Jim Henson: The Biography

by Brian Jay Jones

  Jim completed the first edit of Sex and Violence during the first week of 1975 and sent a rough cut to network executives for review. As he waited for the network’s response, Jim went skiing with the family in Vermont, then drove to Washington to accommodate a distinguished request: the Smithsonian Institution was preparing an exhibit for the upcoming Bicentennial, and had asked if Jim would donate the original Ernie and Bert Muppets. Jim was proud to oblige—and the two Muppets proved so popular that what was originally to be a four-year stay turned into a nearly fifteen-year residency for the Muppet duo. At the conclusion of the “We the People” exhibit in 1980, the museum wrote to Jim begging to keep Ernie and Bert a little while longer. A longtime fan of the museum—he would even propose an after-school special called Kermit at the Smithsonian—Jim was happy to gratify the request. The Muppets would remain on display for another ten years.

  Jim had scheduled another family vacation at the Snowmass resort in Aspen, Colorado, in early February, but dutifully scrapped his plans after receiving an unexpected phone call from director Blake Edwards, who wanted Jim to “come over [to London] for lunch” to discuss his participation in another television special with Julie Andrews, Edwards’s wife. Jim flew to London early on February 8, arriving just in time for the promised lunch. He later admitted to being awed by the courteous manner in which Edwards and Andrews received him, dispatching a limo to pick him up at the airport, then bringing him to their home for lunch and tea. Andrews also promised to make up for Jim’s canceled Snowmass trip by arranging a ski vacation for the Hensons in Gstaad, Switzerland. “I … was just knocked out by the whole experience,” Jim admitted later. He would make certain to treat his own guests with a similar courtesy once he had a show of his own.

  After agreeing to participate in Andrews’s upcoming special, Jim flew back to New York to corral his family for the Gstaad ski trip—but his schedule over the past few weeks had been grueling, and he was exhausted. As he drove home, he fell asleep at the wheel of his Jaguar, smashing it against a guardrail when he missed the exit ramp for Bedford. Fortunately, he walked away unhurt—and a few days later he and his family departed for Gstaad.

  Jim’s family returned from Switzerland without him, as he de-toured back through London to spend several days taping Muppet segments for the Julie Andrews special. After wrapping on March 6, Jim flew back to New York to make his final edits on Sex and Violence. Work on the Julie Andrews special had put him behind schedule; he now had less than two weeks to complete editing before ABC aired the show—and he had run into a minor problem.

  After reviewing a rough cut of the pilot in early January, ABC executives had written Jim with a number of suggested changes. Early on, Jim had run into trouble over the title Sex and Violence for his pilot, as nervous network officials had surveyed potential viewers and fretted to Jim about their findings. In particular, they were concerned about the title for the special, which, they found, had “produced substantial negative reaction.” But Jim wouldn’t budge. Besides the obvious nose thumbing at his squeaky clean reputation, Jim thought the title was just plain funny, and that anyone complaining didn’t get the joke. “My 14-year-old daughter Lisa saw it, and throughout the show she kept asking ‘Where’s the sex?’ ” Jim explained somewhat incredulously. “As for violence, there probably wasn’t enough to fill a thirty second spot announcement for Kung Fu.… The special’s title … was a humorous hook. While the show depicted some of the current attitudes toward sex and violence, our purpose was to poke fun at them.” While he would eventually agree to make several other changes the network had suggested—removing a brief sequence where he appeared on camera to introduce the show, for instance, and shortening Dr. Teeth’s musical number—the title would stay.

  Overall, he was pleased with the final version—“freak city!” he laughingly called it—and he was anxious to hear what viewers and reviewers thought. Diligently, Jim made the rounds with the press to promote the show in the days leading up to its debut. He was chatting about puppetry and television in a much more thoughtful and relaxed manner than in the past; at other times, he tried almost too hard to make the case for puppets as art. “Puppets are by their very nature symbolic, so any time you use them, you’re doing something symbolically,” he told one interviewer pensively. “An audience will go away with their own message. But this is not a ‘messagey’ show,” he added quickly, “it’s a fun show.”

