Part Two: Jim Henson: A Complicated Guy Who Made Stories I Really Like

Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, the weekly show where we talk about the things that we think we can do, whether or not we actually can do them. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy.

Margaret said she could fight a bear and win, FYI.

Yeah, I said it not in a serious way. But what do you think the largest and or most dangerous animal that you could win a fight against is?

Oh, my God.

None.

Both is just any Republican man.

I agree. Yeah, I used to say that I would fight Burzum, the like racist black metal guy, that I would duel him.

Yeah, you'd win.

Yeah.

He has killed a man.

Spreading the definition of most dangerous to its widest, my answer officially is Mark Zuckerberg.

I was thinking of Mark Zuckerberg because do you remember when he wanted to UFC fight Elon Musk? And I'm really upset that- Oh, that would have been so good. Elon Musk chickened out. And I'm really bummed about that because at least one of them would have gotten, you know- Yeah.

No, it does look like Zuckerberg did what, at least in that factor, what a billionaire should do was become interested in something, spend- you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars getting the.

Best actual training in it. Yeah.

Just like working at it because he likes it. Whereas Elon is just, yeah. Final answer, Elon Musk, easily.

Also, listeners, I'm trying to come up with a new hobby for myself for wintertime because I won't be able to do, like gardening kind of slows down in winter. And, you know, so if you have any ideas, I'm not crafty.

So fighting Elon Musk. I'll work on it. Should I just get really swole?

Should I get really swole?

Yeah.

Oh, my God. Yeah.

You should get swole.

Yeah.

I think you should start lifting. It's more important depending on what kind of hormone system your body is on. It's actually more important for estrogen systems than testosterone systems as you age. Like, fuck yeah, lifting rules.

As is taking vitamin D and K.

Yeah.

Anyways, that's not what this podcast is about.

So this is about Jim Henson. We are on part two of our two-parter about Jim Henson. And I think Jim Henson could fight a bear. Sure.

Famous.

I think Jim Henson could believe he would fight a bear. And I would like that. I don't know how I would probably be fozzy.

Do you think Jim Henson could create a Muppet so convincing to a bear that it would just become part of the bear community?

I don't know, but one of the Muppet movies has a thing where the human is afraid of the giant man-eating chicken and no one else is because they're not men. So they're not worried about it. And then this giant six-foot chicken monster comes out and chases him. And I was like scarred. That was the scariest thing that little me ever saw.

There's some wild stuff in those movies and the show.

In 1957, Jane and Jim formed Muppets Incorporated, and they split the ownership 60-40. And I can't tell if this is misogyny because he is putting more into it. He is more likely to be writing the scripts. He is putting more hours into it. It might be 60-40, might be the fair thing. But Later, when he starts doing, like, speaking roles in it, he just doesn't let her.

Yeah.

So, I don't know.

It feels like it's not going to be.

I think that you should just probably split shit like that 50-50, even if you're taking one on the nose by doing it. Especially if you kind of know in the back of your head you're going to marry this lady.

Yeah.

And they started doing ads.

Yes.

And Jim Henson's life was a strange balancing act his entire life, where he did commercial work, sometimes literally commercials, that was wildly successful. In order to fund creative work, that was not.

You know what? Same.

Yeah.

Same.

Totally.

Same. It's like the entire podcast industry.

This man is so relatable about his, at least the work part. And He wasn't even sure he still wanted to be a puppeteer at the point he's doing these ads. He saw himself as an experimental filmmaker who was willing to do puppet ads to pay the bills and to afford filming strange things. And the ads are honestly really funny.

The first run of them was 179 eight-second ads for Wilkins Coffee, but the last two seconds of it have to just be like the photo of the coffee. So he has six seconds to introduce characters, introduce the product, and make a joke. And the two puppets, the two Muppets involved in these ads, there's Wilkins, who will drink Wilkins coffee, and Won'tkins, who won't drink Wilkins coffee. And the tagline is, use Wilkins coffee or else. And basically every single time, Won'tkins gets murdered for not drinking the coffee.

Just shot in the head, fucking the, not the Eiffel Tower. What's the American Eiffel Tower? The George Washington's phallus. The monument, George Washington Monument.

The monument, yeah.

Falls on him.

Sure.

And Jim Henson didn't drink coffee.

Sure.

He didn't take any drugs at all.

What?

Really? That's what everyone says. His shit is kind of psychedelic, but it honestly maps for it to be the kind of psychedelic. And maybe I just say this because, like, I don't really do drugs. And, like, I'm into some weird esoteric brain shit, you know? People started watching TV just to catch the newest Wilkins commercials. And they made him a fuck ton of money. And Jim started doing voices.

And he started doing ads for products all over the country. And at some point, Jim, in a like cynical move, I was trying to figure out when it first gets presented whether this is like a cynical move. And I fully believe it was. Jim made a giant dollar bill and put it on the wall and built an entire shrine around the dollar bill on the wall. In a kind of self-mocking awareness thing. And every now and then he would point to it and be like, remember, that's what we got to do.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what we're here for.

Yeah.

In 1958, he and Jane won an Emmy for Sam and Friends. And he's 21 years old when he wins his fucking Emmy.

Pretty good.

What the fuck am I doing with my life? And Jim Henson is like, what if I just fuck off to Europe for a while, though? I'm 21. And so he did. And he hired a friend to take over Sam the Puppet and Jane ran the show without him while he was fucking around in Europe. And I mean that obviously in both senses of the word.

Yeah.

