KCET, channel 28, is an independent, non-commercial public television station licensed to Los Angeles, California, USA. KCET's studio is located on West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and its transmitter is atop Mount Wilson. Al Jerome is the current CEO and president, serving since 1996.

KCET was a charter member of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) at its inception in 1970. The station was Los Angeles's main PBS affiliate until December 31, 2010, when it ended its partnership with PBS after 40 years. KCET's management cited unresolvable financial and programming disputes among its major reasons for leaving PBS.^[1] KOCE-TV (channel 50), licensed to Huntington Beach, Orange County, replaced KCET as the area's primary PBS affiliate.^[2]

For much of its time on air, KCET had broadcast from its studios in Hollywood until moving to new offices in Burbank in 2012. The move has left KTLA as the last remaining radio or television broadcaster in that neighborhood as stations have moved on to other cities and neighborhoods in the region.

History[link]

KCET signed on September 28, 1964 as an affiliate of National Educational Television, or NET, with Jim Case heading all of the program direction. It was actually the second attempt at an educational station in the Los Angeles area. KTHE, operated by the University of Southern California, had previously broadcast on channel 28, beginning on September 22, 1953.^[3] It was the second educational television station in the United States, signing on six months and four days after KUHT in Houston, Texas, but it went dark after nine months due to its primary benefactor, the Hancock Foundation, determining that the station was too much of a financial drain on its resources. In 1970, KCET became a charter member of PBS. For most of the next 40 years, it was the second most-watched PBS station in the country.

The call letters KCET stand for Community Educational Television, not to be confused with the organization of the same name formed by Daystar Television Network in 2003, which made an unsuccessful bid to purchase Orange County public television station KOCE.

KCET is located in a historic area of Hollywood, used as a film and television studio from 1912 to 1970. KCET purchased the former Monogram Pictures property in 1971, assisted financially in part by both the Ford Foundation and the Michael Connell Foundation. The newest building is named the Weingart Educational Telecommunications Center which houses KCET's master control, digital control rooms, ingest, and editing stations on the first floor and engineering, new media operations, and news and public affairs on the second floor.

As of 2011, Al Jerome is the president and CEO.

All KCET programs are produced in high definition and the station's main channel is transmitted in 720p.

On October 8, 2010, KCET announced that it could not reach an agreement to remain with PBS and would become an independent television service as of January 1, 2011. In a letter to viewers, board chairman Gordon Bava said that PBS wanted KCET to pay $7 million for its programming — more than double what KOCE was paying.^[4]

On March 30, 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that KCET was in negotiations to sell the studio to the Church of Scientology, with KCET relocating to a smaller location following the sale, in light of KCET's sharp decreases in ratings and pledges following dismembership from PBS.^[5] The sale of the property, which was sold for $45 million,^[6] closed on April 25, 2011, with part of the proceeds going towards KCET's leasing of the studios^[6] until new facilities are found.^[7][8] KCET currently has plans to relocate to a new complex in a high-rise building in Burbank.^[6]

At the end of 2011, contributions and grants to KCET decreased even further, down 41 percent from the previous year to $22.3 million.^[6]

Slogans[link]

• "Community Supported Television" (c. 1976-198?)

• "Member Supported Television for Southern and Central California" (198?-1997)

• "Infinitely More" (1997–2010)

• "Rethink TV" (January–December 2011)

• "Be Moved" (December 2011 – present)

Programming[link]

As the flagship PBS station for the Pacific Time Zone, KCET was a major producer of PBS programming.

It produced the acclaimed Carl Sagan series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage in 1978-1979. KCET produced or presented Hollywood Television Theater, Trying Times, and the Hispanic family drama American Family for PBS, and was one of the consortium of stations that produced American Playhouse.

To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, KCET produced a six-part miniseries in conjunction with the BBC called Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State.

As of 2007^[update] productions include its award-winning and signature news and public affairs program Life & Times hosted by Val Zavala (underwritten by The Whittier Foundation, Jim & Anne Rothenberg, QueensCare, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, Boeing, and the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department). Huell Howser's California's Gold is produced at the KCET lot.

KCET also produced the weeknight talk show Tavis Smiley and a PBS science show, WIRED Science. Peabody award-winning shows A Place of Our Own and its Spanish language equivalent, Los Niños en Su Casa are taped at the KCET studios. Both programs, part of the KCET initiative, have received a generous grant from BP to expand its coverage as a nation-wide television program designed for care-givers.

A few kids' shows also come from KCET -- Storytime, The Puzzle Place, Adventures from the Book of Virtues, The Charlie Horse Music Pizza, and Sid the Science Kid (the latter now airing on KOCE).