  And still, he continued to stress his credentials as an adult entertainer. “A lot of our work has always been adult-oriented, so we’ll be working a lot with those aspects of the Muppets,” he explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “Through this pilot, we hope to be able to demonstrate that puppetry can be very solid adult entertainment.” Privately, in fact, Jim felt he was already pulling his comedic punches, after toning down some of his jokes out of deference to his reputation as a children’s entertainer. “He had lots of changes which were necessary, I think, in order to achieve the success he had,” said Richard Hunt. “[With the] Muppets … there was a sense of that perverted humor.… And he backed off that.”

  Reviews of Sex and Violence were uneven, though Jim was likely relieved to see Variety call it “zippy” and “good fun for children and adults who are on the in.” But rather than relying solely on newspaper reviews to determine whether he had succeeded, Jim had commissioned his own viewer survey, polling homes in New Jersey, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, and West Virginia. Perhaps Jim was hoping to use the viewer comments as leverage in his negotiations with ABC for an ongoing series; if so, he was surely disappointed. “There was a mixed reaction with regard to the material,” the survey reported. “A number of people felt that some of it was not funny. Some thought it was too far out.”

  Whatever it was, ABC executives decided it hadn’t worked; there would be no weekly Muppet series, at least not on ABC. But Jim was typically resolute; if ABC wasn’t interested, he’d try someplace else. “Perhaps one thing that has helped me in achieving my goals is that I sincerely believe in what I do, and get great pleasure from it,” said Jim. Even the showbiz-hardened Bernie Brillstein could get caught up in that kind of dogged determination. “We thought it was gonna be great, we knew it was,” Brillstein said. And yet, one door after another was closed in his face. The response, said Brillstein, was always the same: “We don’t do puppets at night.” “Puppets are funny things,” Jim said later. “They seem to win the hearts of both small and grown-up kids, but the networks have never been eager to buy it.”

  Still, Jim felt he was getting close; it was just a matter, he thought, of patience and personnel. At the moment, there was a noticeable hole in the administrative structure at Henson Associates following the uncomfortable but amicable departure of Diana Birkenfield in February 1974—and for over a year now, Jim had been without a full-time producer to assist in the development and management of his projects. Although he had the devoted Brillstein looking out for him on both coasts, Jim knew he needed a producer inside Henson Associates who could help him steer his dreams of a weekly Muppet show out of choppy waters and into the safe port of prime-time television. He needed someone who knew and understood the media, was savvy in business, and, ideally, shared his sense of humor and low-key management style—who could, as Al Gottesman put it, “translat[e] Jim’s philosophy and essential ethic about work and the quality of what he wants to produce” into the actual practice of helping to run a business.

  The more he thought about it, the more Jim thought he knew exactly who he needed. As he prepared to travel to Burbank in March 1975 for an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, he placed a call to David Lazer, the dynamic IBM executive with whom Jim was still making short films, and asked to meet him at the Beverly Wilshire hotel. Jim suggested the two of them attend the Carson taping together, then discuss a bit of business over lunch the next day.

  Jim made his appearance on The Tonight Show in his version of dress attire, wearing a suede jacket over a dark turtleneck
and dark trousers, his hair curling down onto his shoulders and his beard slightly shaggy. While he still looked vaguely uncomfortable, once he began performing Kermit, no one noticed Jim anyway: all eyes, including Carson’s, were on the frog. When asked about his role in the Sex and Violence special, Kermit complained that he had only “one lousy line!”—perhaps a winking acknowledgment by Jim that he had made a mistake in sidelining Kermit in favor of Nigel—and bristled in mock offense when Carson asked him about his love life. “Listen, I work on Sesame Street. You don’t ask a frog questions like that!” Kermit replied. “Do you ask Captain Kangaroo about his sex life?” The line got a big laugh, but after the taping, Jim was upset about his performance, calling it only “fair.”

