Details

Release year: 2024

Storyline

A trip into the mind of creative visionary Jim Henson, from his early years puppeteering on local television to the worldwide success of Sesame Street (1969), The Muppet Show (1976), and beyond.

Top credits

Directors

Ron Howard

Writers

Mark Monroe

Cast

Jim Henson — Self - Filmmaker, Performer, Creator of The Muppets
Frank Oz — Self - Filmmaker, Performer
Alex Rockwell — Self - Creative Assistant 1988 - 1990
Heather Henson — Self - Puppet Artist, Producer

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Awards

5 wins & 4 nominations

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Did you know

• How Jim Henson created Kermit The Frog and his Origin Story. This is the origin story of all of these characters," Howard says of the film. "Kermit started as his mother's coat, the fabric from some old coat she was throwing away. They didn't even know he was a frog for a long time. They didn't know what he was. He just fit Jim's hand, and Jim could create funny reactions, and the character could be an alter ego for Jim. And then, slowly but surely, they decided he was Kermit the Frog."

• This film has a 100% rating based 57 critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

• Steve Whitmire; a longtime Henson colleague and Kermit the Frog performer for 26 years after Jim's death; was purposely omitted from the documentary, due to his being fired by Disney from the Muppets Studio in October 2016. Producers did reach out to Steve during production, but only to use his personal home video footage of his time working alongside Jim from 1978 onwards. Steve expressed disappointment, not about being left out of the documentary, but about what he saw as a decline in Jim's legacy, creative essence and spirit within The Muppets, since the Henson family sold them to Disney in 2004.