I’m an independent filmmaker and puppeteer in Toronto, Canada who blogs about puppetry and film.
If you live in Central Florida or plan to visit sometime in the next few months, be sure to pay a visit to the Orlando History Centre, which is hosting a bunch of fantastic puppetry between now and then end of April. It all kicks off next week with the grand opening of Jim Henson’s...
You can learn a lot about puppetry watching classic Ernie and Bert videos. Last week Tom pointed to a classic Sesame Street segment as an example of what to do with a puppet when you have no lines. As he points out, pay close attention to the puppets’ eye line, the positioning of their heads...
I’m crazy-busy the next few days, but here’s something really good to tide you over until I’m back…a series of in-depth blog posts about Here Come The Puppets on the Midnight Diaries. Here Come The Puppets was a PBS special about puppetry that was taped in 1980 and hosted by Jim Henson. Go have a...
I’m a bit late mentioning this, but Steve Swanson scored a real coup on this past week’s episode of the Muppetcast…as part of a special tribute to Jim Henson – last week was the 18th anniversary of Jim’s death – he landed an interview Frank Oz about his life and career with the Muppets. It’s...
Eighteen years after his sudden tragic death, people around the world still miss Jim Henson. I wasn’t able to post yesterday so I am a day late with this, but it’s become a tradition on web to remember and pay tribute to Jim Henson every year on May 16th, the anniversary of his death in...
Jim Henson during a 1980s interview talking about his work and new technological developments in film and television. Here’s an interview with Jim Henson from the 1980s that I saw for the first time today. I don’t know when it was filmed, but it’s obviously post-Dark Crystal. Especially interesting is when Jim discusses high definition...
The Land of Gorch was a series of rarely-seen adult-oriented Muppet sketches that were created for the first season of Saturday Night Live. Chuck Rothman has a great post on his Great But Forgotten blog about The Land of Gorch, the Muppet skits that were featured on the first season of Saturday Night Live. As...
A biopic of Muppet creator Jim Henson is preparing to go before the cameras this summer. A report hit the web today that Empire Films is planning a biographical movie about Jim Henson called “Henson”. According to the Muppet Newsflash, Empire plans to start production later this summer with a budget of $30-million and a...
Over at Puppeteers Unite Tom has scored another great YouTube video find – the rarely seen documentary Henson’s Place. It was produced in 1984 just as the Muppets were at the peak of their success and discusses Jim’s early work, Sesame Street, The Muppet Show and Muppet movies and then-new endeavours like Fraggle Rock and...
Some rare videos from a course Jim Henson taught at the Institute International de la Marionnette in France in 1987 have recently been posted to YouTube. Twenty years ago Jim Henson taught a Puppetry for Film and Television course at the Institute International de la Marionnette in Charleville Mezieres, France. About twenty puppeteers from around...
Sir Linit and his spray come to the rescue of a Housewife’s laundry in this classic 1960s Muppet ad. Here’s another fantastic vintage Henson commercial. This is one of four ads that Muppets, Inc. produced for Linit Fabric Finish in 1966. The ad features a talking spray-can knight named Sir Linit, performed by Jim Henson....
Jim Henson introduces a pioneering reality TV concept called Handmade Video. There’s a long list of things that Jim Henson developed, revolutionized and experimented with, everything from puppetry on television, to multimedia nightclubs, animatronics, fantasy film, digital puppetry and, apparently, reality TV too. Handmade Video was a demo/pilot shot in 1990 shortly before Jim’s death...