  Jim continued to fret into the evening, groaning and hmmming in his hotel suite and appealing to Lazer for reassurance. With the three-hour time difference between the East and West coasts, Jane would be able to watch Jim’s taped performance on The Tonight Show in New York even before Jim could watch it in Los Angeles. Jim eyed the clock, and at the appropriate time dialed home to discuss his appearance on Carson with Jane. “He was very interested in her opinion,” said Lazer. “I liked that.” Despite their widening differences, Jim still relied on Jane for emotional support and professional perspective; when it came to assessing Muppet performances, her instincts were almost always dead-on.

  The next afternoon, over Mexican food at Señor Pico, Jim asked Lazer if he would “ever consider joining” Henson Associates. Lazer was stunned. “That was a dream,” he said later. “I remember having a fork [in my hand] and it froze … it was such a shock. And I said, ‘Oh my God! Oh, probably!’ ” As Lazer got into his cab for the airport, Jim leaned in the car window. “I’m very serious, Dave. I want to hear soon. I want you.” Three weeks later—following a trip to Miami, where Jim had to soothe the hurt feelings of Lazer’s employers at IBM—Lazer was Jim’s new producer. His impact would be felt almost immediately.

  With his impeccably tailored suits, bright red ties, and loosely curled head of hair, the New York–born Lazer looked as if he had stepped out of a central casting call for the role of Smooth Businessman—a stark contrast to Jim, who was still wearing his flare-bottomed slacks, brightly colored shirts, and at times a colored scarf under a leather jacket. As a master of promotion, sales, and public relations, Lazer was determined to bring the same polish to Henson Associates that he had brought to the IBM product line—and as far as Lazer was concerned, the product at Henson Associates wasn’t the Muppets; it was Jim.

  To Lazer, Jim was more than just Muppets; he was a creative force, on a par with Walt Disney, whose name epitomized a high caliber of entertainment that transcended any particular medium. “We had to work on Jim’s image, for his own sake first,” said Lazer, “and then let the world know this man has such character.” That was easier said than done; despite the fact that it was Jim’s name over the door, Jim had never thought of himself as the face of the corporation. That had to change. “Jim was considered an act, instead of who he was,” said Lazer. One of Lazer’s first missions, then, was to turn his boss from merely one of Henson Associates’ performers into Jim Henson.

  Not that he was going to change Jim too much—and Lazer had some lessons of his own to learn about Jim’s way of doing business. At Lazer’s first staff meeting, Jim had asked his new producer to make a brief presentation, and Lazer—brought up in an executive culture of flip charts and handouts—completely baffled the Muppet designers and performers with his endless handouts and lists of people, profiles, products, and personalities. “People were laughing and snickering,” Lazer remembered. “I was a suit … coming through a creative world. But,” he added rakishly, “I was a maverick suit.” Taking the hint, Lazer threw his flowcharts into the middle of the table and continued talking as if nothing had happened. Afterward, Jim sympathetically pulled him aside.

  “It’s not the same, is it?” he said.

  “Oh no,” said Lazer. “It’s better.”

  Jim was delighted with that sort of response. His instincts about Lazer had been correct; he would fit in nicely.

  In late July 1975, Jim spent two weeks in California to tape performances on several variety shows, including two appearances on Cher for CBS. Jim’s time with Cher would be notable more for what went on between takes than for what appeared on the show itself; Cher and her executive producer at CBS, George Schlatter, in fact, would play an important role in bringing The Muppet Show to television.

  At the urging of Brillstein, Jim had intended to approach Schlatter to discuss the possibility of CBS picking up a regular Muppet series—and now that he was in Los Angeles, Jim, Brillstein, Lazer, and Schlatter huddled to discuss their options. While Schlatter couldn’t necessarily approve a show, he could help actively promote it at CBS—but he needed more than just Jim’s written pitches or copies of the two failed ABC pilots to make his case. He needed something dynamic to take to the network that would show, not just tell about, Jim’s inventiveness and enthusiasm. Jim—who had spent much of the first decade of his career promoting other people’s products—thought he had a solution.

  He would make a commercial.

