Puppetry
Puppet theater with Gioppino and Brighella, Bergamo Italy
Ancestor arts	Theatre
Originating era	3000 years BC

Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets. It is very ancient, and is believed to have originated 3000 years BC.^[1] Puppetry takes many forms but they all share the process of animating inanimate performing objects. Puppetry is used in almost all human societies both as entertainment – in performance – and ceremonially in rituals and celebrations such as carnivals.^[2]

Most puppetry involves storytelling. The impact of puppetry depends on the process of transformation of puppets, which has much in common with play.

History of puppetry[link]

Puppetry is a very ancient art form, thought to have originated about 3000 years ago.^[1] Puppets have been used since the earliest times to animate and communicate the ideas and needs of human societies.^[3] Some historians claim that they pre-date actors in theatre. There is evidence that they were used in Egypt as early as 2000 BC when string-operated figures of wood were manipulated to perform the action of kneading bread. Wire controlled, articulated puppets made of clay and ivory have also been found in Egyptian tombs. Hieroglyphs also describe "walking statues" being used in Ancient Egyptian religious dramas.^[1] The oldest written record of puppetry can be found in the written records of Xenophon dating from around 422 BC. ^[4]

Africa[link]

Sub-Saharan Africa may have inherited some of the puppet traditions of Ancient Egypt.^[1] Certainly, secret societies in many African ethnic groups still use puppets (and masks) in ritual dramas as well as in their healing and hunting ceremonies. Today, puppetry continues as a popular form, often within a ceremonial context, and as part of a wide-range of folk forms including dance, storytelling, and masked performance.

Throughout rural Africa, puppetry still performs the function of transmitting cultural values and ideas that in large African cities is increasingly undertaken by formal education, books, cinema, and television

Asia[link]

East and South Asia[link]

"A Children's Puppet Show" (傀儡婴戏图轴), a painting by Chinese artist Liu Songnian (刘松年 1174-1224 AD), Song Dynasty

There is slight evidence for puppetry in the Indus Valley Civilization. Archaeologists have unearthed one terracotta doll with a detachable head capable of manipulation by a string dating to 2500 BC.^[5] Another figure is a terracotta monkey which could be manipulated up and down a stick, achieving minimum animation in both cases.^[5] The epic Mahabharata, Tamil literature from the Sangam Era, and various literary works dating from the late centuries BC to the early centuries of the Common Era, including Ashokan edicts, describe puppets.^[6] Works like the Natya Shastra and the Kamasutra elaborate on puppetry in some detail.^[7] The Javanese Wayang theater was influenced by Indian traditions.^[8] Some scholars trace the origin of puppets to India 4000 years ago, where the main character in Sanskrit plays was known as "Sutradhara", "the holder of strings".^[9] China has a history of puppetry dating back 2000 years, originally in "pi-ying xi", the "theatre of the lantern shadows", or, as it is more commonly known today, Chinese shadow theatre. By the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), puppets played to all social classes including the courts, yet puppeteers, as in Europe, were considered to be from a lower social stratum.^[1] In Taiwan, budaixi puppet shows, somewhat similar to the Japanese Bunraku, occur with puppeteers working in the background or underground. Some very experienced puppeteers can manipulate their puppets to perform various stunts, for example, somersaults in the air.

Japan has many forms of puppetry, including the bunraku. Bunraku developed out of Shinto temple rites and gradually became a highly sophisticated form of puppetry. Chikamatsu Monzaemon, considered by many to be Japan's greatest playwright, gave up writing Kabuki plays and focused exclusively on the puppet-only Bunraku plays. Initially consisting of one puppeteer, by 1730 three puppeteers were used to operate each puppet in full view of the audience.^[1] The puppeteers, who dressed all in black, would become invisible when standing against a black background, while the torches illuminated only the carved, painted and costumed wooden puppets.

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  Chinese Shadow Puppet (Beijing Style)

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  Chinese Stick Puppets

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  Sanbaso Bunraku Puppet, Tonda Puppet Troupe, Japan

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  The character Osono, from the play Hade Sugata Onna Maiginu, in a performance by the Tonda Traditional Puppet Troupe of Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture, Japan - an example of Japanese Bunraku puppetry.

Puppeteer from Rajasthan (India)

In Korea, the tradition of puppetry is thought to have come from China. The oldest historical evidence of puppetry in China comes from a letter written in 982 A.D. from Choe Seung-roe to the King.^[10] In Korean, the word for puppet is "ggogdu gagsi".^[10] "Gagsi" means a "bride" or a "young woman", which was the most common form the dolls took. A ggogdu gagsi puppet play has eight scenes.^[10]

Thailand has Hun Krabok, a rod puppet theatre which is the most popular form of puppetry.

Vietnam developed the art form of mua roi nuoc, a water puppetry that is unique to that country. The puppets are built out of wood and the shows are performed in a waist high pool. A large rod under the water is used by the puppeteers to support and control the puppets. The appearance is created of the puppets moving over water. The origin of this form of puppetry dates back seven hundred years when the rice fields would flood and the villagers would entertain each other, eventually resulting in puppet show competitions between villages. This led to puppet societies becoming secretive and exclusive.

India has a great tradition of puppetry. In the great Indian epic Mahabharata there are references to puppets. The Rajasthani Puppet from India is notable and there are many Indian ventriloquists and puppeteers. The first Indian ventriloquist, Professor Y.K. Padhye, introduced this form of puppetry to India in the 1920s and his son, Ramdas Padhye, subsequently popularised ventriloquism and puppetry.

Indonesia has a strong tradition of puppetry. In Java, wayang kulit, an elaborate form of shadow puppetry is very popular. Javanese rod puppets have a long history and are used to tell fables from Javanese history.

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  Traditional Indonesian puppets and puppeteer

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  Wayang puppet from Bali, Indonesia

Afghanistan has produced a form of puppetry known as buz-baz. During a performance a puppeteer will simultaneuosly operate a marionette of a markhor while playing a dambura.

