Henson of course was the creator of Sesame Street, The Muppets, Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and a load of other well-known works, before his unfortunate, early passing. The older I get, however, the more I realise what a wunderkind, famed creator he was *well* before Sesame Street.

Time Piece was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1966, so it certainly got some eyes on it at the time, even if it isn’t very well-remembered by posterity. If pressed, I’d say it’s a surreal, refreshing exploration of how a curious, creative person experiences time, and vice-versa. Or something like that.

It’s only 9min if you feel like giving it a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJhcDhHAH1k

Just in general, I’m relentlessly amazed by how vastly more creative Henson was than I even imagined as a kid, and that was already after falling in love with all his iconic stuff.

(this post dedicated to my man @PugJesus@piefed.social)

  • charokol@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    1 month ago

    If you’re interested in other non-Muppets Henson work, check out the graphic novel Tale of Sand. Henson and his writing partner Jerry Juhl wrote this screenplay in the 50s and 60s, but were never able to produce it because its scope was too large for any budget they could’ve ever gotten at the time. In the mid aughts, the Henson Company hired comic book artist Ramón Pérez to adapt the screenplay into a graphic novel. It’s extremely surreal, but a great read, with great art.

    • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      As a matter of fact, I just read that the other day. As a dedicated comics reviewer / sharer, I thought Tale of Sand was above average. Great art agreed, altho panel flow could have been better, and I don’t think the reader really needed to see partial glimpses of the back-script. And then, cool story premise, altho the process kind of gave itself away too early for my taste. By comparison, I preferred how the movie “The Game” with Michael Douglas didn’t give the process away until the very end. But! I always have quibbles, and it was indeed pretty fun. I also understand that someone did make a movie out of it, I believe after Jim’s passing.

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    1 month ago

    There was a show on netflix on snl. I had many issues with it, but most of all how they represented him. They made him seem like an overly sensitive weirdo. I don’t really know anything about him, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case when you have kermet and miss piggy characters.

        • zikzak025@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          1 month ago

          I’d bet that once Lorne Michaels is dead, there will end up being numerous skeletons emerging from the closet. No real basis for that assumption, just a gut feeling.

          He’s one of those Weinstein sorts of figures, who could either start or end your career as a comedian with a snap of his fingers. I can’t imagine many in that position would feel comfortable speaking up about anything he does as a result.

          • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialOPEnglish
            2·
            1 month ago

            That all could well be true, and altho I feel like Michaels could certainly be the stereotypical ‘pitiless showbiz boss’ at times, I do get the sense that based on what the heavyweight comedians have said about him (starting with the very first cast), that he’s arguably a better media boss than most.

            If I understand correctly, he’s moreso been a guy under fairly unique pressure from the bosses above to consistently deliver ratings, and comedy isn’t exactly like that, and he’s pushed back when he can in a lot of cases, including going to bat for various comedians.

            The firing of Norm MacDonald is debatable either way, of course.

            Me, I don’t have a ‘finished’ opinion of Michaels, but I want to say that he’s a better boss and human than you’d usually expect in his position, which is yeah-- the ability to fuck with underlings lives in various ways.

            That all said, the various realities of what new hires need to do in order to get a proper audition go back to… I don’t know when. Probably to the dawn of civilisation. So I wouldn’t say that’s off the table there, with the female (or possibly male) comedians not being willing to talk about that unless Lorne Michaels was a complete monster like Weinberg.

            (sorry my lack of proofreading, but I’m not feeling too well)

        • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialOPEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          Oh… okay. I gotcha.

          Yeah, Henson was on like S1-2 of SNL before they let him go. (around ~1975)

          He wasn’t doing Muppets characters (like Kermit or Piggy) on SNL, but I can understand things not working out.

          In fact, when you study the history of SNL, it’s pretty much a long list of sensitive, creative weirdos all trying to top each other, in a shark-tank setting.

          • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            3·
            1 month ago

            But they portrayed him as kind of dumb too, it just sat kind of weird. The guy who still runs it and his assistant came out as super heroes though, lol.

            • JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.socialOPEnglish
              3·
              1 month ago

              Yeah, I don’t know. Good Q.

              I haven’t really watched SNL in many years, and I’m more of a Henson fan in general, not really tied in to specifics.