I think his plan was to fuck European women and study fine art and theater type stuff for a while. Sure, sure, sure. But instead, he fell in love with puppeteering. He also probably fucked European women. But in Europe, he saw puppeteering as a respected art form. It was both in fancy theaters and also street performers. who are really taking it seriously as art. And he was like, oh, that's what I want. I want to do puppets, but I want to take them seriously. And so he kind of has this like come to Jesus moment where he's like, oh, there's all this stuff I'm not taking seriously enough, both my work and Jane. And I think I might be reading into it, but I think it's like young art man is having commitment issues and he was afraid of

going fully into something that wasn't quite right. So he comes back from Europe and he is committed to Muppets Incorporated and he is committed to Jane, whom he proposes to. And she, I think, literally says, do I have a choice?

Yeah.

And they get married in 1959.

You know, I guess there's a tone in there. Yeah. It's the kind of thing Kermit would say. Yeah, totally.

Totally.

That's true. It's the kind of thing Kermit would say, and I.

Think we would all feel that Kermit was still happy.

Yeah. That's true. Yeah.

As I say it, I'm less sure of what I say. No.

Jane stays on some level by his side, even when they're no longer romantically involved his entire life, and is, like, one of his biggest advocates. So, like, I don't want to take that away from her. We can look at stuff and be like, oh, huh, you know?

Yeah, but sure.

It was always more of a business arrangement right from the start, even if the business was let's start a family. She was never quite his type. He preferred the cheerleader type. I believe all of this is like she's not conventionally attractive enough. I believe that is what people are saying when they say this, but it is all euphemistic as fuck.

It might be that she was like older than him and like a strong character of a person, you know? That doesn't make it any better, if that's his problem. But they had really good chemistry together as puppeteers. They could do things without even talking to each other. They just like moved perfectly as a team as puppeteers. And it basically seemed like the thing that Jim was supposed to be doing in order to build the life how he was supposed to. So he did it. And he moved out of his parents' house finally into a fancy house in Bethesda that he bought with Muppet money. And he never invited Jane to do voices once they started doing voices. And by the time she was pregnant with her second kid, she was quietly given the work of

primarily child rearing. And yes, she resented not having her own life. So the thing they started together became him and the boys because he was hiring a bunch of people to help. And soon him and the girls, he didn't mind hiring women and he didn't even sleep with all of them as best as I could tell. yeah they made commercial work on the weekdays and experimental films on the weekends time piece was about a guy struggling with his sense of how time always moves forward basically once his brother dies he's like oh fuck I'm gonna fucking die one day I gotta make so many weird things and like That's an important realization for artists to have, you know? He had more ideas than time, and he knew it. Relatable, relatable. Uh-huh. Yeah. This is what's so

frustrating about this man, is how relatable. And then you're like, ah, ah.

Yeah.

In 1968, he made a movie that is an hour-long documentary that I've really want to find but I've only found short snippets of called Youth 68. And it's a documentary about hippies and counterculture. And it's focused on interviews with Mama and the Papas and Jefferson Airplane. And the guy from Jefferson Airplane is just like uncomfortably– I've seen some pieces of it. He's just like uncomfortably spinning a pearl handled revolver around that's like probably fucking loaded, like pointing at it himself, just like casually, you know, as he talks about how the youth need to pull an Oedipus and like kill their parents and fucking, you know, probably overthrow the government or whatever.

Yeah.

And everything I've read about this piece is it says it stays just on this side of being a radical film. Clearly, the interviewees have radical ideas. But by and large, the film is trying to present itself as kind of neutral, even though it's also very experimental and cut up. It's a hippie film.

Right.

But I think it kind of sums up Henson's politics. He wants to be both edgy and approachable. And that's part of his charm. If everyone was like that, nothing would get done. But having some people like that, really useful.

Yeah. I feel like he had like a sense of... The worst version of that guy is very self-aggrandizing with it, though, is the thing.

Right.

And I do think it felt like he had a better sense of the ultimate value of his work than I think a lot of people in similar positions. It's something.

It's not everything.

But if everyone did it, it would be nice. If everyone followed this, the world would be a better place. He created stuff that was necessary but not sufficient, and it felt like he knew it.

Yeah, totally. And that's like probably even part of why he's like, I got to do so much stuff. I got to do more. I got to try and do this. Like, yeah, no. And he didn't seem to be because it's always a little weird to be like, oh, this is a team effort to realize my vision. Creative professions have this kind of tension baked into them where you have to do things collectively in order to produce at any kind of quantity and in order to reach people. And yet there are people who are going to be taking creative lead and other people who aren't. And it's tense. And so he does seem to be the best version of this man. Yeah.

It also felt like his vision was pluralistic enough that there was, seems like there was room for, you know, it's still the broader structure was his very clearly. But it just seems like, I mean, you know, not all those points of view could have come from one person.

Totally. I don't think he was a micromanager. I think he was like trying to build this collective thing. Like everything I've seen is like, no, he's actually like straight up a good boss. Because again, there's a version of this man that's like a monster. Like, I am the artiste and you must all... pulled together for me, you know?

And instead he's just like, he's a dreamer.

Yeah. That's a cool idea.

Yeah.

Let's do that.

Yeah.

Being me, I tried very hard to find Henson's relationship with counterculture and hippies and anarchists and socialists and all that stuff. And I didn't find what I want to know yet. But I do know that he had a great deal of respect for the anarchistic radical puppeteers of Bread and Puppet, who I've covered on the show before.

And he called their work an entirely new form of art incorporating elements of puppetry, dance, and theater. So he's not like unaware of what's happening in the more subcultural puppeteering space, you know? His family moves to New York City in 1963, then Connecticut, then upstate New York. Rolf the Dog was one of their early breakthrough hit characters that started appearing on like talk shows and things like that.

And they kept doing ads. And then, Sesame Street. I think that the founding of Sesame Street is going to end up its own episodes, but it's not a Henson brainchild thing. It's a Joan Ganz Cooney brainchild thing with a lot of Henson magic in it. This is like a more clearly collaborative process, or rather he gets to be the person who's adding his magic to something. Basically, shortest version of Sesame Street that I've been able to pick up because I haven't done the deep dive I want to. There's a bunch of books about Sesame Street.

