ACTOR
Jim Henson
- Known for
- The Muppet Show (1976), The Great Muppet Caper (1981), Muppet Babies (1984)
43 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
Jim Henson is an actor best known for The Muppet Show, The Great Muppet Caper and Muppet Babies.
All facts (43)
- #001
Jim Henson died just days before the weekend on which he was to sell his company to The Walt Disney Company for $150 million. Henson had planned to give a large portion of the proceeds to the Muppet performers, employees of the Henson company and long-time associates. The sale would also have included a series of lucrative provisions for Henson: alongside the lump cash sum, he was to receive a fifteen-year production deal with Disney covering feature films and television specials, authorization over the Muppet performers, veto power over the use of Kermit the Frog, and an entire area of the Disney-MGM Studios theme park devoted to the Muppet characters. Disney Imagineers had provided Henson with design input for the area, which was also to include many new attractions and shows.
- #002
Days before his death, Jim Henson was suffering from walking pneumonia, but he had told no one, not even his family, because, staying true to his character, he did not want to be a burden to anyone. By the time he finally sought medical help, it was too late to do anything.
- #003
Jim Henson once appeared on a radio program and brought Kermit the Frog with him. Without thinking, the sound engineer clipped the lapel microphone onto Kermit's collar.
- #004
Jim Henson was a good friend of George Lucas, who initially offered him the role of Yoda in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Henson declined and suggested Frank Oz for the role.
- #005
More than 1,000 people attended the memorial service held on 21 May 1990 at St. John the Divine in New York City, among them Frank Oz, George Lucas, Richard Curtis, Big Bird and Lord Lew Grade, along with Muppets.
- #006
The University of Maryland, from which Henson graduated, commissioned a life-size statue of Henson and Kermit the Frog on 24 September 2003.
- #007
On a trip to Europe, Jim Henson saw that puppet theater was taken seriously by adults. Convinced that he could create a puppet series that would appeal to adults, he returned to the United States.
- #008
A second memorial service for Henson was held two months after his death at St Paul's Cathedral in London, England. At the entrance to the church stood a pedestal on which Kermit the Frog was seated, with a sign around his neck reading: "I've lost my voice".
- #009
Jim Henson had a hit single singing "Rubber Duckie" in the role of Ernie. "Rubber Duckie" entered the Billboard Top 40 pop/rock chart in August 1970 and stayed on the chart for seven weeks, rising as high as number 16. The "famous" rubber duck squeak solo in the original version of the song (for the first "Sesame Street album") is squeaked by the song's writer, Jeff Moss. When the Sesame Street (1969) cast performed in concert with the Boston Pops Orchestra, the plastic duck was counted as a percussion instrument. Apparently reluctant to pay musicians to play a 'second instrument', the duck squeaks were limited to the percussion section when the performers sang the song with the Pops (with Big Bird conducting).
- #010
Jim Henson's last television appearance took place on The Arsenio Hall Show (1989) just 12 days before his death.
- #011
After Jim Henson's death, it was said that Rowlf the Dog would never be used again because he was Henson's signature character. As a kind of memorial, Rowlf appears in a few frames of Muppet Treasure Island (1996) and Muppets from Space (1999), performed by Bill Barretta. However, out of respect for Henson, Rowlf did not speak. The character had no dialogue (spoken by Barretta) until The Muppets (2011).
- #012
Jim Henson was a lifelong science fiction fan.
- #013
One of the main reasons Jim Henson preferred to use Kermit the Frog as his signature character was that it was among the lightest of his regular puppets and therefore one of the most comfortable to perform for long periods.
- #014
Jim Henson died on the same day as Sammy Davis Jr.
- #015
Jim Henson asked that no one wear black at his memorial service, because he wanted the service to focus on his life rather than his death.
- #016
Jim Henson arrived at his high school graduation in a new Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud that he had bought with the money he earned performing with his puppets at his local National Broadcasting Company (NBC) station. He remained a lover of expensive, luxurious cars, and his collection included a "Kermit-green" Lotus.
