When Oscar-winning director Ron Howard heard that Disney+ and the children of the late Jim Henson were interested in collaborating on a definitive portrait of the beloved Muppet creator, he immediately welcomed the opportunity. “I had nothing but respect for him,” he said during a recent Zoom interview from his office. “I met him very briefly backstage on a talk show, and my friend George Lucas was a good friend and a great admirer and characterized him as a bona fide genius. Of course, my own relationship with Jim Henson’s creations has also evolved through my children and “Sesame Street.”
“After spending time with the family and reviewing the archival footage, the narrative question emerged,” says Howard. “How in the world did he create such a lasting legacy of work with such a burst of creativity in just a few decades? The dimensions of his production were a complete surprise to me. He was completely in touch with the cultural zeitgeist, and he kept moving with it – not cynically but very organically with the kind of creative curiosity that I both admired and related to.”
The culmination of several years of work by Howard and his team at Imagine Documentaries is “Jim Henson Idea Man,” a vivid and revealing look at Henson’s life and career, which recently premiered on Disney+. The 90-minute film charts his career from his early days as a young puppeteer at a local DC TV station to the creation of the “Sesame Street” puppets and “The Muppet Show,” through the growth of the Jim Henson Co. and the Creature Shop and later works such as ‘The Dark Crystal’ and ‘Labyrinth’.
How did you end up directing this film?
We were brainstorming a bit about our next project with [producers] Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes at Imagine Documentaries. We were told that Disney+ was very interested in doing something about Jim Henson, and the family has had reservations over the years, but they liked the documentaries I had done about Pavarotti and the Beatles. So we met with the Hensons, and about two years ago we started looking into the material.
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There was so much archival material to go through. Not only great stuff about the Muppets or ‘Sesame Street’ and old interviews with Jim, but his personal family images were also creative. He just didn’t cover a birthday party like the rest of us dads do. He knew he would make it a great story, and that he would use stop motion or other creative techniques. He was enthusiastic about avant-garde and experimental films. He was creatively ambitious and that is reflected in his work in ‘Sesame Street’.
Your documentary features great footage of his early work, as well as revealing interviews with his children, alongside stars like Frank Oz, Rita Moreno and Jennifer Connelly. You even unearthed a fascinating, unaired interview that Henson did with Orson Welles.
Because the family was on board and allowed me to get involved as a director, they were incredibly supportive. They are all very creative people and they grew up in this environment. They were very candid in their interviews about the cost of Jim’s creative energy. They are so proud and feel privileged to have had him as a father, but they are also adults who could now say that some aspects of life were challenging and challenging. [talk about] the strain that work put on their parents’ marriage. So we were really allowed to look behind the scenes and understand that there are no free lunches and that you pay a price for everything. I felt it was important to understand his emotions, his insecurities about himself, the childhood events that shaped him and the urgency with which he worked, and to find him in many ways beyond just the brilliant genius level of creativity.
What was the biggest surprise for you when you learned more about his life and work?
I didn’t know he didn’t really plan to be a puppeteer. He was such a child of television and was fascinated by innovations. That led to his use of remote-controlled puppets, early robotics and then digital effects. He wasn’t someone who had one good idea that led to great success: he continued to adapt, explore and push the boundaries of the medium. It was also pretty amazing that he kept failing to sell ‘The Muppet Show’ because you assumed all he had to do was walk through the door with a few puppets and people would just fall over themselves to watch the show to buy. It just reminds us that those big commercial breakthroughs often come from very unexpected sources. They happen by adapting formulas in truly innovative ways and not just by following the old patterns.
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In the film, Brian Henson talks about his father’s philosophy and how he believed in the value of doing good and the interconnectedness of all living things on earth. Can you explain that in more detail?
Jim was really looking to understand that connection, and it always seems to come back to something that I really related to, which is this: You can’t be sure of anything except that goodness has value. Even though you can’t know exactly what our cosmic journey is, you can assume that creating positivity and goodness should be a valuable part of that experience.
What do you hope audiences will take away from Jim Henson’s life and career?
I hope they will understand this kind of lasting legacy. I would love it if this makes them go back and watch all those “Muppet Show” episodes. That time is well spent because they are hilarious. As with any type of documentary or scripted piece that deals with a life journey, I hope it offers some inspiration and some insight. In Jim’s case, it’s actually much more of a celebration of how to live a creative life and solve problems with openness and enthusiasm for what’s possible. I hope people take inspiration from Jim’s life and at the same time are truly impressed by the range and level of his achievements.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