In 1969, people involved in civil rights and childhood education were like, well, poorer kids actually watch more television because their parents work all the time. How do we get better representation of diverse and urban families on TV? And how do we make television educate kids instead of rotting their brains, but also be entertaining and not just like lessons on TV, you know?

TV school.

And so they made Sesame Street. And it was the most popular and coolest thing ever. And the state of Mississippi tried to ban it from playing on the air. They did. They banned it from playing. God damn it, Mississippi.

I know.

Which is where it's fucking from.

I know. Wow.

Wait, just because it was like showing different types of people?

Black and white kids hanging out together.

Yeah.

They were like, Mississippians aren't ready to see black and white children where they could possibly end up friends.

Mississippi is so fun to say, so fun to spell, and that's all I got. Come on, Mississippi.

Totally.

I have always enjoyed spelling you, saying you, and here you are trying to, not just trying to, but banning Sesame Street.

Yeah.

Nerds.

Yeah.

And so they asked Cooney, the showmaker, they asked her to make a segregated edit, and she's like, Fuck off. That's crazy.

I mean, that's America, but that's crazy.

I mean, look, we're not that far. It's only a matter of time.

It's coming back.

To where we're going for segregated Sesame Street.

Yeah. Yeah. And the New York Times caught wind of all of this happening. And basically, Mississippi became the laughingstock of the country because they're like, come on, guys, it's Sesame Street. What year was this in?

1969, probably.

It might have been 1970. I actually.

Yeah, that's too late to. Be pitching segregated Sesame Street.

Yeah. And so they reversed their vote, which hadn't been like a big public vote. It was just like the broadcast little side panel of the such and such of the such and such that voted like three to two to ban it, you know? And then they were like.

The MCC, I guess. Something like that.

Yeah. And in case you're wondering, I think this is pretty public knowledge, but in case you're wondering if Bert and Ernie are a gay couple, they are. The writer of Bert and Ernie, Mark Saltzman, said he based it on his interactions with his own partner. So, Bert and Ernie. It's funny because they're canonically gay according to the writer of it, but they're not canonically gay, like, according to, like, the, like, people who own Sesame Street, you know?

Whatever. I trust the writer.

Yeah, no, they're so gay. And that's the magic of it, right? And people talk about, you know, Jim Henson was, like, very consciously, like, There was, like, people on his team who were very out as gay, and he, like, never treated anyone bad about any of that shit, you know? There was a whole thing that, when I do the Sesame Street episodes, I'll talk more about, where they, like, they introduced a black Muppet who was purple, and it was created by a black man and... I don't remember the names of any of this right now because it was in my script and then I took it out because I was like, no, I can't deep dive Sesame Street so much. And here I am trying to recreate what was in my script from memory. But that character

was created by a black man, but eventually they did pull it after a few years because they felt like it perpetuated negative stereotypes of black people because of conversations about representation. But It was created as like, look, yeah, all the Muppets are different colors or whatever. But like black kids know that they're different from white kids and get treated differently. And so we want a Muppet that is able to talk about that and represent that. And one of the things that was great about Sesame Street is that by doing Sesame Street, now the Henson Company, the Muppets Incorporated, I think it's still called at this point.

I actually can't remember when they switched different names. They no longer had to do advertisements. What they did instead is they created content that had advertisements in it. And it is in that proud tradition that I walk. Those are the footsteps that I follow through the sand. Is introducing ads. And we're back. And so Sesame Street, it studied how do kids learn, but also what do kids actually enjoy watching. And it also gave Henson pretty free reign to do weird experimental filmmaking stuff from a technical point of view. Like, lots of weird camera stuff and all the abstract things. That's also Jim Henson's influence. Because that's what he was doing on the weekends. That's what he saw as his, like, real art, you know?

Right, right.

Yeah, there's some, especially, like, early, maybe in general, there's some wild-ass, like, Sesame Street, like, sketches, I guess they would be.

Yeah.

And, like, the, like, cuts between scenes will be like, and, like, weird camera things and stuff, you know?

Yeah. It's a... aliens. I'm just like, yeah.

Oh, I love them. And it was a shock to his family and lots of other people that he got into children's media at all. Because at the time, before he was approached by Sesame Street, he was like, no, I don't want to do kids stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's not me. I'm a very serious art man, you know? And at the time, he was trying to open a chain of psychedelic nightclubs.

Hell yeah.

That had 24 projectors. So you were like living and dancing inside the movie. This is the like, does this man do drugs? Question mark part.

Yeah.

And it was all based on his love for Jefferson Airplane's music.

Why would you do that if you didn't do drugs?

See, I love all that shit and I don't do drugs.

Yeah, I guess.

Yeah. But the thing is, is that Sesame Street, children's media has always been a little bit more experimental in form than like, mainstream stuff for like a teenage or adult audience. You know, you can get away with more like, and now there's just some flashing colors and flowers when it's for little kids.

Part of it is like, that's, you know, how you have to communicate. You communicate to a pre-verbal state sometimes. And that can come all kinds of ways.

Yeah.

I remember the first time I was really aware of this, I was thinking about how much, one of my friends was holding their infant baby and it started crying. So they took it into a different room and the baby stopped crying. And I'm like, Oh, babies are people on drugs. There's no filter at all. So a different room is just an entirely different everything.

Yeah.

You know, just babies are people on LSD. Meanwhile, speaking of LSD, he is trying to get the Muppet show made. And every single studio, he's shopping around this thing. He makes these reels. The reels are hilarious. It's like a Muppet producer who's like, and you should buy this show. We're going to make so much money that we're going to become bad people. And he's getting rejected everywhere, even though he is already famous as fuck. He's had an Emmy for decades. He is beloved. He's the Sesame Street guy.

