HENSON, JIM

born Sept. 24, 1936, Greenville, Miss., U.S. died May 16, 1990, New York, N.Y. byname of James Maury Henson American puppeteer, creator of the Muppets of television and motion pictures. He coined the term Muppets as a meld of "marionettes" and "puppets"; his characters and those of his assistants included such familiar figures as Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Big Bird, and the Cookie Monster. Though born in Mississippi, Henson grew up in Hyattsville, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C., to which his father, a federal agronomist, had been assigned. As he entered college (the University of Maryland), Henson and his future wife, Jane Nebel, created a puppet show on a Washington television station and kept the job throughout their school years, developing the first Muppets (including Kermit) on a five-minute television program called "Sam and Friends." After graduation (A.B., 1960), Henson, along with his assistants, did television commercials and brief spots on various television shows. After the Children's Television Workshop's program "Sesame Street" began appearing on television in 1969, featuring the Muppets, Henson and his humanoid animals achieved extraordinary nationwide popularity. The "Muppet Show," which premiered in 1976 and was produced in England, gained an international audience (it was shown in some 100 countries) and was soon followed by the motion pictures The Muppet Movie (1979), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), and The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984). Henson also codirected The Dark Crystal (1981), directed Labyrinth (1986), and assisted on The Witches (1990), all animated films using puppetlike figures that were not Muppets. In 1981 a Muppets comic strip was syndicated, and Muppet Magazine, a quarterly publication for children, began appearing in 1982. An animated morning cartoon program on television, "Jim Henson's Muppet Babies," premiered in 1984, one year after the program "Fraggle Rock" began appearing on cable television channels. Except in certain movie sequences using special effects, Henson's Muppets, made of sculptured foam rubber, plastic, and various fabrics, were either hand puppets or fully costumed persons (as in the case of Big Bird and Snuffleupagus). For the hand puppets, each head or arm was worked by one hand, so that if there was to be a head and two arms, there must be the hands of two Muppeteers. Complicated characterizations on rare occasions even required three Muppeteers. The voice of the Muppet was the voice of the person (or primary person) operating it.