Jim Henson wasn’t just interested in puppetry. He was interested in the possibilities offered by television and film and in exploring the ways in which you could exploit them in new and interesting ways. He was obviously a keen and shrewd businessman with an eye for producing entertainment that would generate money. He was also someone with an artistic sensibility who liked to make things for the sheer joy offered by the process of creation.
As well as TV shows and films, Henson also made forays into the world of short films. His approach to live action short filmmaking was very much influenced by his fondness for jazz. They tend to be a combination of images and music, generally without any strict narrative, that use symbolism to convey meaning to the audience. While they have some of the freeform feel of some Muppet sketches, they’re very much a departure from what most people associate as a Henson product. Some of these efforts include Ripples, a selection of sound and images sparked off by an architect dropping a sugar cube in to his cup of tea and Wheels That Go starring a very young Brian Henson playing with his toy car.
The most striking of these shorts though is Time Piece, a surrealist film with a strong sense of time and music featuring some animation but nothing in the way of puppetry. At times, it calls to mind the similar playing around with film that Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan got up to with The Running, Jumping And Standing Still Film. It was made over the course of about a year inbetween other projects and, after its release, was nominated for an Academy Award in the short film category.
Henson starts in the film and it shows a still playful but slightly different side to him. There are some slightly more adult themes than would appear in his more family friendly work* but the sense of humor is still recognisably silly. Below is a link to the film in full so you can judge for yourself…
* A brief side note on the Muppets and the notion of “being adult” - The most recent Muppet series (the one that had some of the mock documentary style of The Office) was pitched as being more adult than before. This creates the impression that The Muppet Show was a show for kids. It wasn’t. The Muppet Show was aimed at an adult audience but designed so that it could be watched by the whole family. It was a primetime comedy show that was kid-friendly, not a show for children that adults loved too. This was one of the reasons that the latest series didn’t quite work as it misunderstood that dynamic as well as some of the dynamics between the characters, notably Kermit and Miss Piggy (although it was improving as it went on so it’s a shame it got cancelled before it had a chance to grow into something else).
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