No one will fucking take it. And in the end, It's a Lord So-and-So in the UK. I forgot to write down his name. Lord So-and-So in the UK takes on the show because no American will touch it. But this, like, Lord dude is like, well, I'm not responsible to anybody. I can just fucking do whatever I want with my money.

Okay, it's just money, right?

Lord So-and-So, shout out.

Yeah.

So the Muppet Show is made in London, and it becomes literally– the most watched TV show in history up to that point. I'm sure. Like, 235 million people are watching this show.

That is so wild.

Yeah. And it's just like such a like, you know, people who can't sell their books and then are like, they all become bestsellers or whatever. Like, we hear that story all the time. But just like, he wasn't a nobody.

Right.

But no one saw his vision, right?

Right, right.

I mean, I guess if you're just cold hearing the Muppet Show pitch, it is a little wild.

Oh, yeah.

I think if nothing else, it's just... Because it would be one of the early forays into like, oh, this format that is for children, we're going to do a version for adults.

Yeah, totally. Totally. And what's funny is that that's what makes it such a family show, is it's like literally for families, you know? Like, it's like funny to adults. I was like re-watching it, and I was like, oh, this kind of holds up. Not... The racial stereotypes part. But the new one is so good, too.

Is it?

I've been nervous.

Well, yeah, maybe. I don't know. I don't have maybe as much of a connection to the older stuff, but I thought it was great.

Yeah.

No, that's good to hear. Like, it doesn't surprise me. You always worry about old IP that has a lot of heart once it's purchased by giant corporations or whatever.

Yeah.

But, like, maybe the people who want to do it.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that's the thing is, like, partially because of the foundation of it, it's such a clear worldview and point of view that it's relatively easy for a, you know, talented person to update.

Yeah.

Or continue to honor.

Which is, like, I mean, that's Star Trek, too, right?

Yeah.

Like, media from the second half of the 20th century that has a ton of heart that's a little bit horny that, like, wants to do something interesting and, like, politically transgressive about believing in this is the utopianism of like 70s 80s media where like yeah like it's like almost a racism you know it's almost colorblind it's.

Like you need a little maybe a lot of naivety to pull it off yeah but the underlying stuff can be still pretty.

Good yeah it's interesting that way No, this is, because like, yeah, Star Trek and the Muppets raised me in so many ways, you know? And like, I can directly map a lot of my ethics to that influence. And like, and also, you know, my family liked these things and presented to them as being like, this is good.

Yeah.

You know? And our man Jim Henson and all of the people who worked on the Muppets show, they worked themselves to the bone.

Yeah.

It was a weekly show. It was all new technical stuff that hadn't been done before. It's like complicated puppetry. And they're doing a weekly show with a guest, and they have literally one day off every week before they're filming the next week's episode. And all of the biggest stars in the English language world are lining up to be on the show. And Kermit the Frog flirts with every pretty woman in a shy, soft-spoken, like, oh, who me?

I'm just a frog way. That does make for good television.

Yeah. Not as good when Henson's doing it.

Right. And, like, whatever. It's, like, two famous people flirting with each other. I don't give a fuck. You know, like... And running this kind of thing fits our, like, non-confrontational kind of radical optimist perfectly. He once said, quote, you can't really express grave doubts whether this whole thing is a good idea or not, end quote, when you're running something with hundreds of people. Right?

Like.

You need someone who's like, no, no, no, it's going to be fine. When they're like, we're doing a wild chaos thing that no one's ever done before that everyone else turned down. Like, no, no, no, it's going to be good. Don't worry about it. And one of the things that he was proudest of, his favorite guest episode, was with Harry Belafonte, who was the Calypso singer and civil rights activist. He's mostly known now as like the banana boat song guy. And so this guy who had been friends with MLK Jr. and was a big civil rights guy. And he comes on the show and he's like, all right, but I want to work closely with you to do African-inspired Muppets. And once to do Jim's whole, we need to love one another for what makes us different,

not what makes us the same. And later, Belafonte spoke at Jim's memorial service, and he said, quote, there is no question about Jim Henson's great artistry and to the extent to which we have all been touched by it. Greater than his artistry was his humanity. And so like, yeah, no, he tried to do that right, you know.

I think it's, I mean, like, as far as, like, that kind of guy can go, it's the best version of that for sure.

Yeah, totally.

He's trying. And he's letting people, like, tell him stuff.

Yeah, totally. And he's, like, excited about what different people bring to things, you know? It's not just a, like, you all are the extensions of my vision.

Right.

And... All right, so here's this guy. He has the biggest fucking deal show in the entire world, right? And he does it for five years. And then he's like, well, that was fun. The ratings hadn't gone down. It was still fine. It was like the biggest fucking thing. And he's like, I don't want to start repeating myself. And so he goes up. They do like a closing the Muppets thing. And he does a speech. And he's like, I'm not really a speech guy. Thanks for helping me do this amazing thing together. I'm so glad we did it.

Gonna do something different now. Yeah. And so he shuts down The Muppet Show so that he can make weird, half-mainstream movies that barely make any money and sometimes just lose money, like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.

Yeah.

Were those money losers? I mean, Dark Crystal is my first memory of being afraid of a movie.

Yeah, totally.

That's, you know, I don't know if that's the first time I was there, but that's the first time I remember being like, this shit is too scary. Come on.

Well, what's funny is it's like, What's scary about The Dark Crystal isn't like, ah, I'm a monster. It's like there's an entire world here and it is so alien and unnerving and desolate and terrifying. I will have these numbers a little bit mixed up in my head. They were like all of the test audiences hated both of these movies. Critics were really up in the air. then they were forced to be changed a lot by the studios. Like, the original version of The Dark Crystal, like, almost all of it is in fictional languages.

