Henson's Place, Part One

The following is a real find for the puppet community. It is a documentary which delves into the evolution of Jim Henson's Muppet empire. I first heard about it at Puppeteers Unite. It was posted by the same YouTube-er who brought us the Of Muppets and Men series.

The documentary comes in seven installations. I am going to post one a day for the next seven days, and make comments on some of the aspects of these documentaries that are relevant to using puppets in ministry.

Here is the first installation:



In watching the first part of the video, I cannot help but be impressed with how the Muppet industry "started small". They did not begin with big, multi-million dollar productions. Yet, from "a way to make extra money in college", it grew into one of the biggest entertainment companies in history.

It is also pretty neat to see that they got their start on local television--exactly where we are working. Of course, today there is also YouTube.

What Mrs. Henson says about "little tiny movements" is very important. It is those movements that give a puppet it's life.

Also, pay close attention to her talking about the potential of puppets to communicate.

The way they work the "human-arm" puppets has never ceased to amaze me. The amount of coordination needed for each hand to be operated by a different person boggles my mind.

One formula for their success: skilled puppeteers+skilled puppet makers.

Stay tuned for the other installments. There is a lot of puppeterring gold to be mined from these videos.