West Asia[link]

Karagoz, Turkish shadow puppetry

Middle Eastern puppetry, like its other theatre forms, is influenced by the Islamic culture. Karagoz, the Turkish Shadow Theatre, has widely influenced puppetry in the region and it is thought to have passed from China by way of India. Later, it was taken by the Mongols from the Chinese and passed to the Turkish peoples of Central Asia. The art of Shadow Theater was brought to Anatolia by the Turkish people emigrating from Central Asia. Other scholars claim that shadow theater came to Anatolia in the 16th century from Egypt. The advocates of this view claim that shadow theatre found its way into the Ottoman palaces when Yavuz Sultan Selim conquered Egypt in 1517. He saw shadow theatre performed during a party in his honour and he was said to be so impressed with it that he took the puppeteer back to his palace in Istanbul where his 21-year -old son, later Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, developed an interest in the plays.^[11]

In other areas, the style of shadow puppetry known as khayal al-zill, a metaphor translated as "shadows of the imagination" or "shadow of fancy", still survives. This is a shadow play with live music, "the accompaniment of drums, tambourines and flutes...also..."special effects" – smoke, fire, thunder, rattles, squeaks, thumps, and whatever else might elicit a laugh or a shudder from his audience"^[12]

In [Iran], puppets are known to have existed much earlier than 1000 CE, but initially only glove and string puppets were popular .^[13] Other genres of puppetry emerged during the Qajar era (18th-19th century BC) as influences from Turkey spread to the region. Kheimeh Shab-Bazi is a traditional Persian puppet show which is performed in a small chamber by a musical performer and a storyteller called a morshed or naghal. These shows often take place alongside storytelling in traditional tea and coffee-houses (Ghahve-Khaneh"). The dialogue takes place between the morshed and the puppets.^[14] A recent example of puppetry in Iran is the touring opera Rostam and Sohrab.^[15]

Europe[link]

Ancient Greece and Rome[link]

Although there are few remaining examples of puppets from ancient Greece, historical literature shows the existence of puppetry. The Greek word usually translated as "puppets" is "neurospasta", from "nervus", meaning either sinew, tendon, muscle, string, or wire, which literally means "string-pulling" and "span", to pull. Aristotle referred to pulling strings to control heads, hands and eyes, shoulders and legs.^[16] Plato's work also contains references to puppetry. The Iliad and the Odyssey were presented using puppetry. The roots of European puppetry probably extend back to the Greek plays with puppets played to the "common people" in the 5th Century BC. By the third century BC these plays would appear in the Theatre of Dionysus at the Acropolis.^[1]

In ancient Greece and ancient Rome clay dolls, and a few of ivory, dated from around 500 BC, were found in children's tombs. These dolls had articulated arms and legs, some of which had an iron rod extending up from the tops of their heads. This rod was used to manipulate the doll from above, as it is done today in Sicilian puppetry. A few of these dolls had strings in place of rods. Some researchers believe these ancient figures were simply toys and not puppets, due to their small size.^[17]

Sicilian Puppet Theatre

Gioppino and Brighella, Bergamo, Italy

Italy - Middle Ages and Renaissance[link]

Italy is considered by many to be the early home of the marionette due to the influence of Roman puppetry. Xenophon and Plutarch refer to them.^[18] The Christian church used marionettes to perform morality plays.^[18] It is believed that the word marionette originates from the little figures of the Virgin Mary, hence the word "marionette" or "Mary doll.^[19] Comedy was introduced to the plays as time went by, and ultimately led to a church edict banning puppetry. Puppeteers responded by setting up stages outside cathedrals and became even more ribald and slapstick. Out of this grew the Italian comedy called Commedia dell'arte. Puppets were used at times in this form of theatre and sometimes Shakespeare's plays were performed using marionettes instead of actors.^[20]

In Sicily, the sides of donkey carts are decorated with intricate, painted scenes from the Frankish romantic poems, such as The Song of Roland. These same tales are enacted in traditional puppet theatres featuring hand-made marionettes of wood. In Sicilian this is called "Opira dî pupi", or "Opera of the puppets". The opera of the puppets and the Sicilian tradition of cantastorî, or "sing stories", are rooted in the Provençal troubadour tradition, in Sicily during the reign of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, in the first half of the 13th century.

Italy - 18th and 19th century[link]

The eighteenth century was a vital period in the development of all Italian theatre, including the marionette theatre. The rod puppet was mainly of lower-class origin, but the marionette theatre was popular in aristocratic circles, as a celebration of the Age of Enlightenment. The effects, and the artful and complex construction of the puppets, the puppet theatres, and the puppet narratives, were all popular, particularly in Venice.^[21]

In the 19th century, the marionettes of Pietro Radillo became more complex and instead of just the rod and two strings, Radillo's marionettes were controlled by as many as eight strings, which increased control over the individual body parts of the marionettes.^{[citation needed]}

Great Britain[link]

British Puppet theatre (Punch and Judy style), c. 1770

The traditional British Punch and Judy puppetry traces its roots to the 16th century to the Italian commedia dell'arte.^[22] The character of "Punch" derives from the character Pulcinella, which was Anglicized to Punchinello. He is a manifestation of the Lord of Misrule and Trickster, figures of deep-rooted mythologies. Punch's wife was originally "Joan", but later became "Judy". In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the familiar Punch and Judy puppet show which existed in Britain was performed in an easily-transportable booth. The British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild in the early 20th century instigated a resurgence of puppetry. Two of the Guild's founders, H. W. Whanslaw and Waldo Lanchester, both worked to promote and develop puppetry with publications of books and literature, mainly focusing on the art of the marionette. Lanchester had a touring theatre and a permanent venue in Malvern, Worcestershire, regularly taking part in the Malvern Festival and attracting the attention of George Bernard Shaw. One of Shaw's last plays, Shakes versus Shav, was written for and first performed in 1949 by the company.^{[citation needed]}

Current British puppetry theatres include the Little Angel Theatre in Islington, London, Puppet Theatre Barge in London, Norwich Puppet Theatre, the Harlequin Puppet Theatre, Rhos-on-Sea, Wales, and the Biggar Puppet Theatre, Biggar, Lanarkshire, Scotland. British puppetry now covers a wide range of styles and approaches. Don Austen, a British puppeteer, worked with Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and also worked on a number of feature films. There are also a number of British theatre companies, including Horse and Bamboo Theatre, and Green Ginger, which integrate puppetry into highly visual productions. From 1984 to 1996, puppetry was used as a vehicle for political satire in the British television series Spitting Image. Puppetry has also been influencing mainstream theatre, and several recent productions combine puppetry with live action, including Warhorse, at the Royal National Theatre and Madam Butterfly at the English National Opera.^{[citation needed]}

Netherlands, Denmark, Romania, Russia and France[link]

Many regional variants of Pulcinella were developed as the character spread across Europe. In the Netherlands it is Jan Klaassen (and Judy is Katrijn); in Denmark Mester Jackel; in Russia Petrushka; in Romania Vasilache; and in France Polichinelle.^{[citation needed]} Only during the French revolution were puppet booths closed. Those puppeteers who dared to take part in political criticism were imprisoned.^[23] In Russia, the Central Puppet Theatre in Moscow and its branches in every part of the country enhanced the reputation of the puppeteer and puppetry in general.^[24]

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  Polichinelle caricature, France

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  Guignol Theatre, Paris, France

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  Traditional puppets from Liège, Belgium

Germany and Austria[link]