Oh, God.

And they had to re... They didn't reshoot, so they just redubbed. Like, they wrote a script based... They had to lip sync a script.

Yeah. Holy shit.

Just probably part of why it's so alien feeling.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is that the script is, like, almost odd. I believe that domestically it lost money, and then in the end, internationally, it did make money. But they weren't what people thought.

That the Muppet Show guy should be doing next.

Yeah.

And he basically spent all of his own money to do it. I think he had to buy back. There's a lot of weeds about the rights to everything. And at some point later, he's like straight up going to buy all of his own work back from Lord so-and-so because Lord so-and-so sells his company to such and such corporation.

Sure.

And he's like, all right, I'm going to fucking mortgage everything and like buy back all my shit, you know. I think he's spending his own money to get these movies out. But do you know what gives us our money that we don't? Isn't enough money to make movies. Otherwise, I probably would be making really weird movies right now.

And one time I tried to make a movie and it was the biggest artistic failure of my life. But we won't talk about that. But what gives us our money are the advertisers of this show.

Yay.

And we're back. So, as he's living this crazy life... I don't think it's that he was having an affair or having a few affairs so much as that he just simply didn't stop dating just because he was married and had five children. This went on from the time he was in high school until he died. And it's possible to do that ethically. And it's harder to do that ethically before society has an accepted framework for polyamory.

It is an uphill battle to do that well when possible. There's not a way to just sit down and be like, this is what we want to do. All right, we're all on board. It's very hard to find information about this. Besides the biography, everything is just like really wants to be entirely euphemistic about it, barely touch on it. And the documentary that was made about him, it's fine. It's like, I'm sure it has mostly truth, but it It has a lot of his, like, family talking about him and talking some about, you know, he's a good dad and stuff like that. But it's clearly the documentary feels designed to, like, make him look great and protect the reputation of his intellectual property, which doesn't mean that the movie lies. It's

just that it doesn't say everything.

Right. It's not interested in saying everything.

Yeah.

Like, it's like, oh, after my parents separated, he was not interested in serious relationships. He just wanted to date around or whatever. But, like, he had a serious relationship after his marriage.

Yeah.

And it didn't go well, and we're gonna talk about it. This man is fully a workaholic, and he's gone for months at a time from home. He brings his kids with him to work regularly, and they remember him as actually managing to be someone who was present for them even when he wasn't present. And so he actually had this tension. He would go home and he'd be like, man, I don't want to talk about work. I just want to talk about my kids. I miss my fucking kids. Like, how's the family? And Jane will be like, I own 40% of this company. Why am I cut out? I want to talk about how the fucking business is going. And he's like, I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about the kids. And she's like, I'm

fucking tired of the kids. I live with them. Only no one's cussing in this story because I think she's Catholic, but I'm not 100% certain. And he doesn't cuss or doesn't cuss very much. So Jane wanted him around more and he had no interest in that. And she wanted to be more involved in the company that she owned 40% of, but he had no interest in that either, as far as I can tell. She was involved in the business side of things to some degree. Like, she isn't, like, completely just, like, the stay-at-home person. She also, like, wants a more steady, regular life than he wants, you know?

And she prides herself on her ability as a talent scout. She once said, I was the first person who discovered Jim Henson. And that's true. One person said about him, this man couldn't even fight with his wife. Like when they were talking about how like a non-confrontational he is, he's like, oh yeah, this man can't even fight with his wife. He would literally, as soon as things would get heated at home, he'd be like, oh, I gotta go back to London. Oh, I gotta go.

Yeah. Still not great, but.

No.

Braiding on a curve.

Yeah. I feel bad. Like I was funny because I was recently, I was thinking about, I was like, why did I move away? Because the show started off pretty much like, here's some individuals, episodes like this. And then more recently, I've been covering like social movements and not individuals. And I was like, oh, but that's less compelling of a story. I got to get back to just like picking a person and talking about them. And now I'm like, oh, yeah.

If I had done this whole story as the Muppets instead of Jim Henson, I'd be telling a different story, you know. So I like understand why I moved away from it. But. It's interesting.

Well, it's also like disentangling the two. Because probably, I would say broadly speaking, even if you don't know everything, you know more about the Muppets than you do about Jim Henson. Probably by a lot.

Yeah, just by default.

Yeah.

Because Jim Henson didn't like showing up on camera.

Right. Right, right, right.

Yeah. And I'm inferring some stuff from like vague things that people said. I believe she didn't believe in divorce.

Yes.

I believe she was both Catholic and a feminist. At one point, one of her kids called her an anarchist, and I think that was a way of saying she was very independent and feminist. But she didn't believe in divorce. And they announced a separation in 1986, partly because Jim Henson was in a serious relationship with Mary Ann, his assistant, who was 19 years younger than him. She is a full grown-ass adult, right? This isn't a pedophilia thing. She is 30 years old. So it's not a pedophilia thing.

It's a fucking come on, man thing. You know?

Yeah, yeah.

And she didn't start as his assistant. She was an employee of the company in her mid to late 20s when he started hitting on her. And she spurned his advances because she wasn't attracted to him. But over the years, she eventually took a liking to him, and he hired her as his assistant after they started sleeping together so that she could be with him everywhere. And he spent his 50th birthday on a yacht off the coast of Italy with her. So it's like he's a hippie, but he's like a Rolls-Royce yacht.

Yeah, yeah.

Photos of him with the Queen of England hippie.

Yeah.

You know?

He's like a rich dad.

Yeah.

What do you believe in, man?

Yeah.

