It’s no surprise that Ron Howard turns out to be the perfect filmmaker to conjure up an affectionate, admiring and moving documentary on the Man behind the Muppets, Jim Henson.
“Jim Henson: Idea Man,” gets at the creative mind, the work process and the work ethic of a Walt Disney level innovator and entertainer. This sweet, nostalgic and thorough documentary taps into Henson’s wide-ranging curiosity and lifetime of invention, new challenges and collaboration.
There’s a special emphasis on his wife Jane’s role in that Big Idea — the puppet/marionettes they named Muppets, and on Frank Oz, his employee and protege and work “other half.”
And Howard takes care to find just the right people to sing Henson’s praises — EGOT winner Rita Moreno, one of the most memorable “Muppet Show” guests, Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly, who as a child actress co-starred in Henson’s film fantasy “Labyrinth,” and the great Orson Welles, a “genius” of his generation who interviewed Henson for a failed pilot for a TV chat show, and who might have been the first to label Henson a “genius.”
Welles also joked about Henson’s resemblence to “Rasputin,” which fits in with Howard’s other agenda for the film, playing up the sense of fun that drove everything Henson did. There are a lot of laughs in this documentary, all of them provided by Henson’s puppet creations.
What’s freshest about the film is exploring Henson’s determination to experiment, innovate and take big financial risks on his Next Big Thing. He made experimental films — animated and playful live action shorts — almost all of his life. He planned a wildly cinematic kaleidoscopic chain of ’60s discoteques before “Sesame Street” came calling. He did full-body puppet costume screen tests for a possible Broadway show.
“When you get an idea,” Henson narrated in one experimental short, “you have to look at it from every direction.” This, in turn “gives you other ideas.” Henson had a lot of ideas and, collaborating with others, took the time to explore them.
“His inner life must have been sparkling,”marvels Oz, who knew him better than most.
“Idea Man” skips through Henson’s Mississipi childhood (son of a Dept. of Agriculture agronomist) and his childhood fascination with this new gadget, television. As a college freshman (as the University of Maryland), a call went out for a puppeteer on a local Washington, D.C. TV station. Henson, fresh out of a puppetry class at university, grabbed the job.
He was 18 years old, and as those DC “Muppets,” also performed by his upperclasswoman classmate and future wife, Jane Nebel, caught on, the die was cast. Henson had stumbled into his life’s work.
Howard’s film covers most of the bases of Henson’s rise to fame, his accidental embrace of “getting television to teach” with “Sesame Street,” creating the first Kermit the Frog out of his mother’s old coat, his first “star” character, Rowlf the Dog, and the triumph of “The Muppet Show,” a ’70s TV variety series that became, “for its day, the most watched television show in history.”
If you’ve forgotten how funny those shows still are, “Idea Man” refreshes your memory. It speaks to Henson’s ever-curious mind that he ended the British-produced syndicated series — no American TV network wanted it — after five seasons, still very much on top, beloved by children and adults alike for its corny “music hall” comedy and slapstick and inventiveness.
Henson’s life has been explored in books and an award-winning Youtube channel devoted six episodes to sampling the long career the “Idea Man” packed into a too-short life.
But Howard’s terrific film doesn’t just hit the highlights — Big Bird and Bert & Ernie to Kermit, “The Dark Crystal” and “Fraggle Rock.” It gets at the essence of an “Idea Man,” who was all set to try some Next Big Thing when he sold his company to Disney. I was at Disney World, covering the Henson/Michael Eisner press conference where Henson explained the sale, and remember wondering how that partnership would play out.
Months later, he was dead at 53. “Idea Man” takes pains not to blame Henson’s Christian Science upbringing for his reluctance to see a doctor about the strep infection he neglected until it killed him.
That connects to the film’s real subtext. Real “geniuses” are often workaholics. Henson’s puppetry was grueling work, discussed in detail by Oz, who voiced and performed Miss Piggy and scores of other characters, and shown in rare behind the scenes footage of Henson crawling into a space underneath the hull of that flat-bottomed swamp rowboat that we see Kermit the Frog row in “The Muppet Movie” — a boat sitting in a real swamp.
Henson didn’t live long. But his restless mind and energy were devoted to sweet-natured and sometimes challenging entertainment — he never wanted to be a “children’s puppeteer” — that he produced with almost every waking second. “Idea Man” reminds us that the ideas he explored live on after him.
Rating: PG
Cast: Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Fran Brill, Brian Henson, Lisa Henson, Cheryl Henson, Orson Welles, Bernie Brillstein, Rita Moreno and Jennifer Connelly.
Credits: Directed by Ron Howard, scripted by Mark Monroe. A Disney+ release.
Running time: 1:48