There is a long tradition of puppetry in Germany and Austria. Much of it derives from the 16th century tradition of the Italian commedia dell'arte.^[22] The German version of the British character of 'Punch' is called Kasperle of Kaspar while Judy is called Grete.^[22] In the eighteenth century, operas were specifically composed for marionette puppets. Gluck, Haydn,^[25] de Falla and Respighi all composed adult operas for marionettes. In 1855, Count Franz Pocci founded the Munich Marionette Theatre. A German dramatist, poet, painter and composer, Pocci wrote 40 puppet plays for his theatre. Albrecht Roser has made a considerable impact with his marionettes in Stuttgart. His characters Clown Gustaf and Grandmother are well-known.^[26] Grandmother, while outwardly charming, is savagely humorous in her observations about all aspects of society and the absurdities of life. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre was founded in 1913 by Professor Anton Aicher and is world famous. Today in Salzburg in Austria, the Salzburg Marionette Theatre still continues the tradition of presenting full length opera using marionettes in their own purpose built theatre under the direction of Gretl Aicher. It performs mainly operas such as Die Fledermaus and The Magic Flute and a small number of ballets such as The Nutcracker.^[27] The Salzburg Marionette Theatre productions are aimed for adults although children are of course welcome. There is also a marionette theatre at Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna.

Marionette Theatre, Prague, Czech Republic

Puppet Theatre, Ostrava, Czech Republic

Czech Republic[link]

Marionette puppet theatre has had a very long history in entertainment in Prague, and elsewhere in the Czech Republic. It can be traced deep into the early part of the Middle Ages.^[28] Marionettes first appeared around the time of the Thirty Years' War.^[28] The first noted Czech puppeteer was Jan Jiri Brat, who was born in 1724. He was the son of a local carpenter and created his own puppet theatre.^[28] Matej Kopecky was the most famous 19th century Czech puppeteer,^[28] and was responsible for communicating the ideas of national awareness.^[28] In 1920 and 1926 respectively, Josef Skupa created his most famous puppets: comical father Spejbl and his rascal son Hurvínek.^[29] In 1930, he set up the first modern professional puppet theatre. An important puppet organisation is the National Marionette Theatre in Prague. Its repertoire mainly features a marionette production of Mozart's famous Don Giovanni. The production has period costumes and a beautifully designed eighteenth century setting. There are numerous other companies, including Buchty a Loutky ("Cakes and Puppets"), founded by Marek Bečka.^[28] Puppets have been used extensively in animated films since 1946.^[28] Jiří Trnka was an acknowledged leader in this area.^[28] Miroslav Trejtnar is a master puppeteer and teacher of traditional Czech marionette-making skills.

19th century[link]

Throughout this period, puppetry developed separately from the emerging mainstream of actor theatres, and the 'ragged' puppeteers performed outside of theatre buildings at fairs, markets etc. - continuing to be classified along with bandits and gypsies.^[1] In the 19th century, puppetry faced competition from other forms of theatre such as vaudeville and music hall, but it adapted to these challenges, for example: by developing stage acts and participating in the new forms of popular theatre, or reinventing itself in other ways and finding audiences at the newly fashionable seaside resorts.

North America[link]

The Teotihuacan culture (Central Mexico) of 600 AD made figurines with moveable arms and legs as part of their funerary rites. Native Americans also used ceremonial puppets.^[1] In 1519, two puppeteers accompanied Hernando Cortez on his first journey to Mexico. Europeans brought their own puppet traditions with them, but gradually distinctive styles, forms and puppet characters developed in North America.^[2]

Some advances in 20th century puppetry have originated in the United States. Marionette puppetry was combined with television as early as the 1940s, with Howdy Doody of the United States being a notable marionette in this field. Bil Baird worked on revitalising marionette theatre and puppetry in the United States. He and his wife, Cora Eisenberg had their own marionette theatre in New York. Edgar Bergen also made a major contribution.^[30] In the 1960s Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater developed the political and artistic possibilities of puppet theatre in a distinctive, powerful and immediately recognizable way. At roughly the same time, Jim Henson was creating a type of soft, foam-rubber and cloth puppet which became known collectively as Muppets. Initially, through the children's television show Sesame Street, and later in The Muppet Show and on film, these inspired many imitators and are today are recognised almost everywhere. Wayland Flowers also made a major contribution to adult puppetry with his satirical puppet, Madame.

Puppets also have been used in the Star Wars films, notably with the character of Yoda. His voice and manipulation was provided by Frank Oz.

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  Edgar Bergen and his puppet Charlie McCarthy

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  Puppets in the Bread and Puppet Theater Museum in Glover, Vermont, USA

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  Mallory Lewis and Lamb Chop

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  Leslie Madeline Fleming and Bleeckie, a character from a series of web videos.

Oceania[link]

The aboriginal peoples of Australia have a long tradition of oral storytelling which goes back many thousands of years. They used masks and other objects to convey deep and meaningful themes about morality and nature. There are links between as an early form of ritualistic human carnival puppetry. Masks were carved from wood and heavily decorated with paint and feathers. In many of the Pacific countries, there has been a heavy emphasis on ritual.

With the arrival of European settlers, a different sort of puppetry took shape. In Australia in the 1960s, Peter Scriven founded the Marionette Theatre Company of Australia and had beautiful marionette productions such as The Tintookies, Little Fella Bindi.^[31] The Explorers and The Water Babies. Bilbar Puppet Theatre, established by Barbara Turnbull and her husband Bill Turnbull (puppeteer) toured Australia extensively under the auspices of the Queensland Arts Council in 1970s and 1980s. Their puppets are now held in the Moncrieff Library of the Performing Arts, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Brisbane. In Melbourne Handspan Theatre 1977-2002 evolved from humble collective beginnings to evolve a design-rich large theatre format dubbed 'Visual Theatre' and became a hot-house for innovative projects and award-winning multimedia collaborations within Australia and around the world.

There are a great many thriving puppet companies in Australia. Courses exist at tertiary level at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Australian puppeteer Norman Hetherington was famous for his marionette, Mr. Squiggle who featured on an Australian Broadcasting Commission television program for many years from 1 July 1959. The last episode was on 9 July 1999. In every episode he would create several pictures from "squiggles" sent in by children from around the country. Richard Bradshaw OAM is another famous Australian puppeteer. He is currently President of UNIMA Australia, former artistic director of the Marionette Theatre Company of Australia^[32] and is renowned for his shadow puppetry and writing in the field. Rod Hull also made a contribution with his puppet Emu. In the 1960s, Hull presented a children's breakfast television programme in Australia. Snuff Puppets is one of Australia's modern puppet theatre troupes. Based in Melbourne, their work is full of wild black humour, political and sexual satire and a hand made visually aesthetic. Snuff Puppets has performed in over 15 countries, including tours to major festivals in Asia, South America and Europe. There is an annual winter festival of puppets at the City of Melbourne's ArtPlay and at Federation Square in Melbourne.

In New Zealand, a similar history has taken place.