Dating Marianne made him feel young again. She took him to his first nude beach. His kids were actually closer to Marianne's age, but they were actually happy with this because they were glad he was dating someone stable, right? Like he actually cared about her. It was like a real relationship. But Marianne struggled in the relationship because he kept it a secret. And eventually, she left him a bunch of times. One of the times was actually, he left her being like, hey, I can't give you what you want. You want a family and shit. I've already got a family and shit. Like, And then also, at one point, she leaves him for cheating on her. And then he writes this, like, really long apology letter. And

then she takes him back. And then she's at his, like, place in Florida. He owns a bunch of houses everywhere. And I think this is the house he has near Disney World because he's obsessed with Disney World. Oh, he's also a Disney adult.

Sure.

And, like, she comes over to this party. And there's all these women there who clearly know their way around the kitchen already. Like, they already know the house and stuff. And they're just, like, all of his girlfriends. And she's like, I fucking can't do this. And so his mistress leaves him for cheating on her. And then he like shows up where she's at, at like a professional thing. And, you know, they talk and he gives her this really long hug and then like says bye. And then she calls him up mad. And she says, I was five weeks into building my own life again. And she asked him to never call again the next day. They talk again the next day. And she's like, never call me again.

And he never calls her again. And after that, he never had another serious relationship. He just continued to, even as he was sick, there's like a thing when he's like dying sick, he goes to go talk to his agent. He doesn't know he's dying yet, but he's like sick. And like on his way out the door, he asks out his agent's secretary. And all the while, he is still actually friends with his wife. One of their kids said that they were the love of each other's lives who couldn't live with each other. In the 80s, he kept making weird art. He decided to make a show that would end war forever called Fraggle Rock, which is one of the most anarchistic pieces of media that I've ever seen. They worship a compost heap. They convince the

prince of the kingdom. I already told you this, but it's in my script, and now I just have, like, the way my brain works, I have to read the whole thing. They convince the prince of the kingdom that they don't need any rulers after all, and Fraggle Rock fucking rules. He made the storyteller. Fraggle Rock and the storyteller are far and away my favorite Henson pieces. The Storyteller is a show reimagining old folklore, and it cratered in the ratings. And Jim Henson felt it was the finest piece of TV ever made. He also made The Jim Henson Hour. And this was like, this was, I think, a little bit him trying to like bite off more than he could chew. It was like. CGI puppetry and like a whole different long half an hour pieces. He

wanted to have hour long storyteller bits in it and he was going to host it and there's gonna be all of this stuff. And there was like, it was gonna be this like modern late eighties updating of everything, you know? And he made it for a little while, and it didn't do incredibly well. And I grew up watching the Jim Henson Hour as it came out. It was like an event of TV, which is something we don't have anymore, for better and worse. I don't totally miss that, but I a little bit miss the event TV, you know?

Yeah.

I don't miss it creatively, but it just sort of turned out to be the only thing. Not the only thing, but one of the things that kept the entertainment economy going. Yeah.

Yeah.

Or just kept culture kind of on the same page.

Yeah, fuck. Yeah, because everything's so splintered now and fractured. Instead of subculture, we have microculture. And then now with AI, we don't even have that. People would just literally build their own echo chamber without another person. You used to need another person to have an echo chamber.

Yeah.

No, and it's interesting too, because I find myself like, if I watch a movie without pausing it to go stare at my phone, I feel like I have mastered my ADHD. Whereas like watching TV used to be the sign of brain rot. You know, what are we going to come up with that's worse that people will be like, oh, I remember with TikTok when we used to actually pay attention.

Oh, God. I don't know. Speaking of not paying attention, I just realized what was on Andrew's shirt when you sneezed. It's so good. Can you describe it to the audience?

That is a shrimp that says Nike.

Yeah, but the check.

It's a shrimp.

It's a shrimp instead of the check.

I don't get it.

The logo is otherwise this shape.

Yeah, the logo is normally just like a standard check, but instead of that, it's shrimp.

Yeah.

Which I like.

That's funny.

I forgot I was wearing it.

It's a great shirt, my friend. So most of his kids end up working at the company. I think still do. The CEO is his daughter. The chairman is his son. And he started a merger with Disney Company. And I can't tell how anyone felt about this because everyone is contractually obliged to say it was the coolest thing ever.

And it's a shame it didn't happen. Because at the time, they were trying to make it happen. And he is a Disney adult. He does genuinely love Disney World. And he's really excited about being able to, like, once they merge, he's like, they're going to let me make a roller coaster. You know, which is like the sort of jump in the shark of creatives, I think.

I don't know. It could have been awesome.

Okay, fair. Okay, maybe I'm just not a Disney adult.

I'm not really either, but I kind of do want to see, like.

What he would have done with it.

Yeah.

I guess I would have gone on it.

I would have enjoyed watching a YouTube video about it and I would not have done it. So what does that say about me, I guess?

Okay. And he's going to Disney World more and he's performing and he's really excited about trying to figure out how to make the Muppets where they can interact with the guests and stuff. He's into figuring out cool new interactive stuff. But he's also... terrified of the corporate nature of Disney. And he specifically is working really hard to try and figure out how everyone involved in the Jim Henson company, all of the puppeteers or whatever, are not going to be fucked by this. He writes up a list where he puts dollar amounts, making sure that everyone's going to get some amount of money or whatever. And he's like, specifically upset because he realizes once they start doing Disney stuff, Disney doesn't give a shit about the puppeteers.

They treat them like trash. They're like, oh, do the fucking thing right, you piece of shit or whatever. And he's like, he would spend years working with new puppeteers to get them up to speed to be doing this. He's a fucking artist. And Disney's a corporation. You know? And he's worried about it. But he never signed the merger with Disney because he died. Which feels... Kind of fadish, be honest. Not like he killed himself by doing it, but just it feels like it means something to my...

And he's also really esoteric, so I think he'd be accepting of this. Oh, but this whole time he's super new age. He is like not into Christian science, but he's like not an atheist. He is like, yeah.