  Not just a regular commercial, but a lengthy Muppet Show pitch reel—one that would highlight some of the Muppets’ strongest performances, spotlight the versatility of the Muppets, and, ideally, do so in a way that conveyed Jim’s unique, and slightly skewed, brand of humor. Lazer was excited about the idea and suggested that the pitch reel mention by name the network executives who would be watching it and making the decision—a trick he had often incorporated into his presentations at IBM. Schlatter—the father of Laugh-In and a writer with a wicked sense of humor—volunteered to help Jim with the script. Even better, he also offered to make time available during the Cher taping to allow Jim to tape a few segments with Kermit interviewing Cher and her daughter, Chastity, to give executives an idea of how the Muppets might interact with human guest stars—an offer both Cher and six-year-old Chastity were happy to accommodate. The segment with Cher, in fact, ended up being particularly feisty, full of double entendres (many of which were fed to Jim by Schlatter, squatting on the floor beside him), which resulted in both performers laughing so hard that Jim eventually broke character.

  On August 31, 1975, a little more than two weeks after his initial meeting with Schlatter, Jim was in the studios at Bevington Stage in Los Angeles to film the framing sequences for his Muppet Show pitch. Most of the twenty-five-minute pitch would involve Kermit introducing clips of Muppet appearances, mainly highlights from the two Muppet pilots and assorted variety shows, as well as snippets of Kermit’s conversations with Cher and Chastity. But the most memorable moment of the reel would turn out to be its final two and a half minutes, a new sequence written by Jim and Schlatter featuring a smooth-talking Muppet salesman performed by Jim who becomes more and more manic as he makes his pitch for The Muppet Show, eventually building to a frothing, enthusiastic crescendo worthy of Guy Smiley:

  Friends, the United States of America needs The Muppet Show—and you should buy this show! … Buy the show and put it on the air and we’ll all be famous! … and we’ll all get temperamental and hard to work with, but you won’t care! Because we’ll all make a lot of money! … and you’ll be happy! And Kermit’s mother will be happy!

  Then, as a heavenly choir swelled, came Jim’s comedic promise of huge ratings:

  And God will look down on us! And smile on us, and He will say, “Let them have a forty share!”

  Even God, however, wouldn’t get the last word—and with the CBS logo rising like the sun in the background, Kermit wandered into the shot and stared straight into the camera to ask, “What the hell was that all about?”—a joke Jim had written at the last minute, scrawling the line in pencil across the bottom of his script. After viewing the pitch reel with his fellow CBS executives, Perry Lafferty—one of the executives mentioned by name in the pitch reel—called Brillstein with congratulations. “If t
hey don’t buy this,” Lafferty told the agent, “they’re crazy.”

  And yet, remembered Lazer glumly, “it didn’t sell.” Standing partly in Jim’s way—at least at CBS—was the recently enacted Prime Time Access Rule (PTAR), a policy implemented by the Federal Communications Commission to encourage more diverse and independent television programming. Prior to enactment of the rule in 1971, the major television networks had essentially barricaded themselves inside the prime-time viewing hours—generally 7:00 to 11:00 P.M. Eastern Time—which all but banished independent and local programming to early afternoons or late nights, where viewers and ratings were scarcer. Starting in September 1971, however, the PTAR required networks to open up the first hour of prime time to non-network programming “so that [independent] producers may have the opportunity to develop their full economic and creative potential under better competitive conditions than are now available to them.”

  That may have sounded like an open door for the Muppets, but Jim’s real problem was a 1975 rule change within PTAR, which exempted Sunday nights from the restriction—exactly the spot where CBS was considering placing The Muppet Show. With the FCC exemption allowing the network to fill the entire Sunday night block with its own programming, CBS opted to move its floundering news program 60 Minutes into the first hour instead. That move quickly established 60 Minutes as the network’s Sunday night flagship, but doomed the prospects for The Muppet Show on CBS. (At least, said Brillstein later, the Muppets had lost to the best.) While disappointed, Lazer thought the pitch reel had still done “something good for us. It said, ‘We … have what it takes to do it.’ ” It was “a wonderful goddamn thing,” agreed Brillstein—and he would continue to show the reel to anyone who would watch.