Contemporary puppetry[link]

Puppet theatre in Moscow, Russia in 1959

Performance of the Kstovo Puppet Theatre

From early in the 19th century, puppetry began to inspire artists from the 'high-art' traditions. In 1810, Heinrich von Kleist wrote an essay 'On the Marionette Theatre', admiring the "lack of self-consciousness" of the puppet.

Puppetry developed throughout the twentieth century in a variety of ways. Supported by the parallel development of cinema, television and other filmed media it now reaches a larger audience than ever. Another development, starting at the beginning of the century, was the belief that puppet theatre, despite its popular and folk roots, could speak to adult audiences with an adult, and experimental voice, and reinvigorate the high art tradition of actors' theatre.^[33]

Sergei Obraztsov explored the concept of kukolnost ('puppetness'), despite Joseph Stalin's insistence on realism. Other pioneers, including Edward Gordon Craig and Erwin Piscator were influenced by puppetry in their crusade to regalvanise the mainstream. Maeterlinck, Shaw, Lorca and others wrote puppet plays, and artists such as Picasso, Jarry, and Léger began to work in theatre.^[1]

Craig's concept of the "ubermarionette"—in which the director treats the actors like objects—has been highly influential on contemporary "object theatre" and "physical theatre".^{[citation needed]} Tadeusz Kantor frequently substituted actors for puppets, or combined the two, and conducted each performance from the edge of the stage, in some ways similar to a puppeteer. Kantor influenced a new formalist generation of directors such as Richard Foreman and Robert Wilson who were concerned with the 'object' in theatrical terms "putting it on stage and finding different ways of looking at it" (Foreman). Innovatory puppeteers such as Tony Sarg, Waldo Lanchester, John Wright, Bil Baird, Joan Baixas, Sergei Obratsov, Philipe Genty, Peter Schumann, Dattatreya Aralikatte, Jim Henson, Dadi Pudumjee, and Julie Taymor have also continued to develop the forms and content of puppetry, so that the phrase 'puppet theatre' is no longer limited to traditional forms of marionettes, glove, or rod puppets. Directors and companies like Peter Schumann of Bread and Puppet Theatre, Bob Frith of Horse and Bamboo Theatre, and Sandy Speiler of In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre have also combined mask and puppet theatre where the performer, puppets and objects are integrated within a largely visual theatre world that minimises the use of spoken language.^[34]

Puppetry is now probably more familiar through television than live performance, but this still flourishes throughout the world. In the world of theatre, puppetry continues to be influential, and despite its 'outsider' status acts as an invigorating and rejuvenating influence on its mainstream relative, and feeds through object and physical theatre many of the most exciting developments in contemporary theatre.

See also[link]

• Digital puppetry
• Hand puppet
• Puppet
• Puppeteer
• Shadow puppetry
• The Theatre of Small Convenience – the smallest theatre in the world
• UNIMA – International Puppetry Association
• Ventriloquism
• World Puppetry Day

References[link]

External links[link]

• Union Internationale de la Marionnette - International organization of puppeteers and puppet enthusiasts
• UNIMA Australia - Australian branch of the International organisation of puppeteers
• The Center for Puppetry Arts - Puppetry Museum and Theater in Atlanta, GA, US.
• The Puppetry Homepage - Contains links and information about all types of puppets and puppetry.
• PuppetVision Blog - Popular weblog about puppetry and its role in film, video and digital media.
• PuppetryLab - Articles and training videos related to puppet manipulation and puppeteer education.
• Puppet, an external wiki
• Puppet Notebook- Articles on puppet history, theory and contemporary international puppetry in magazine published by British UNIMA.
• (Russian) Official website of the State Puppet Theater of the Republic of Mordovia

Books and articles[link]

• Baird, Bil (1966). The Art of the Puppet. Plays. ISBN 0-8238-0067-9. 
• Beaton, Mabel; Les Beaton (1948). Marionettes: A Hobby for Everyone. New York. 
• Bell, John (2000). Shadows: A Modern Puppet History. Detroit, USA: Detroit Institute of Art. ISBN 0-89558-156-6. 
• Binyon, Helen (1966). Puppetry Today. London: Studio Vista Limited. 
• Choe, Sang-su (1961). A Study of the Korean Puppet Play. The Korean Books Publishing Company Ltd.. 
• Currell, David (1992). An Introduction to Puppets and Puppetmaking. London: New Burlington Books, Quintet Publishing Limited. ISBN 1-85348-389-3. 
• Dubska, Alice; Jan Novak, Nina Malikova, Marie Zdenkova (2006). Czech Puppet Theatre. Prague: Theatre Institute. ISBN 80-7008-199-6. 
• Dugan, E.A. (1990). Emotions in Motion. Montreal, Canada: Galerie Amrad. ISBN 0-9693081-5-9. 
• Feeney, John (1999). Puppet. Saudi Aramco World. 
• Funni, Arthur (2000). The Radio Years of Bergen and McCarthy (Thesis). The Margaret Herrick Library. 
• Hayali, Mustafa Mutlu. Tradition Folk The Site. Ankara, Turkey: Theatre Department, Ankara University Faculty of Language, History and Geography. 
• Latshaw, George (2000). The Complete Book of Puppetry. London: Dover Publications. ISBN 978-0-486-40952-8. 
• Lindsay, Hilaire (1976). The First Puppet Book. Leichardt, NSW, Australia: Ansay Pty Ltd. ISBN 0 909245. 
• Logan, David (2007). Puppetry. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: Brisbane Dramatic Arts Co. ISBN 97809080456301. 
• Robinson, Stuart; Patricia Robertson (1967). Exploring Puppetry. London: Mills & Boon Limited. 
• Sinclair, Anita (1995). The Puppetry Handbook. Richmond, Victoria, Australia: Richard Lee Publishing. ISBN 0-646-39063-5. 
• Suib, Leonard; Muriel Broadman (1975). Marionettes Onstage!. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers. ISBN 0-06-014166-2. 
• Vella, Maeve; Helen Rickards (1989). Theatre of the Impossible: puppet theatre in Australia. Roseville, N.S.W: Craftsman's House. ISBN 0-947131-21-3. 
• "Wayland Flowers Dies: Ventriloquist Was 48". The New York Times. October 12, 1988. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFD71F3FF931A25753C1A96E948260. Retrieved 2006-12-30. 

Michael Edward Curry (born August 22, 1968 in Anniston, Alabama) is a retired American professional basketball player and a current associate head coach of the National Basketball Association's Philadelphia 76ers. He previously served as head coach of the Detroit Pistons. Curry played in the NBA from 1993 to 2005.

