What’s My Line, Etc.

Kermit and Jim on "What's My Line?"

Kermit and Jim on “What’s My Line?”

And now, for the first time in a very long time–given how much footage I found for Sesame Street season 6 and my unexpectedly extended hiatus–we have another assemblage of miscellaneous Jim Henson-related clips, all of which range from late 1974 to early 1975.

 

The most interesting is probably the first one, an appearance that Jim and Kermit made on What’s My Line?, which aired on November 16th, 1974. What’s My Line? was a game show that began in 1950 and ran all the way through 1975 in which a panel consisting of 4 celebrity guests would at first try to guess a contestant’s occupation through yes or no questions, and then, in the second round, be blindfolded in order to guess

Read More

Ray the Raychem Seal and Miss Piggy

Ray the Raychem Seal

Ray the Raychem Seal

Today I looked at two unrelated yet fascinating curiosities, the first of which is the first thing I’ve watched for the site that actually wasn’t created or run by Jim Henson at all but which is significant due to its performer, and the second of which features the debut of one of the most important characters in the entire Muppet canon.

 

We begin a short industrial video, much like the films Jim made for companies such as IBM, but this one was actually done by Dave Goelz, who is best known today for performing such beloved characters as Gonzo and Boober Fraggle. In my post on Jim’s 1974 appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, I discussed how Goelz originally became involved with the Henson Co., and how Jim initially hired him as a

Read More

The Wizard of Id, Etc.

Today, once more we have a number of shorter Henson clips to look at before returning to the first season of Sesame Street the day after tomorrow. We begin with The Wizard of Id, a brief pilot based on the famous comic strip by Johnny Hart and Brant Parker, which was first launched in 1964 and continues to run to this very day. Although the show never came to be–apparently by the time the creators of Id started to demonstrate interest in the project, Jim already became too busy with Sesame Street and other projects–it’s significant as being the first time that Jim and his team ever designed puppets based on someone else’s work. Here, it was three puppets designed to look like characters from the strip.

 

One could also see why Jim might have been less interested in it because it wasn’t his own work. The script also isn’t as inspired as those written for his own characters and feels very much like short back-and-forth comic strip scenes brought to life in succession. It’s even entirely possible that they did just use lines from the original strips, but either way it has a rather choppy quality. Now, it’s also possible that that is because this was just a brief 5-minute pilot and they would have broken out of this format had they filmed a full episode or went to series. But as it is, this feels more like a curiosity than a truly intriguing what-might-have-been such as Tales of the Tinkerdee is. It does, however, end on a cute bit in which the Wizard blows up each of the characters, then himself, saying: “Yes, sir, it’s a standard Muppet finale. If you don’t know how to end it, go out with a–” BANG!

 

Read More

Our Place, Ads, & More

Rowlf on "Our Place"

Rowlf on “Our Place”

In the summer of 1967, Rowlf was enlisted by Ed Sullivan (again underlining in what high esteem Sullivan held Jim and the Muppets) for yet his next big assignment, as the emcee to a new variety show produced by Sullivan’s production company to air just that one summer–from July 2nd till September 3rd–while most of the rest of TV was on hiatus/in reruns. Along with Rowlf, Our Place also featured an adorably square musical group, The Doodletown Pipers–who would sing overly earnest covers of pop hits–along with the comedy team of Burns and Schreiber, namely Jack Burns and Avery Schreiber, the first of whom would go on to be the head writer on the first season of The Muppet Show, and the second of whom would appear in an episode that first year.

Read More

Shrinkenstein and Beyond

Shrinkenstein

Shrinkenstein

Today, we return to more of Jim and Muppets, Inc.’s commercial work. All of them, as far as I can tell, are from 1967. The first is yet another Pak-Nit storytime, like the earlier Shrinkel and Stretchel and Rumple Wrinkle Shrinkel Stretchel Stiltzkin, however this time, rather than a fairy tale, Jim adapts and skews Mary Shelley’s classic horror tale, Frankenstein, into a fractured Pak-Nit fable called Shrinkenstein about a mad scientist–played by the apparently ever-popular Prime Minister muppet from Tales of the Tinkerdee–who creates an evil creature–played by the Muppet monster, Big V (who first devoured Kermit in the “Glow Worm” sketch)–who rampages across the countryside, causing clothes to shrink in the wash! And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling scientist, who “goes sane” just in time to create Pak-Nit, who defeats

Read More