- #017
Kermit the Frog was named after a childhood friend of Jim Henson's from Mississippi.
- #018
The Wizard of Oz (1939) was one of Jim Henson's favorite films.
- #019
Jim Henson hoped to sell his company to The Walt Disney Company in order to give himself more time to focus on producing, directing and performing. A major point of disagreement in the potential sale of The Jim Henson Company was the rights to the Sesame Street (1969) characters, which Henson strictly refused to give up. Overall, Henson found the deal extremely frustrating and exhausting, though a good relationship with his friend Michael Eisner, then CEO of Disney, helped things move forward. After Henson's sudden death, Disney once again insisted on buying the Sesame Street (1969) characters as part of the deal, which forced the Henson family to cancel the sale. However, in 2004, after all of Sesame Street (1969) was sold to Sesame Workshop, the Henson family allowed the sale to proceed.
- #020
Because Jim Henson told no one that he was ill, his death came as a complete shock.
- #021
In his early television programs, Jim Henson did not always do the voices; instead, he lip-synced to recordings made earlier in the day.
- #022
After the critical and commercial failure of Labyrinth (1986), Jim Henson fell into a severe depression.
- #023
Apart from his family and his puppets, Jim Henson's greatest passion in life was music.
- #024
Together with Frank Oz, Jim Henson painted over the ugly pipe configuration in the dressing room of The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar (1957) one late night in 1964, turning it into Muppet designs. Oz and Henson also added various feather, fur and fabric samples to their unusual work. Today the studio preserves the pipes as a specially protected historical exhibit.
- #025
A Jim Henson retrospective was held at the Museum of the Moving Image in London from September 1990 to February 1991.
- #026
After MuppeTelevision (1987) was cancelled, Jim Henson publicly criticized the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), blaming the network's constant changing of the series' time slot for its end.
- #027
Jim Henson's first television character was named Pierre the French Rat. It began life in 1954 as a comic strip drawn by Henson for a high school broadcast.
- #028
Jim Henson's earliest puppetry influences were Kukla, Fran Allison, Ollie, Bil Baird and Edgar Bergen.
- #029
Before his puppetry career, Jim Henson experimented with 8mm and 16mm films, often making animations.
- #030
Jim Henson named Jen from The Dark Crystal (1982) as the most difficult puppet he ever performed, because Jen was so realistic and so "human."
- #031
Jim Henson was developed and heavily influenced by the early television programs of comics such as Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs.
- #032
In 1961, Jim Henson met Frank Oz at Asilomar in California.
- #033
Jim Henson based his first Muppet designs on the drawings in Walt Kelly's "Pogo."
- #034
The Muppet Show (1976) was an immediate international success that won numerous awards and drew an audience of 235 million viewers in more than 100 countries worldwide.
- #035
The character Jim Henson least enjoyed performing was Guy Smiley, because the character's loud voice strained his throat too much. For this reason, Guy's dialogue in earlier Sesame Street (1969) sketches was usually pre-recorded, so that multiple takes could be filmed without straining his throat.
- #036
Jim Henson shared his birthday with Steve Whitmire, his successor as the voice of Kermit the Frog.
- #037
Jim Henson attended Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, Maryland.
- #038
Unlike Edgar Bergen, Paul Winchell and many other puppeteers, Jim Henson did not practice ventriloquism. He stayed out of frame and focused only on his puppets.
- #039
After his death, Jim Henson was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6631 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California, on September 24, 1991 (which would have been his 55th birthday).
- #040
Jim Henson's short film Time Piece (1965) earned an Oscar nomination in 1966.
- #041
Jim Henson studied at the University of Maryland, College Park.
- #042
Jim Henson was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery. His ashes were scattered at the foot of Taos in New Mexico.
- #043
Jim Henson died on the day actor Thomas Brodie-Sangster was born.
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