JIM HENSON: IDEA MAN - Mark Reviews Movies

Jim Henson: Idea Man, Disney

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 30, 2024

Family, friends, and colleagues reflect on the life and career of Jim Henson, a one-of-a-kind creator who took something as old and simple as puppetry and transformed it into something that continues to influence the lives of children. It's almost impossible to talk about Henson, who died in 1990 at the age of 53, without a sense of nostalgia for the sheer joy of his most iconic creations and one of sad curiosity for what the man might have done if he had lived even a few years longer. Jim Henson: Idea Man tracks just how much he accomplished, how he never stopped working, and how that work evolved, so it's a memorial that encapsulates the man's legacy—especially, in between the lines, that part of what might have been.

Director Ron Howard does nothing particularly unique here, except to gather interview subjects, assemble archival footage (some of it rare), and thread the narrative needle of Henson's professional and personal lives through all the highlights. It's a testament to the subject's enduring stamp on the cultural landscape, having created and brought to life some of the weirdest and most endearing characters in modern popular culture, that this approach is just enough. For those who grew up with the Muppets on "Sesame Street" and on that anarchic comedic delight "The Muppet Show" and in their movies, it's like a reunion with old friends, as well as the people who imbued the felt characters with so much personality that they seemed alive enough to be seen in that way.

Mostly, the film is biographical in its aims, starting with Henson's childhood in Mississippi and ending with his untimely death to a bacterial infection that went untreated until too late. Frank Oz, one of the earliest members of Henson's troupe of puppeteers, notes that his boss and friend, a man he originally treated as a father figure and gradually saw as a brother, wasn't opposed to doctors. Henson just never wanted a doctor to be the first call he made when he wasn't feeling right. According to everyone else here, Henson not feeling right was common, since the man would work basically non-stop, either on a specific project or coming up with ideas for future ones, but on the single day a week he might pause for a break, the exhaustion would overwhelm him.

Nobody in the film quite knows how to deal with this more than three decades after his death. Oz and fellow puppeteer Dave Goelz saw it day in and day out while working with Henson. The work of writing and performing the various sketches on "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show," as well as all of the other projects before—including a lot of TV commercials—and in between that, simply looks like too much fun to even consider what the ceaseless effort was doing to Henson.

That's just who he was, too, and the attitude was reflected in his non-Muppet work highlighted here. We're first introduced to Henson by way of a piece of deceptively simple puppetry, as a floating mouth and eyes, speaking in Henson's distinct voice, explains how he's an "idea man" who has learned to walk around the interior of his own mind—a scary notion, perhaps, but one he finds comforting.

Meanwhile, one short film, called "Time Piece," was directed by and stars Henson, following a man racing against assorted clocks, finding himself constantly stuck in absurd situations, and only offering a meager, "Help," which sounds a repeated gulp. Oz explains the short, which ends with Henson's character dying, was shot on weekends over the course of a year, while the team spent the weekdays on more profitable projects for the company.

All of his work was quite personal to Henson, and maybe that's part of why it continues to appeal to people to this day. Kermit the Frog, for example, might as well have been an alter ego for the puppeteer, which he says as much in one archival interview and points out that the frog's role on "The Muppet Show," as an impresario trying to keep a bunch of weirdo performers in line, was basically what he was doing every week in making the TV show.

"Sesame Street" more or less fell into the company's lap, but the idea of educating kids meant something to him. Henson had five of his own, who are also interviewed here, and as someone who only got into puppetry as a means of breaking into television, Henson saw the show's goal—of using entertainment to educate children—as fitting into his grand notion that the medium could be innovative and actually do some good for people.

As for the personal side of Henson's life, it almost feels like an afterthought here, as Howard attempts to place Henson's wife Jane, who co-founded the company with him and died in 2013, as a neglected business, creative, and romantic partner. That's all true, for sure, but the documentary is in such a rush to hit all of the major points of Henson's career that, sadly, she's basically neglected by the film, as well. That some of his children got the chance to work with him (All of them have careers in entertainment in some way) and to see that side of their father before he died is an encouraging thought.

In a way, the rushed pacing of Jim Henson: Idea Man fits its subject, too. Here was a man who could only be stopped by death, and it's also a testament to the impact of Henson's work that the tragedy of his loss continues to feel like a punch to the gut—even in this respectful but by-the-books documentary.

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