That feels like the right vibe.

He's into transcendental meditation and whatever the fuck that means and Buddhism and yeah. At one point, he's doing a movie, The Witches, of Roald Dahl's book. And he, Roald Dahl fucking hates this movie. He's like, you gutted it. It is meaningless because you touched it. You fucking ruined it.

Somehow that makes me happy. Yeah.

Was Roald Dahl a piece of garbage? I don't know anything about this man.

He was fairly anti-Semitic at least. Yeah.

Okay.

That's literally my only piece of information that I know about him outside of just like his work.

That's not a good thing to be.

Yeah.

This is his work.

I think it's reasonable to say noted anti-Semite Roald Dahl.

Okay, so he's like that level of it, yeah. Roald Dahl, noted anti-Semite, did not care for the witches. That's the reason it's not called the Roald Dahls, the witches.

I should say, I'm pretty sure that's correct, but I'm not 100%.

I don't know if this man is alive or litigious, so.

No, no, no, no. There's multiple documented statements during his life of him being absolutely anti-Semitic.

I remember one time I was doing my due diligence. When you listen to black metal, you have to do diligence about every band.

Yeah.

And I was doing my due diligence on this band. I think they were more of a neo-folk band, which is even sketchier. Because they had a song I liked, and I was like, ah, are these people garbage? And I found that their label had sued a German newspaper for calling them Nazis. And the band was like, nah, don't sue over that. That's provable. We're Nazis. So I don't like that song anymore.

I just opened up an article from NPR from 2020. And yeah, Roald Dahl's family had to apologize for, I mean, he's dead, for, you know, all the anti-Semitism.

All right, great. Jim Henson pissed this man off so much.

That's why I said I'm not offended.

Fuck yeah. Okay, great.

Another cool thing you did.

During all of that. The Wiccans wrote him and were like, we hear you're making a witch's movie. And I don't know, man, there's a lot of negative stereotypes about witches. And he wrote them back and he was like, I don't believe in any one religion, but your religion's great. I will try so hard not to offend you because I care about your religion because it's cool. Whoa. So he's like, new age, dude.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he got a bit of a cold, a sore throat. He thought it was a maybe mild case of strep. And this man had literally never called in sick in his life. He went on Arsenio Hall anyway, and he was a bit off. He just wasn't feeling totally great. And Kermit said, I'm not going to do a Kermit the Frog voice. I thought about doing a Kermit the Frog voice, but I don't think I would succeed at it off the top of my head. Kermit said, I would have said I had a frog in my throat, but I won't say that. And that was his joke about the fact that his voice was clearly off. And a friend offered him antibiotics, and he turned it down.

He was like, no, I'll be fine. And he kept traveling. And he went to go see his dad, who was starting to get Alzheimer's. And his doctor friend was like, go to the fucking doctor. You're fucking sick. And he was like, no, I'm good. Because he doesn't really get sick. Because that's the other problem. I don't go to the doctor because I don't get sick. But that means when I do get sick, I don't know how to handle.

I'm like, no, it can't be me. It's not part of my identity.

Your threshold for what is sick is different than other folks it seems like maybe.

Totally.

Magpie, don't forget to enroll in health insurance as a reminder.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's head on. Is there any other admin? Any other admin needs to get out of the way?

Yeah. Don't forget to submit your expenses, Magpie. Just take care of yourself. You know.

Yeah.

Vote if you're gonna.

I'm not an executive function person. I'm an ideas kind of girl.

Okay.

His friend is like, go to the fucking doctor. He's coughing up blood. I will say. At the point at which, because I have doctor friends. And when they say, go to the doctor, I go to the doctor.

Yeah.

Like, that's what friends are for. That's why you're friends with, I mean, because they're lovely people too. But like, if you're listening, thank you. And he's coughing up blood. And he doesn't tell anyone. No one knows because he doesn't want to worry anybody. So it's not even just like bravado. It's his like, it's like the same as how he's soft spoken. It's like such an interesting tension that is this, tall man with good leadership qualities who doesn't like speeches and is soft-spoken and just doesn't want to bother anybody.

And so the first day that he calls in sick his entire fucking life is when he's pretty much actively dying in New York City. And Jane comes and sat with him at his bedside. And the one thing I will say, I believe it's the documentary, I watched a bunch of things all at once, so they're all kind of blurring together in my head, is that I think one of his kids is like, Well, what my mom and him talked about is between them. And so I think that some of the like not talking about some of this relationship stuff is actually more about protecting privacy than like protecting IP, you know?

Yeah.

And so they talk and she's with him as he's real sick. And she's like, go to the doctor. And he's like, no, no, I'm going to get over it. Just rub my back. And then he was like, maybe I'm dying. And so he finally gave up and he decided to go to the hospital. And he refused to get in a wheelchair and he walked to the car.

And within a few hours of arriving at the hospital, he was unresponsive. And soon enough, he was dead. He died at 1.21 a.m. on May 16th, 1990. And he was a man who thought about dying a lot, even though he didn't talk about it much, right? He's like a new age guy. And so he wrote letters to his own family to be read on the event of his death. And I'm going to read excerpts from them.

There's two letters. He wrote, I'm not at all afraid of the thought of death and in many ways look forward to it with much curiosity and interest. I'm looking forward to meeting up with some of my friends who've gone on ahead of me and I'll be waiting there to say hi to those of you who are still back here. Since I consider death a rather joyous step forward into the next stage of things, I'd like to lay out a few thoughts as to what might happen when I leave this place. And so then he specifies how his like Memorial service should be a big pageant and everyone should be happy and no one's allowed to wear black. And he wanted his co-worker Richard Hunt to emcee it. Richard was a gay puppeteer who would die

of AIDS two years later. He also wrote, quote, have a wonderful time in life, everybody. It feels strange writing this kind of thing while I'm still alive, but it wouldn't be easy to do after I go. And P.S., I suppose I should say a word about what happens to my old body. In truth, And he wrote one other letter. He wrote, quote, Be sure not to waste money on an expensive casket or any of that garbage.

