childhood heros

everyone has a childhood hero. someone that they want to be like when they grow up. someone that they hang their hopes on. someone that makes them look forward to actually becoming an adult. for some their hero is a sports star like mickey mantle or Wayne Gretzky. The Boy has a couple of heroes. the most surprising is Red Skelton. but my hero is the incomparable Jim Henson. i have never known life without the muppets. when i was little, i watched sesame street and very vaguely remember the muppet show. i do remember when it was in syndication on nickelodeon. and in college i started collecting the muppet show through a time life subscription. i remember watching the dark crystal at my dad's house on every other weekend and how i wanted a landstrider. i don't remember the reason that my mom made up on why i couldn't have one but i am sure that it was a doozy. i liked them because they looked like giant rabbits. i also wanted a fizzgigg as a pet as well. i distinctly remember going to the movies to watch labyrinth with david bowie, because david bowie became my first movie boyfriend. and don't get me started on the muppet movies. the muppet movie, muppets take Manhattan, the great muppet caper and all of the tv specials.

yesterday, the muppet show season 2 was released and i was practically breaking down the door at target to purchase it. season 1 was released 2 years ago and apparently it has taken this long to get the rights to some of the songs or something. so while i knitted, i lost myself in a world of felt and foam rubber. i hit me, while i was watching, that this show was a complete hit and it was done almost completely with puppets. but the fact that kermit, fozzie and miss piggy have become household names is a bit amazing. every child at some point has come across the muppets in some way. whether it is because of sesame street or any of the movies, you would have to be living under a rock or in some hut in the middle of the ozarks cut of from society for like 50 years, to not know who the muppets are. i was talking to a 16 year old from Venezuela and she knew who kermit was. the muppets are a world wide phenomenon and it's all thanks to jim henson.

it was his ability to express love, joy, magic, mayhem and fun through green felt and a painted ping-pong ball cut in half. i rarely grieve the loss of a famous person. i don't know them personally. it may be sad that they have passed but generally it doesn't deeply effect me. i will never forget the day that my mom told me that jim henson died. she had picked me up from my grandparents home, as i would stay there after school. i was in the 5th grade and it was almost the summer break. it was a hot day. we were driving down the street and she said, "i have something that i have to tell you. i'm sorry but jim henson is dead. he died today." i just looked out of the window at the passing shops and i cried. it felt like i had lost my best friend. not long afterwards, there was a tribute show produced by the jim henson company that gave the muppets a chance to say good bye. i just knew that i would never get a chance to be a muppetteer. it never occurred to me that the muppets would go on without their fearless leader. but soldier on they did. with jim henson's now grown kids taking the helm and steve whitmire (rizzo the rat and wembley the fraggle) as the new voice of kermit, the muppets are up to thier old antics. and now with the craze to put everything on dvd, the old muppet shows are getting brushed up and slapsticked onto disk. i'm in heaven. i still have to get a couple of the films on dvd but i have the storyteller episodes, the 1st and 2nd seasons of both muppet show and fraggle rock. muppet movie, muppets take Manhattan and muppet treasure island (tim curry *sigh*), dark crystal and labyrinth all on dvd. there are just a couple more films to add to the collection. now it seems that there is a fabulous new show on TBS called puppet up. take who's line is it anyway, puree with the muppet show and add a spalsh of smut and you have puppet up. i watched it at work and i thought that i was going to fall out of my chair, i was laughing sooooo hard. my supervisor that i want to hit in the head with my shoe was getting upset because she thought that i was having some kind of breathing problem. i was trying to hold in my laughter and being spectacularly lousy at it.

god, those muppetteers are master artisans. i mean if you look at the old episodes you will see kermit tripping onstage, muppets stand from a seated position and tap dance with gene kelly. you gotta appreciate the talent that it takes to work a puppet, sing a song and do some choreography all at the while running around with your arm in the air and trying to not run into anyone else. i want to do that when i grow up. when i was doing my grad work in london, i posed as a staff person from my school and called the henson company in london. i asked if they had an intern program and if so did they have any opening that i could encourage my students (and by my students, i mean me, myself and i) to apply for. she said that there was some office intern positions open. but nothing in the creature shop. damn. my plan was foiled. i should have applied anyway. at least get my foot in the door.

all in all i want to thank jim henson for all the laughter and silliness that he gave me. thank you for teaching me my letters and about friendship with bert and ernnie. thank you for opening my mind to fantasy with the dark crystal and labyrinth. thank you for shaping my sense of humor and giving me the gift of showmanship and that classic vaudevillian acts are still a pleasure and inspiration. thank you for teaching me that it's not easy being green but it what i want to be. thank you for helping me find the rainbow connection. thank you for giving me a lady role model in miss piggy. but most of all thank you for making my world, my imagination and my life just a little bit brighter because the muppets are there.