Playing career[link]

A 6'5" guard/forward from Glenn Hills High School in Augusta, Georgia, and Georgia Southern University, Curry played eleven seasons (1993–1994 through 2004–2005) in the National Basketball Association as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, the Washington Bullets, the Detroit Pistons, the Milwaukee Bucks, the Toronto Raptors and the Indiana Pacers. Though he never averaged more than 6.6 points per game in a season, Curry was well respected throughout the league for his strong defense and leadership qualities, and for several years he served as president of the NBA Players Association.^[1]

He played also in the German 1st basketball league for Steiner Bayreuth (1990–1991), in Italy for Clear Cantù (1994)^[2] and in the Spanish ACB for Valvi Girona (1994–1995).^[3]

Coaching career[link]

On June 10, 2008 Curry was named as the head coach of the Detroit Pistons for the 2008–09 season, succeeding Flip Saunders. He received a three-year deal, worth $2.5 million per season.^[4] On June 30, 2009, Curry was fired as head coach.^[5] Prior to becoming head coach of the Pistons, Curry served as an assistant coach for Detroit and also as the NBA's Vice-President of Player Development.^[6] Curry is currently the Associate Head Coach for the Philadelphia 76ers.^[7]

Coaching record[link]

Personal life[link]

Curry also holds a Masters Degree from the Virginia Commonwealth University SportsCenter.

His son, Deon Curry, plays football as a wide receiver for Michigan State University.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Career statistics
• One-on-One with Michael Curry
• Pistons fire head coach Flip Saunders

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (December 2009)

Bob Baker (born in Bristol, England on 26 July 1939) is a British television and film writer. His most famous contributions have been as the author of four scripts for the Wallace and Gromit films The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and A Matter of Loaf and Death (in which a character is named after him).

Career[link]

Baker is also known for numerous scripts for Doctor Who between 1971 and 1979, including:

• The Claws of Axos (1971)
• The Mutants (1972)
• The Three Doctors (1973)
• The Sontaran Experiment (1975)
• The Hand of Fear (1976)
• The Invisible Enemy (1977)
• Underworld (1978)
• The Armageddon Factor (1979)
• Nightmare of Eden (1979)

For all but the last of these, Baker collaborated with Dave Martin. Together, they were nicknamed "The Bristol Boys" by the Doctor Who production teams with whom they worked.

Baker and Martin's most notable contributions to the Doctor Who mythos were probably the robot computer K-9 (created for The Invisible Enemy) and the renegade Time Lord Omega (created for The Three Doctors, Doctor Who's 10th anniversary story). Several of Baker's stories had elements of hard science not often found in Doctor Who, even though they've also been criticised for scientific inaccuracy. Together with Martin, they also created fantasy television serials for children including the 1975 Sky.

Baker's other contributions to British television include scripts for episodes of Shoestring and Bergerac. On 16 March 2006, it was reported in the free newspaper Metro that he was working on a new animated series featuring K-9, K-9. This series, created in Australia, aired in the UK and worldwide in 2009 and 2010.

Baker currently resides in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

As of 2012^[update], Baker is the only surviving Doctor Who scriptwriter from the Third Doctor era.

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• "Glam Gloucester Gromit writer". Metro. 2006-03-16. http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=11031&in_page_id=7. Retrieved 2006-03-18. 

External links[link]

• Bob Baker's official website
• Bob Baker at the Internet Movie Database

This Doctor Who-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Jim Henson
Henson at the 1989 Emmy Awards
Born	James Maury Henson (1936-09-24)September 24, 1936 Greenville, Mississippi, U.S.
Died	May 16, 1990(1990-05-16) (aged 53) New York City, New York, U.S.
Cause of death	Organ failure
Nationality	American
Education	Northwestern High School
Alma mater	University of Maryland, College Park
Occupation	Puppeteer Film director Television producer
Years active	1954–90
Known for	Creator of The Muppets
Home town	Leland, Mississippi
Board member of	Jim Henson Foundation The Jim Henson Company Jim Henson's Creature Shop
Spouse	Jane Nebel (1959–86; separated)
Children	Lisa Henson Cheryl Henson Brian Henson John Henson Heather Henson
Parents	Paul Ransom Henson Betty Marcella (née Brown)
Awards	Courage Conscience Award Disney Legend Award Emmy Award

James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for projects like Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. He was also an Oscar-nominated film director, Emmy Award-winning television producer, and the founder of The Jim Henson Company, the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He died on May 16, 1990 of organ failure resulting from a Group A streptococcal infection caused by Streptococcus pyogenes.

Henson, who was born in Greenville, Mississippi and educated at University of Maryland, College Park, is one of the most widely known puppeteers ever.^[1] He created Sam and Friends as a freshman in College Park. After suffering struggles with programs that he created, he eventually was selected to participate in Sesame Street. During this time, he also contributed to Saturday Night Live. The success of Sesame Street spawned The Muppet Show, which featured Muppets created by Henson. He also co-created with Michael Jacobs the television show Dinosaurs during his final years. On June 16, 2011, he posthumously received the Disney Legends Award.

Early life[link]

Jim Henson was born in Greenville, Mississippi, the younger of two boys. His parents were Betty Marcella (née Brown) and Paul Ransom Henson, an agronomist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.^[2] He was raised as a Christian Scientist and spent his early childhood in Leland, Mississippi, moving with his family to Hyattsville, Maryland, near Washington, DC, in the late 1940s.^[3] He later remembered the arrival of the family's first television as "the biggest event of his adolescence,"^[4] having been heavily influenced by radio ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and the early television puppets of Burr Tillstrom (on Kukla, Fran, and Ollie) and Bil and Cora Baird.^[4]

In 1954 while attending Northwestern High School, he began working for WTOP-TV, creating puppets for a Saturday morning children's show called The Junior Morning Show. After graduating from high school, Henson enrolled at the University of Maryland, College Park, as a studio arts major, thinking he might become a commercial artist.^[5] A puppetry class offered in the applied arts department introduced him to the craft and textiles courses in the College of Home Economics, and he graduated in 1960 with a B.S. in home economics. As a freshman, he had been asked to create Sam and Friends, a five-minute puppet show for WRC-TV. The characters on Sam and Friends were forerunners of Muppets, and the show included a prototype of Henson's most famous character: Kermit the Frog.^[6]Henson would remain at WRC for seven years from 1954 to 1961. "Among the first of his assignments at WRC was Afternoon, a magazine show aimed at housewives. This marked his first collaboration with Jane Nebel—the woman who later became his wife"^[7]

In the show he began experimenting with techniques that would change the way puppetry had been used on television, including using the frame defined by the camera shot to allow the puppeteer to work from off-camera. Believing that television puppets needed to have "life and sensitivity,"^[8] Henson began making characters from flexible, fabric-covered foam rubber, allowing them to express a wider array of emotions at a time when many puppets were made of carved wood.^[2] A marionette's arms are manipulated by strings, but Henson used rods to move his Muppets' arms, allowing greater control of expression. Additionally, Henson wanted the Muppet characters to "speak" more creatively than was possible for previous puppets—which had seemed to have random mouth movements—so he used precise mouth movements to match the dialogue.