Award-winning California Connected ended its run in 2007 after five seasons.

On December 9, 2010, KCET announced their new program schedule without PBS affiliation in 2011. Commercial-free programming will include classic and blockbuster movies, travel, science, and drama programs, British sitcoms and news programs, as the station maintains their relationship with program syndicators American Public Television and NETA, among others, which allow non-PBS stations to air their programming. Some of the programs that were announced and/or continued on the new lineup include Globe Trekker, Rick Steves' Europe, Burt Wolf: Travels and Traditions, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki, Doc Martin, The McLaughlin Group, Inside Washington, BBC World News, Keeping Up Appearances, As Time Goes By and Visiting With Huell Howser.^[9]

Future programming plans for KCET during 2012 include expansion of its interview program, LA Tonight with Roy Firestone, to each weeknight; as well as Your Turn to Care, a documentary about caregivers hosted by Holly Robinson Peete; BBC crime drama Inspector George Gently; and Classic Cool Theater, a showcase of classic films, cartoons and newsreels.^[6]

Digital television[link]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Digital channels

For its first seven years on digital TV, the majority of the programming on KCET's high definition subchannel 28.1 (outside of most primetime shows) was different from the main signal on Channel 28 (which was initially operated on digital subchannel 28.2 and was later replaced with KCET Orange), as was with most other PBS stations with HDTV capabilities. With the arrival of new programming services from PBS and V-me (which airs on digital subchannel 28.3) in mid 2007, programming from the main signal was integrated into the HD subchannel to accommodate for space, while at the same time preserving the integrity and demand for quality HD programming. In August 2007, KCET began broadcasting PBS World under digital subchannel 28.4. World's lineup includes programming related to world culture, news and history.

On January 1, 2011, with the suspension of its active membership in PBS, 28.2 became "KCET Kids and Family" airing mostly children's programs, 28.3 remained V-me (which operates independently of PBS), and 28.4 began airing MHz Worldview. The former had 28.2 is KCET Orange and 28.4 is PBS World.

Other ventures and partnerships[link]

KCET's long time studios in Los Angeles

KCET's website produces original multimedia web content including CA Stories. There are also video clips, podcasts, television schedule, contact information, and a Life & Times blog.

In 2006, KCET established an exclusive media partnership with Cal State-Fullerton. In 2007, KCET and Cal State-Fullerton collaborated on the new digital subchannel network "KCET Orange", which aired on Channel 28.2 until the January 2011 PBS dismembership, and the majority of Southern California digital cable systems. The network aired programs like Life and Times, plus additional arts and cultural programming tailored to Orange County. Contributions from students from Titan Communications TV^[10] and the College of Communications^[11] was intended to expand Cal State-Fullerton's contribution to KCET.^[12]

KCET also had a digital cable channel, KCET Desert Cities, which was available for Time Warner Cable subscribers in the Palm Springs/Coachella Valley area until the January 2011 PBS dismembership.^{[citation needed]} It was carried on Channel 218, and its programming schedule differed from the main Los Angeles signal.

KCET offers their studio facilities to commercial productions to provide themselves an additional stream of revenue. They have been used mainly for the productions of the Game Show Network, including 2007's Camouflage and the 2010 revival of The Newlywed Game KCET's studios also hosted the MTV game show webRIOT and the California Lottery's Saturday evening programs, The Big Spin and Make Me a Millionaire.

Rebroadcasters[link]

KCET utilizes several repeaters to extend its coverage:

FCC actions[link]

On February 4, 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fined KCET $10,000 for failure to make its public file available for inspection by the general public. The fine was stemmed to an incident on August 19, 2010, when an FCC agent, not identifying himself as such, requested the security guard on duty that he would like to see the public file; the guard denied him access, as he was told that he would need to make an appointment. A return visit the following day (August 20) gave the same results. It wasn't until another visit that day that the agent was able to see the public file, but only after identifying himself as a FCC agent. According to the FCC document, the Executive Assistant for KCET explained that "the General Counsel of Station KCET was not in the office during those two days and that she did not know the exact organizational rules regarding public access to the station's public inspection file." The Security Supervisor also said that he was just following the station's security procedures. The FCC later levied the fine, citing that while security delays are reasonable, the fact that the examiner was unable to see the public file without an appointment without identifying themselves as such led to the fine.^[13]

References[link]

External links[link]

• KCET Online
• KCET Desert Cities
• CA Stories
• KCET Podcasts
• KCET Lot History
• List of KCET's shows
• "Life & Times" community blog
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KCET
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KCET-TV
• Program Information for KCET at TitanTV.com

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]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]