Jim Henson

James Maury "Jim" Henson was an American puppeteer, artist, cartoonist, inventor, film director, producer, screenwriter, songwriter, and musician. He was best known as the creator of the Muppets and the founder of the Jim Henson Company, which is now run by his children. Like Walt Disney for animation, Henson was considered just as much an artistic giant in his own field of puppetry.

He was well-known for performing some of his Muppet characters, such as Kermit the Frog, Rowlf the Dog, Dr. Teeth, the Swedish Chef, Waldorf, the Newsman, Link Hogthrob, and Mahna Mahna.

He also performed Ernie, Guy Smiley, and various others on Sesame Street, Cantus the Minstrel and Convincing John on Fraggle Rock, and many other characters.

Death and legacy[]

In late 1989, Jim Henson made a radical change in his career. Wanting to become less of a businessman and focus more on the creative side of the production, he entered into talks with Michael Eisner to sell his company and characters (minus Sesame Street) to the Walt Disney Company. Two of his very last projects actually involved Walt Disney World in one way or another. On May 6, 1990, The Muppets at Walt Disney World premiered as a special about the Muppets going to Kermit's home swamp and, soon after, Walt Disney World. The other last project was Jim Henson's Muppet*Vision 3D, a three-dimensional attraction currently located at Disney's Hollywood Studios. After Henson's sudden and untimely death, negotiations went awry, and Disney would not acquire the Muppets fully until February 2004, which it now controls through the wholly owned subsidiary The Muppets Studio.

Henson became infected with a very rare bacterium called Group A streptococcus in May 1990, which was discovered too late for him to receive any proper treatment. He died at 1:21 a.m. on Wednesday, May 16, 1990, approximately 20 hours and 23 minutes after checking himself into the emergency room at New York Hospital, not realizing how ill he really was. Steve Whitmire then took over for Kermit the Frog, only months after Jim passed away, then later took over for Ernie in 1993 to Frank Oz's Bert on Sesame Street. Waldorf, in 1992, had been taken over by Dave Goelz. Starting in 1991, the role of Dr. Teeth had been officially taken over by John Kennedy; however, the character only had made brief appearances with very little dialogue. However, following Henson's death, Rowlf the Dog was kept completely silent until Episode 2 of Muppets Tonight, on which Rowlf briefly broke his silence thanks to the vocal help of Bill Barretta, who now voices the Swedish Chef, Mahna Mahna, and Dr. Teeth, as of 2005.

According to FindAGrave.com, Henson was cremated and his ashes were scattered at his ranch outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Henson's legacy is carried on in different forms today. Sesame Workshop (formerly the Children's Television Workshop) owns all the Sesame Street characters and continues to experiment with its format. However, in 2001, they lost the rights to Kermit, as he was mainly part of the Muppets. As noted, the Walt Disney Company owns the Muppet characters and continues to use them in new productions. Fortunately, the Jim Henson Company itself, under the guidance of Henson's children (Brian, Lisa, Cheryl, John, and Heather), continues to release new material, including Creature Shop films and original content.

In 2011, Henson was posthumously awarded the Disney Legends award at the D23 Expo in 2011. His oldest son and daughter, Brian and Lisa, accepted it on his behalf.