When Henson began work on Sam and Friends, he asked fellow University of Maryland freshman Jane Nebel to assist him. The show was a financial success, but after graduating from college, Jim began to have doubts about going into a career as a puppeteer. He wandered off to Europe for several months, where he was inspired by European puppeteers who look on their work as an art form.^[9] Upon Henson's return to the United States, he and Jane began dating. They were married in 1959 and had five children, Lisa (b. 1960), Cheryl (b. 1961), Brian (b. 1962), John (b. 1965), and Heather (b. 1970).

Projects in the 1960s[link]

Despite the success of Sam and Friends, which ran for six years, Henson spent much of the next two decades working in commercials, talk shows, and children's projects before being able to realize his dream of the Muppets as "entertainment for everybody".^[4] The popularity of his work on Sam and Friends in the late fifties led to a series of guest appearances on network talk and variety shows. Henson himself appeared as a guest on many shows, including The Ed Sullivan Show (although on his appearance on the Sept. 11, 1966 episode of the show—released to DVD on 2011 as part of a collection of episodes featuring the Rolling Stones—Sullivan mis-introduces Henson as "Jim Newsom and his Puppets"). This greatly increased exposure led to hundreds of commercial appearances by Henson characters throughout the sixties.

Among the most popular of Henson's commercials was a series for the local Wilkins Coffee company in Washington, D.C.,^[10] in which his Muppets were able to get away with a greater level of slapstick violence than might have been acceptable with human actors and would later find its way into many acts on The Muppet Show. In the first Wilkins ad, a Muppet named Wilkins is poised behind a cannon seen in profile. Another Muppet named Wontkins (with Rowlf's voice) is in front of its barrel. Wilkins asks, "What do you think of Wilkins Coffee?" and Wontkins responds gruffly, "Never tasted it!" Wilkins fires the cannon and blows Wontkins away, then turns the cannon directly toward the viewer and ends the ad with, "Now, what do you think of Wilkins?" Henson later explained, "Till then, [advertising] agencies believed that the hard sell was the only way to get their message over on television. We took a very different approach. We tried to sell things by making people laugh."^[11] The first seven-second commercial for Wilkins was an immediate hit and was syndicated and re-shot by Henson for local coffee companies across the United States;^[10] he ultimately produced more than 300 coffee ads.^[11] The same setup was used to pitch Kraml Milk in the Chicago, Il., area and Red Diamond coffee.

In 1963 Henson and his wife moved to New York City, where the newly formed Muppets, Inc., would reside for some time. Jane quit muppeteering to raise their children. Henson hired writer Jerry Juhl in 1961 and puppeteer Frank Oz in 1963 to replace her.^[12] Henson later credited both writers with developing much of the humor and character of his Muppets.^[13] Henson and Oz developed a close friendship and a performing partnership that lasted 27 years; their teamwork is particularly evident in their portrayals of the characters of Bert and Ernie and Kermit and Fozzie Bear.^[14]

Henson's sixties' talk show appearances culminated when he devised Rowlf, a piano-playing anthropomorphic dog. Rowlf became the first Muppet to make regular appearances on a network show, The Jimmy Dean Show. Henson was so grateful for this break that he offered Jimmy Dean a 40% interest in his production company, but Dean declined stating that Henson deserved all the rewards for his own work, a decision of conscience Dean never regretted.^[15] From 1963 to 1966, Henson began exploring film-making and produced a series of experimental films.^[16] His nine-minute Time Piece was nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for an Oscar for Short Film in 1966. The year 1969 saw the production of the NBC-TV movie The Cube—another Henson-produced experimental film.

Also around this time, the first drafts of a live-action experimental film script were written with Jerry Juhl, which would eventually become Henson's last unproduced full-length screenplay, Tale of Sand. The script remained in the Henson Company archives until the screenplay was adapted in the 2012 graphic novel, Jim Henson's Tale of Sand.

[edit] Sesame Street

In 1969, Joan Ganz Cooney and the team at the Children's Television Workshop asked Henson to work on Sesame Street, a visionary children's program for public television. Part of the show was set aside for a series of funny, colorful puppet characters living on the titular street. These included Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster and Big Bird. Henson performed the characters of Ernie, game-show host Guy Smiley, and Kermit, who appeared as a roving television news reporter. It was around this time that a frill was added around Kermit's neck to make him more frog-like. The collar was functional as well: it covered the joint where the Muppet's neck and body met.

At first Henson's Muppets appeared separately from the realistic segments on the Street, but after a poor test-screening in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the show was revamped to integrate the two, placing much greater emphasis on Henson's work. Though Henson would often downplay his role in Sesame Street's success, Cooney frequently praised Jim's work and, in 1990, the Public Broadcasting Service called him "the spark that ignited our fledgling broadcast service."^[4] The success of Sesame Street also allowed Henson to stop producing commercials. He later remembered that "it was a pleasure to get out of that world".^[10]

In addition to creating and performing Muppet characters, Henson was involved in producing various film and animation insets during the first two seasons. During the first, Henson produced a series of counting films for the numbers 1 through 10, which always ended with a baker (voiced by Henson) falling down the stairs while carrying the featured number of desserts. For seasons two to seven, Henson worked on a variety of inserts for the numbers 2 through 12, in a number of different styles—including film ("Dollhouse", "Number Three Ball Film"), stop-motion ("King of Eight", "Queen of Six"), cut-out animation ("Eleven Cheer"), and computer animation ("Nobody Counts To 10").

Concurrently with the first years of Sesame Street, Henson directed Tales from Muppetland, a short series of TV movie specials—in the form of comedic tellings of classic fairy tales—aimed at a young audience and hosted by Kermit the Frog. The series included Hey, Cinderella!, The Frog Prince, and The Muppet Musicians of Bremen.

