This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to visit the Jim Henson’s Fantastic World traveling exhibition as it made a it’s stop here in Peoria. This look behind the scenes and into the amazing mind of such a truly unique and visionary artist has special meaning for me as I can attribute much of my love of art and animation as being directly influenced by the amazing work of Henson and his team.
Much of my early fascination with puppetry and specifically Henson’s unique and carefully crafted characters lovingly referred to as “Muppets” centered around the amazing ability of the puppeteer to bring a couple pieces of foam and cloth to life in such a convincingly real way.
If you think about it, most Muppets have little or no complex facial controls available to the puppeteer, (save for perhaps the abilities to raise the Muppets eyebrows an inch or so.) Yet the amazing range of emotion that the puppeteers are able to imbue within the characters is a testament to the skills of both the puppeteer and Jim and the other artists who design and build those Muppets.
Certainly much of the performance of the characters are classically very broad. Muppets are often expressing feelings of love or happiness or anger by loudly delivering dialogue with heads thrown back and floppy arms flailing broadly as the character bounds across the screen. Yet I find that the smaller, more intimate moments of sadness, loneliness, and regret to be truly remarkable. A subtle head tilt, an arm coming to rest on a knee, a labored breath or a slight relaxing of the posture can speak louder than any words. It is in these moments that the characters become real and it is in these moments that the work of the puppeteer truly shines.
In fact, I often direct my animation students to study old clips of the Muppet Show to learn just how much can be done with so little. For an animator, it’s priceless stuff.
Beyond the actual Muppets themselves, the exhibit also displayed a large number of Jim Henson’s original sketches and illustrations for his characters. Much of these drawings were little more than a few scratchy lines on some yellowed notebook paper, yet I found this to be particularly insightful in that it showed that much of how Jim works as an artist is internalized. His drawings are made up of quick, confident lines, which reveal enough of a character to get an idea of its overall shape and personality, but the finer details are already worked out in Jim’s mind. He doesn’t need to draw it out on paper; he can see it fully formed within his head. I would guess that his confidence of vision is what has led to the consistency of his work over the many years of his career.
Jim Henson’s unique vision has always held a particular interest for me. The “world of the Muppets” is a wholly original one in which brightly colored monsters, talking fish, Pigs in dresses and dogs that play the piano can all exist side by side and feel completely normal, Even mundane. (in a good way) And yet if you were to delve a bit deeper for a moment; You’ll find that the Muppet Universe also contains a certain strange inconsistency to it. There are simple, human characters represented with bright green or blue skin and big, round, orange noses, more complex humans with natural flesh colored skin and distinct features such as baggy eyes, wrinkled noses, and frown lines, and real living, breathing, actual humans. The truly remarkable consideration is that all of these distinct and perhaps competing styles fit perfectly naturally within the same big universe. We don’t question it for a moment.
It is said that the reason we don’t question it is because it’s delivered to us very simply and matter-of-factly. No one within the Muppet Universe questions the reality of their world and so neither do we. Frankly, I think the reason we never seem to question the consistency of the “reality” of the Muppet universe is a rather unique one in that for so many of us, our first encounter with Muppet was infants. Many of us began our lives with Sesame Street as our theme song, and later Fraggle Rock and the Muppet show and The Muppet Movies joined in as well. We don’t question the reality of the Muppets because for as long as we can remember, they have been real to us.
As I walked through the exhibit, I found myself drawn to one piece in particular. It is a rather famous photograph of Jim Henson silhouetted against a window. He is holding up a Bert puppet and manipulating it as he stares into the face of his creation. The photo was most likely staged, but you feel as if you are witnessing an intimate moment that has taken place countless times before. It is a moment of exploration and discovery for Jim Henson as he works his magic to bring to life a few pieces of foam and cloth. It is a moment where Jim, the puppeteer steps aside and lets Bert, the Muppet step in. It’s also a moment between a father and a son. It is a wonderful photograph that sums up Jim Henson’s life and his work beautifully.
I’m very thankful for having had the opportunity to see this exhibit and I hope that as it travels around the country, you too will get a chance to visit the Fantastic World of Jim Henson as well.
