 years later, I still think about the imaginary loss of Kermit and how much I always loved and respected Jim and the entire Henson family.
Directed by Ron Howard, the movie tells the story of the great Jim Henson, from his humble beginnings as an acne riddled Christian Scientist to his years working in commercials, Saturday Night Live, Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and his movies all the way to his death of pneumonia in his 50’s while Big Bird sang “It’s Not Easy Being Green” at his funeral. It showcased his relationship with his wife and children, his bond with Frank Oz and so much more.
This film was a Disney+ original, the same company that just destroyed the final thing Henson ever worked on and, of course, they neglected to mention anything about that in the doc. Just so you know, Jim Henson worked on a 3-D attraction for DisneyWorld that Bob Iger and band of merry morons have dismantled and destroyed. Ironically, Henson was worried when the company that once owned the rights went under and they reverted to another company he didn’t know. He mortgaged everything to buy the rights to his work back only to sell to Disney a few years later, because of his love of DisneyWorld. If only he knew the irony of starting the Muppets in commercials, which he didn’t enjoy and couldn’t wait to get out of, only to sell off to a company that has destroyed his legacy and only used the property in commercials. That’s just my two cents. Screw Disney.
My only real complaint about the film was not spending time going into his time with Henson’s Creature Shop, where he worked on some truly amazing prosthetics and animatronics like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the 1990 movie. They didn’t mention The Witches. They didn’t talk about the Muppet movie sequels, Muppet Babies or any of the other magical things he gave us. This would have been a documentary that deserved to be a 4 part piece, not 105 minutes. If Pee Wee can get a 2 parter then Henson deserved more time.