And he wrote one other letter. He wrote, quote, I feel like life has been a joy for me. I certainly hope it is for you. Life is meant to be fun and joyous and fulfilling. Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It's a good life. Enjoy it. Jake, that's his worldview. And that's what he put into work that hundreds of millions of people saw.

Yeah he really he got to do i feel like yeah i mean right i'm sure he wouldn't have seen it necessarily this way but he really got to do mostly what he believed.

Yeah yeah he fought for that and he succeeded at fighting for that you know like yeah his his life was the struggle against that against tv executives but he he won that struggle Yeah. He fucking defeated the TV executives. And his memorial was a giant pageant. It was in that big church in New York City, Episcopal Church, not one of the Catholic ones. And Big Bird sang a song.

Michael Hunt, who was already sick, emceed. A lot of his girlfriends sat in one row all next to each other at the funeral. I know. That was like, when I saw that part, I was like, yeah, this guy's just Polly.

Yeah, he's just Polly before, you know.

Yeah.

And another time he said, and I think this is the last quote I'll use of his and close with, if my message is anything, is that it's a positive approach to life, that life is basically good.

Love it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like one of those things that's like, I'm not convinced he's necessarily right, but it's definitely the best way to live.

Yeah. Genuinely, just like the sugar on top for me is that he really pissed off Roald Dahl. Yeah.

Yeah, the idea that it's like the best way to live whether or not it's true is what's so interesting about optimism. Like I always call myself a strategic optimist because I'm not optimistic about our strategy, but rather my strategy is optimism.

Yeah.

Like we have to do things as if we can succeed at them in order to succeed at them. And I usually apply that to like grand political projects or whatever.

Yeah, that's like for me, I think, you know, what would Magpie do?

Oh.

Yeah. Thanks. I'm like, what's the most moral thing to do in this situation?

Which means when I fail, I'll disappoint everybody. But I try not to. I try really hard.

So do I.

Yeah. No, and it shows, right?

That's the thing about us. We try so hard.

Yeah.

And, like, you try and it shows. And, like, you do this thing where you manage.

Be the success on its own.

Like, because secretly Sophie is the Jim Henson of Cool Zone Medium. Sophie is the one.

Yeah, I'm out here fucking. No, is that what you were saying?

Sophie is the one out here pissing off Rodal or his ghost.

Gracious appetite.

And also like specifically just managing and keeping all of these things together with this like kind of vision of how to create. a thing within a major media structure that actually tries to promote good in the world. And there is like a conscious thing at Cool Zone Media, not just like talk about my own workplace, but there's a conscious thing in Cool Zone Media of like, how do we be entertaining, take care of ourselves, and do it in a way that is trying to push the needle forward, is trying to make the world a better place.

And even with Cool Zone Media, that it's like a bunch of different people's visions. It's a bunch of different things all coming together sorry this is my like earnest weird why I like working here rant you.

Already have the job.

Babe my job security but yeah I don't know that's Jim Henson sick Listen to Andrew's Star Trek podcast.

What's it called?

Starter Trek.

Oh, I like that. The other era of TV that has done a very similar thing.

Yeah.

That's what I'm learning.

It really is.

I genuinely had so little idea of all of the nuances of Star Trek, basically. Just like, oh, shit had a lot more ideas than it needed to, frankly. Yeah.

I'm planning on listening to it only as I start a Star Trek rewatch.

It's a great idea.

I'm very excited about this. But the thing that I run into is I can't, I'm a very linear thinker at the end of it. I like have to watch series as an order.

Oh, yeah.

And that makes like some Star Trek hard, right? Because like Deep Space Nine is like everyone's favorite, but it has like episodes that aren't as good as other episodes. And I'm like, no, got to watch all of them in order as they were released. But now I'm like, what if I want to watch it chronologically instead of linear? Like, what if I want to watch it in world chronology instead of real world chronology?

You can figure it out.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm certain people have done this work.

That's true. Yeah. You can find it.

Yeah.

You do need to check their work, and that's where you come in.

Yeah. Hell yeah. That'll be my new job. And also, we have two new shows at Cool Zone Media. We have Natural Causes of James Stout, which is the go-outside show. And we have Knowledge Fight, which is the keeping track of right-wing media business. Monsters show that I haven't listened to yet. I'm going to listen to it because... God, it's so good.

Dan Friesen is such a nice man. He's so lovely. And he's so good at what he does. I want both of you on that show at some point when Dan's ready for more guests. But yeah, it's a banger. The first four episodes have Molly Conger on them. Our editor, Eva, is editing the show. So shout out, Eva.

Hell yeah. So you know it's going to be edited good.

Yeah. And.

I have a new zine out. It's called The Folk Tales of Lowland Sican, and it is a five-story set in the world of The Sapling Cage, but completely unrelated to the plot or time of The Sapling Cage, which is my Transwitch YA book that came out a couple years from Feminist Press. But this zine, it comes out from an anarchist collective publisher called Strangers in the Tangled Wilderness, which is at tangledwilderness.org. And it is only six bucks, which is real cheap for a piece of printed media, and it is Just frankly, the prettiest thing that I've ever had my name on because it was made beautiful by a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch of people's work. Like it was printed for us by another collectively run press, Eberhardt Press, and it is just gorgeous.

So check that out and check out Starter Trek and check out all the cool Zen media shows.

Be nice to each other. Wear sunscreen. Bye.

Do it.

Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Part Two: Jim Henson: A Complicated Guy Who Made Stories I Really Like

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