James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990), was one of the first puppeteers in modern American television history. He was besides the filmmaker, television producer, and a founder of The Jim Henson Company, the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

Owner of The Muppets, & the leading click behind their yearn originative begin, Henson brought an piquant cast of characters, innovative ideas, & a feel of timing and humor to hundreds to thousands of population. He is as well widely acknowledged for the on-going vision of faith, friendship, magic, and love which was infused in 100% of his function.

Early work
Natural around Greenville, Mississippi in 1936, Henson moved with his personal to Hyattsville, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. in the late 1940s. Within 1954, while however within high school, he began working for WTOP-TV creating puppets for the Saturday morning toddlers's indicate. A next month he created Sam and Friends, a 5-microscopic puppet play for WRC-TV, when attending a University of Maryland, College Park. Sam & Friends were already recognizably Muppets, and the indicate involved a primitive version of what would be Henson's signature character, Kermit the Frog. Already he was experimenting by having a techniques that would vary a way puppetry was utilized in television, notably using a frame defined per camera shot to allow the puppeteer to function from either off-camera.

1960s
A profits of Sam and Friends led to a series of guest appearances in network talk and variety shows. To this day, Muppets pop up when "guests" in shows like The Tonight Show and Hollywood Squares, with particularly memorable appearances by Kermit & Miss Piggy on 60 Minutes and Cookie Monster on Martha Stewart Living. Hensin himself appeared as a guest on numbers of shows, including The Ed Sullivan Show. A greatly increased exposure led to hundreds of commercial appearances (mostly for Wilkins Coffee) by Henson characters through the 1960s.

Existence puppets, it develop been the cappella for away by owning a greater level of slapstick violence than can exist as acceptable by having person actors. A good lesson is one of a early coffee ads. The Muppet is poised behind the cannon seen inside profile. An additional Muppet is before of the barrel prevent of the cannon. A 1st Muppet says, "How do you feel about Wilkins Coffee?" A 2nd Muppet responds gruffly, "Never heard of it!" A number one Muppet fires a cannon & blows a 2nd Muppet away... so turns a cannon directly toward a viewer, & ceases a ad sustaining, "Now, how do you feel about Wilkins Coffee?"

Around 1963, Henson and his married woman Jane, as well the puppeteer, moved to New York City, where a freshly formed Muppets, Inc. would reside for a few instance. Henson devised Rowlf, a piano-swimming anthropomorphic dog, the foremost Muppet to produce the regular appearance in the network indicate The Jimmy Dean Show. At that period Henson's long-instance partner Frank Oz also came in board sustaining a fresh company.

From either 1964 to 1968, Henson began exploring film-making, & produced the series of experimental films. His nine-microscopic experimental film Instance Piece was nominated per Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for an Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in 1966. A NBC TV movie A Cube from either 1969 is a second experimental film that Jim Henson experienced produced.

Around 1968, Joan Ganz Cooney and the team at the Children's Television Workshop began work on Sesame Street, a visionary children's program for public television. the portion of the indicate was placed aside for a series of funny, colorful puppet characters residing on the nominal street. These involved Oscar the Grouch, Ernie and Bert, Cookie Monster, and Big Bird. Kermit was as well involved as a nomadic Television News Reporter. About this instance, the frill was added around Kermit's neck to produce him supplementary frog-rather. A collar was as well wont to handle a joint in which a neck met a body of a Muppet. Ab initio the puppetry was separated from either a naturalistic segments on the street, however when a unfortunate test screening in Philadelphia, the indicate was revamped to integrate them & place good deal greater emphasis in Henson's operate.

1970s
Henson, Oz, & his team targeted an fully grown audience by owning the series of sketches on Saturday Night Live, set mostly in the Land of Gorch. Eleven sketches aired between October 1975 and January 1976, with quadruplet extra appearances within March, April, Could, & September. A SNL writers never had comfortable writing for the characters.

the failure of the Muppets around SNL will stand been a blessing in disguise. Starting within 1976, The Muppet Show was occupying Henson's attention in the UK. the indicate featured Kermit when carrier, & a kind of more memorable characters including Miss Piggy, Gonzo the Great, and Fozzie Bear. The vaudeville-style variety show aimed at the personal audience, a indicate was a sensation in the United Kingdom and soon elsewhere in the globe.

Contributions to film
A Muppet Indicate ended fallowing two or three seasons, however a characters develop appeared around an extended series of motion picture, beginning by using 1979's The Muppet Movie. 1 song from either that musical film, A Rainbow Connection, sung by Kermit, was nominated for an Oscar. the Muppet characters own too appeared within a heavy total of mass produced-for-TV-movies & television specials.

Henson was too responsible 2 non-Muppet Indicate-related flick, 1982's high fantasy The Dark Crystal and the 1986 Labyrinth, co-produced by George Lucas. To provide a ocular style distinct from either a Muppets, the puppets around these deuce flick were according to conceptual art by Brian Froud.

Henson too continued creating kids's software—Fraggle Rock and the alive Muppet Babies—and new prime-period ventures like a mythology-oriented The Storyteller. The Jim Henson company continues to create recently series & specials.

Within 1982, Henson founded the Jim Henson Foundation to promote and acquire a art of puppetry in the United States.

Henson besides founded Jim Henson's Creature Shop to build creatures for a large number of other films and series (most recently the science fiction production Farscape and the film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), and is considered one of the most advanced and well respected creators of film creatures.

Death
Jim Henson died of bacterial pneumonia on May 16, 1990 (the equivalent day when Sammy Davis, Jr.) at the age of 53. The memorial service for him aired in PBS, & drew hundreds to thousands of viewers & 12 of celebrities inside reverence for his life and function.

The Jim Henson Company, Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop have continued on after his death. His boy Brian and daughter Lisa are currently a co-chairs & co-CEOs of the Company; his girl Cheryl is the president of the Foundation. Steve Whitmire, a seasoned member of a Muppet puppeteering crew, has assumed the roles of the deuce best known characters played by Jim Henson himself, Kermit the Frog and Ernie.

In February 17, 2004, it was announced that a Muppets (excluding the Sesame Street characters, which are then individually owned by Sesame Workshop) & Bear in the Big Blue House properties had been sold by Henson to The Walt Disney Company. A Jim Henson Company retains Animal Shop, likewise when a rest of its film & television library including Fraggle Rock, Farscape, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth.

Tributes
On September 24, 2003, University of Maryland, College Park honored Jim Henson by holding a dedication ceremony. a ceremony dedicated a life-full-size statue of University of Maryland alum Jim Henson, conversing using one of his special creations, Kermit the Frog, before of the Adele Stamp Student Union on the College Park campus.[http://urhome.umd.edu/newsdesk/images/Henson/Articles/FAQ.html]

Tom Smith's song "A Boy and His Frog", which won a Pegasus Award for Best Filk Song in 1991.