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Muppet
Master By
Judy Harris
The Henson organization supported and continues to support the art of puppetry. Some of the ways it does this is by mounting exhibitions of the work of puppeteers and also sponsoring actual performances. At the time of the following interview, I had recently seen at Lincoln Center one of these exhibitions which contained items from virtually the entire history of the Muppets; simultaneous with the release of The Dark Crystal, there was an even more impressive exhibit, also at Lincoln Center, of many of the puppet/characters from The Dark Crystal in wonderfully detailed dioramas. Subsequently, over the years, I have been to other exhibits mounted by or with the participation of the Henson organization, including one devoted to the artwork of Jim Henson.
If you have ever attended a fan convention at which someone you admire was a guest, you know the frustration of having to raise your hand to get called on and, even then, being able to ask only a single question. You can perhaps then imagine how enormously satisfying it is to be able to spend about 90 minutes with someone you admire, not only being able to ask any question you like, but also being able to follow up the answers with questions you might not initially have prepared. I had prepared myself prior to the interview with a rather long, typed list of questions, and this list to an extent imposed a certain order to my questions but I certainly got derailed a couple of times when I got an unexpected response.
This project, the phone interview with Jim Henson, my subsequent face to face meetings with him a week or two later, and the free access I had to the Muppet headquarters and the workshop, is one of the high points of my life. The following is a transcript of a telephone interview between Jim Henson and me on September 21, 1982. I am at home in New York while Jim is in London taking a break from postproduction for The Dark Crystal. |
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