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o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o FELT, FOAM & PING-PONG BALLS a tribute to Jim Henson, 1936–1990, and the Muppets he left us o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o   o

[ Jim ] [ The Shows, Year by Year ] [ Write Me ]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIM. Today, September 24, 1999, Jim Henson would have been 63. I put this page up last month and I've been working on it every night after work, and I wanted it to be ready for today. It's not quite. It never will be. But here it is. Hi, I'm Toby Farnsworth. I'm 24, I work at a copy shop in Columbus, Ohio, and on Sundays I run the puppet team for the kids' program at my church. We have eleven puppets. I built nine of them myself, out of foam and fleece and a hot glue gun, from a library book called The Muppets Make Puppets! None of them are any good compared to the real thing. The kids don't care. That's the whole point, and I learned that from Jim.

THE MAN WITH HIS ARM UP A FROG James Maury Henson was born on September 24, 1936, in Greenville, Mississippi, and grew up in the little town of Leland nearby. When he was a teenager his family moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. When they got their first television set, he decided that was where he wanted to be. In 1955, when he was a freshman at the University of Maryland, a Washington station gave him a five-minute puppet show called Sam and Friends. One of the characters was a funny green creature he'd made out of his mother's old spring coat and a ping-pong ball cut in half for eyes. He wasn't even a frog yet. His name was Kermit. Jim's partner on that show was another Maryland student, Jane Nebel. They got married in 1959 and had five kids. He graduated in 1960 with a degree in home economics, of all things, because that's where they taught you to work with fabric. After that: Rowlf the dog on The Jimmy Dean Show. Hundreds of TV commercials. And then, in 1969, a new show for kids on public television, Sesame Street, where Jim was Kermit and Ernie. Then The Muppet Show, then the movies, Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and more. There's a whole page on the shows.

MAY 1990 I was fifteen. I was too old for Kermit, officially, and there was still a stuffed one on my bed, unofficially. It was on the six o'clock news on Wednesday, May 16. Jim Henson had died that morning in a New York hospital. He was only 53. What he had thought was a bad cold turned out to be a serious bacterial infection, and by the time he went to the hospital it was too late to stop it. My mom came in my room later and saw me sitting there holding the Kermit. She didn't say anything. She just sat down next to me. I'll always love her for that. At his memorial service in New York, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the family asked people not to wear black. So they didn't. Big Bird came out and sang "Bein' Green," Kermit's song, all by himself, and then the Muppet performers sang together. I've only ever read about it. I've never gotten through the reading without stopping.

WHY HE STILL MATTERS (TO ME, ANYWAY) He was never mean. The Muppets are chaos. Things blow up, Animal eats the drum kit, Gonzo shoots himself out of a cannon, Statler and Waldorf heckle everybody. But nobody on that stage is ever cruel. Even the grumpy ones love each other. He made weird okay. Gonzo doesn't know what he is. The Fraggles live in a hole in a wall. Kermit is a frog loved by a pig who might karate-chop him at any moment. Everybody gets a place. He trusted kids. Sesame Street never talked down. It taught us letters and numbers, and it also told us the truth when Mr. Hooper died. He made it look like play. Anybody who has held a puppet over their head for a whole Sunday school skit knows it is not play. Your arm is on fire. He did it for thirty-five years and made it look easy.

THE SHOW GOES ON The Muppets didn't stop. Jim's son Brian runs the company now, and Steve Whitmire took over Kermit, which must be the scariest job in show business. He does a good job. I think Jim would be glad. This summer, Muppets From Space came out, the one where Gonzo finally finds out where he comes from. I saw it opening day, July 14, with three of my church kids and their moms. We laughed the whole time. And next Friday, October 1, Elmo in Grouchland opens. Guess who's taking the whole puppet team.

You are guest number

in the balcony. Try not to heckle.

On to the shows, year by year »


Tell me your favorite Muppet! Mine is Rowlf.
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Last updated: Friday, September 24, 1999
The Muppets and Sesame Street characters belong to the Henson company and the Children's Television Workshop. I'm just a fan with a hot glue gun.
© 1999 Toby Farnsworth