Expansion of audience[link]

Concerned that the company was becoming typecast as a purveyor of solely children's entertainment, Henson, Frank Oz, and his team targeted an adult audience with a series of sketches on the first season of the groundbreaking comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL). Eleven "Dregs and Vestiges" sketches, set mostly in the Land of Gorch, aired between October 1975 and January 1976, with four additional appearances in March, April, May, and September. Henson recalled that "I saw what [creator Lorne Michaels] was going for and I really liked it and wanted to be a part of it, but somehow what we were trying to do and what his writers could write for it never gelled."^[10] The SNL writers never got comfortable writing for the characters, and frequently disparaged Henson's creations; one, Michael O'Donoghue, memorably quipped, "I won't write for felt."^[17]

Around the time of Henson's characters' final appearances on SNL, he began developing two projects featuring the Muppets: a Broadway show and a weekly television series.^[10] In 1976 the series was initially rejected by the American networks who believed that Muppets would appeal to only a child audience. Henson was finally able to convince British impresario Lew Grade to finance the show, which would be shot in the United Kingdom and syndicated worldwide.^[9] That same year, he abandoned work on his Broadway show and moved his creative team to England, where The Muppet Show began filming. The Muppet Show featured Kermit as host, and a variety of other memorable characters, notably Miss Piggy, Gonzo the Great, and Fozzie Bear. Kermit's role on The Muppet Show was often compared by his co-workers to Henson's role in Muppet Productions: a shy, gentle boss with "a whim of steel"^[14] who "[ran] things as firmly as it is possible to run an explosion in a mattress factory."^[18] Caroll Spinney, the puppeteer of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, remembered that Henson "would never say he didn't like something. He would just go 'Hmm.' That was famous. And if he liked it, he would say, 'Lovely!' "^[3]Henson himself recognized Kermit as an alter-ego, though he thought that Kermit was bolder than his creator; he once said of Kermit, "He can say things I hold back."^[19]

Jim Henson was the performer for several well known characters, including Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, Dr. Teeth, the Swedish Chef, Waldorf, Link Hogthrob, and the Muppet Newsman.

Transition to the big screen[link]

Three years after the start of The Muppet Show, the Muppets appeared in their first theatrical feature film, 1979's The Muppet Movie. The film was both a critical and financial success;^[20] it made US$65.2 million domestically and (at the time) was the 61st highest-grossing film ever made.^[21]

A song from the film, "The Rainbow Connection", sung by Henson as Kermit, hit No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1981, a Henson-directed sequel, The Great Muppet Caper, followed, and Henson decided to end the still-popular Muppet Show to concentrate on making films.^[2] From time to time, the Muppet characters continued to appear in made-for-TV-movies and television specials.

In addition to his own puppetry projects, Henson also aided others in their work. In 1979, he was asked by the producers of the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back to aid make-up artist Stuart Freeborn in the creation and articulation of enigmatic Jedi Master Yoda. Henson suggested to Star Wars creator George Lucas that he use Frank Oz as the puppeteer and voice of Yoda. Oz voiced Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back and each of the four subsequent Star Wars films, and the naturalistic, lifelike Yoda became one of the most popular characters of the Star Wars franchise. Lucas even lobbied unsuccessfully to have Oz nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award.^[22]

In 1982, Henson founded the Jim Henson Foundation to promote and develop the art of puppetry in the United States. Around that time, he also began creating darker and more realistic fantasy films that did not feature the Muppets and displayed "a growing, brooding interest in mortality."^[14] With 1982's The Dark Crystal, which he co-directed with Frank Oz and also co-wrote, Henson said he was "trying to go toward a sense of realism—toward a reality of creatures that are actually alive [where] it's not so much a symbol of the thing, but you're trying to [present] the thing itself."^[10] To provide a visual style distinct from the Muppets, the puppets in The Dark Crystal were based on conceptual artwork by Brian Froud.

The Dark Crystal was a financial and critical success, and, a year later, the Muppet-starring The Muppets Take Manhattan (directed by Frank Oz) did fair box-office business, grossing $25.5 million domestically and ranking as one of the top 40 films of 1984.^[23] However, 1986's Labyrinth, a Crystal-like fantasy that Henson directed by himself, was considered (in part due to its cost) a commercial disappointment. Despite some positive reviews (The New York Times called it "a fabulous film"),^[24] the commercial failure of Labyrinth demoralized Henson to the point that son Brian Henson remembered the time of its release as being "the closest I've seen him to turning in on himself and getting quite depressed."^[14] The film later became a cult classic.^[25] Henson and his wife also separated the same year, although they remained close for the rest of his life.^[3] Jane later said that Jim was so involved with his work that he had very little time to spend with her or their children.^[3] All five of his children began working with Muppets at an early age, partly because, as Cheryl Henson remembered, "one of the best ways of being around him was to work with him".^[8]

Later career[link]

Though he was still engaged in creating children's television, such as the successful eighties shows Fraggle Rock and the animated Muppet Babies, Henson continued to explore darker, mature themes with the folk tale and mythology-oriented show The Storyteller (1988). The Storyteller won an Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program. The next year, Henson returned to television with The Jim Henson Hour, which mixed lighthearted Muppet fare with riskier material. The show was critically well received and won Henson another Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Variety or Music Program, but was canceled after 13 episodes due to low ratings. Henson blamed its failure on NBC's constant rescheduling.^[26]

In late 1989, Henson entered into negotiations to sell his company to The Walt Disney Company for almost $150 million, hoping that, with Disney handling business matters, he would "be able to spend a lot more of my time on the creative side of things."^[26] By 1990, he had completed production on a television special, The Muppets at Walt Disney World, and a Disney World (Later Disney California Adventure Park as well) attraction, Jim Henson's Muppet*Vision 3D, and was developing film ideas and a television series titled Muppet High.^[3]

[edit] Natural History Project and Dinosaurs

In the late 1980s, Henson worked with illustrator/designer William Stout on a feature film starring animatronic dinosaurs with the working title of The Natural History Project. In 1991, news stories written around the premiere of The Jim Henson Company-produced Dinosaurs sitcom highlighted the show's connection to Henson. "Jim Henson dreamed up the show's basic concept about three years ago," said a New York Times article in April 1991. "'He wanted it to be a sitcom with a pretty standard structure, with the biggest differences being that it's a family of dinosaurs and their society has this strange toxic life style,' said [his son] Brian Henson. But until The Simpsons took off, said Alex Rockwell, a vice president of the Henson organization, 'people thought it was a crazy idea.'"^[27] A New Yorker article said that Henson continued to work on a dinosaur project (presumably the Dinosaurs concept) until the "last months of his life."^[28]

Illness and death[link]

During production of his later projects, Henson began to experience flu-like symptoms.^[3] On May 4, 1990, Henson made an appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show, one of his last television appearances. At the time, he mentioned to his publicist that he was tired and had a sore throat, but felt that it would go away.^[3]

On May 12, 1990, Henson traveled to Ahoskie, North Carolina, with his daughter Cheryl to visit his father and stepmother. The next day, feeling tired and ill, he consulted a physician in North Carolina, who could find no evidence of pneumonia by physical examination and prescribed no treatment except aspirin.^[29] Henson returned to New York on an earlier flight and cancelled a Muppet recording session scheduled for May 14.^[3]

Henson's wife Jane, from whom he was separated, came to visit and sat with him talking throughout the evening. At 2 am on May 15, Henson was having trouble breathing and began coughing up blood. He suggested to his wife that he might be dying, but did not want to bother going to the hospital which would have gone against his religion. She later told People Magazine that it was likely due to his desire not to be a bother to people.^[3]

Two hours later, Henson finally agreed to go to New York Hospital. By the time he was admitted at 4:58 am, he could no longer breathe on his own and had abscesses in his lungs. He was placed on a mechanical ventilator to help him breathe, but his condition deteriorated rapidly into septic shock, despite aggressive treatment with multiple antibiotics. After two cardiac arrests over 20 hours after he was admitted, Jim Henson died on the morning of May 16, 1990, at the age of 53.

The official cause of death was first reported as Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterial infection.^[4] Bacterial pneumonia is usually caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, an alpha-hemolytic species of Streptococcus. Henson's cause of death, however, was organ failure resulting from Streptococcus pyogenes, a severe Group A streptococcal infection.^[30] S. pyogenes is the bacterial species that causes strep throat, scarlet fever, and rheumatic fever. It can also cause other infections.

On May 21, a public memorial service was held in New York City at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Another one was held on July 2 at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. As per Henson's wishes, no one in attendance wore black, and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band finished the service by performing "When the Saints Go Marching In". Harry Belafonte sang "Turn the World Around," a song he had debuted on The Muppet Show, as each member of the congregation waved, with a puppeteer's rod, an individual, brightly colored foam butterfly.^[31][32] Later, Big Bird (performed by Caroll Spinney) walked out onto the stage and sang Kermit the Frog's signature song, "Bein' Green".^[33] Henson was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery. His ashes were scattered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at his ranch.^[34]

In the final minutes of the two-and-a-half hour service, six of the core Muppet performers sang, in their characters' voices, a medley of Jim Henson's favorite songs, culminating in a performance of "Just One Person" that began with Richard Hunt singing alone, as Scooter.^[35] "As each verse progressed," Henson employee Chris Barry recalled, "each Muppeteer joined in with their own Muppets until the stage was filled with all the Muppet performers and their beloved characters."^[33] The funeral was later described by LIFE as "an epic and almost unbearably moving event." The image of a growing number of performers singing "Just One Person" was recreated for the 1990 television special The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson and inspired screenwriter Richard Curtis, who attended the London service, to write the growing-orchestra wedding scene of his 2003 film Love Actually.^[36]

Henson's sudden death resulted in an outpouring of public and professional affection. There have since been numerous tributes and dedications in his memory. Henson’s companies, which are now run by his children, continue to produce films and television shows.

Legacy[link]

The Jim Henson Company and the Jim Henson Foundation continued after his death, producing new series and specials. Jim Henson's Creature Shop, founded by Henson, also continues to build creatures for a large number of other films and series (e.g. the science-fiction production Farscape, the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the movie MirrorMask) and is considered one of the most advanced and well respected creators of film creatures. His son Brian and daughter Lisa are currently the co-chairs and co-CEOs of the company; his daughter Cheryl is the president of the foundation. Steve Whitmire, a veteran member of the Muppet puppeteering crew, has assumed the roles of Kermit the Frog and Ernie, the most famous characters formerly played by Jim Henson.^[37]

On February 17, 2004, it was announced that the Muppets (excluding the Sesame Street characters, which are separately owned by Sesame Workshop) and the Bear in the Big Blue House properties had been sold by Henson's heirs to The Walt Disney Company. However, as a result, Sesame Workshop (formerly the Children's Television Workshop), also lost the rights to Kermit the Frog, and he could no longer appear on any new material on Sesame Street, although Kermit did later appear on the premiere of the show's 40th season on November 10, 2009.

One of Henson's last projects is a show attraction in Walt Disney World and Disneyland featuring the Muppets, called Muppet*Vision 3D, which opened in 1991, shortly after his death.

The Jim Henson Company retains the Creature Shop, as well as the rest of its film and television library including Fraggle Rock, Farscape, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth.^[38]

In 2010 it was announced that the first major biography of Henson, sanctioned by the family and the Jim Henson Legacy, was under way.^[39]

Tributes[link]

• Henson is honored both as himself and as Kermit the Frog on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Only two other people have received this honor: Mel Blanc, the voice actor of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck; and Walt Disney, the voice actor of Mickey Mouse.
• The theater at his alma mater, Northwestern High School, in Hyattsville, MD, is named in his honor.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze and The Muppet Christmas Carol are both dedicated to him.
• Stephen Lynch produced a song titled "Jim Henson's Dead", in which he pays homage to many of the characters from The Muppet Show and Sesame Street.
• Henson featured in The American Adventure in Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort.
• Philip Roth often quotes Jim Henson in his Sabbath's Theater as the "great regret" for Mickey Sabbath.
• The Jim Henson Museum, located in his hometown of Leland, Mississippi, features an assortment of original Muppet characters, official certificates from the Mississippi Legislature honoring Henson and his characters, and a statue of Kermit in the middle of the stream behind the museum.
• The 1990 television special The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson allowed the Muppets themselves to pay tribute to Henson. The special featured interviews with Steven Spielberg and others.
• Celtic singer, musician, and songwriter Heather Alexander wrote a song titled "Storyteller" in 1990 as a tribute to Jim Henson which harkens to his "Storyteller" series as well as his role as a modern storyteller.
• Tom Smith's Henson tribute song, "A Boy and His Frog", won the Pegasus Award for Best Folk Song in 1991.
• Henson was featured in Boyz II Men's 1991 video, "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday".
• Episode 2880 of Sesame Street (which aired on November 15, 1991) was dedicated in his memory, with a memorial card following the closing credits.
• The classes of 1994, 1998, and 1999 at the University of Maryland, College Park, Henson's alma mater, commissioned a life-size statue of Henson and Kermit the Frog, which was dedicated on September 24, 2003, Henson's 67th birthday. The statue cost $217,000, and is displayed outside Maryland's student union.^[40] In 2006, Maryland introduced 50 statues of their school mascot, Testudo the Terrapin, with various designs chosen by different sponsoring groups. Among them was Kertle, a statue by Washington DC artist Elizabeth Baldwin designed to look like Kermit the Frog.
• On the evening of October 25, 2000, Comedy Central had a banner sign that said: Jim Henson [1936–1990].
• In 2003, Jim Henson was honored at the annual Norsk Høstfest in Minot, North Dakota.^[41]
• Oury Atlan, Thibaut Berland, and Damien Ferri wrote, directed, and animated a 3D tribute to Henson entitled Over Time that was shown as part of the 2005 Electronic Theater at SIGGRAPH.
• The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia, has acquired more than 700 puppets created by Henson and his studio, including some of the earliest Muppets. Many of these are displayed in the museum exhibit Jim Henson: Puppeteer. In September 2008, the Center opened Jim Henson: Wonders From His Workshop, highlighting creations from Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, and other later works.
• On September 24, 2011, Henson's hometown of Leland renamed one of their bridges "The Rainbow Connection" to honor Henson and his work.^[42] He was also honored with a Google doodle on his 75th birthday; the Google logo had six Muppets that were clickable using the “hand” buttons.^[43]

References[link]