Muppet Man

One of the first jobs I ever had was working as an Archival Intern at the Jim Henson Company, where I reported to the company’s principal archivist. The working was unpaid, but frequently fascinating with the principal task being the cataloging of the company’s London Creature Shop into their New Jersey warehouse. I found myself inundated with all elements Henson. So it was no surprise to find myself on any given day sharing the elevator with Jim Henson’s daughter or watching the man who played Barkley the dog bound along the tile floor in a metal harness, which would later be decorated with Muppet fur. But one, particular day, over lunch with the principal archivist, Lisa Henson, and a girl who had studied at the Sorbonne, I had the opportunity to practice my very first pitch session. Still taken by Walk the Line, which caused me to dress in black for the better part of a spring and winter, I proposed a film about Jim Henson’s life. Brilliant I thought. I imagined a young man rising from Kentucky with the strange fascination of sticking his hand up the ass of felt puppets. I’d write it. We’d be set. It is sufficient to say all three women present shot down the idea. Furthermore, they had all kinds of objections: it’d be hard to find someone to play Jim, Jim’s life was too fractured and not dramatic enough for a feature film,

Oh, if only I had written that script four years ago. I could have done it extreme justice. So imagine how surprised and intrigued I was when I found out someone else, Christopher Weekes, had written a biopic of Jim’s life, The Muppet Man. This script pisses the hell out of me, and at the same time I think it’s pretty brilliant.

The story revolves around the last days of Henson’s life as his illness rapidly degenerates from the flu to sepsis. We flash back to capture the highlights of Jim’s rise to fame, and there are several parallel segments revealing a Muppets story. Only it’s not just any Muppets story. The Muppets have grown old. Kermit is graying, Animal’s balding, Scooter had a mid life crisis, Fozzie rides a Rascal, and Miss Piggy is married to Link Hogthrob, star of Pigs in Space.

The major flaw is a character one. Namely, Jim is a character without a core. Needless to say, his actions and thought processes throughout the course of the film are completely deprived of dramatic thrust. He’s not an exciting character. There were plenty of reasons why Jim died, some complete speculations and others more probable. He was a Christian Scientist, and probably had some deep seated stance against seeking medical treatment unless necessary. But there was no major suffering in Henson’s life. In fact, this guy, for someone widely renown as a genius, had one smooth ride. He was discovered when he was still a teenager. Had one long steady relationship with the woman he married. Had no drug or alcohol cover stories. Was never picked up with a transvestite. Hell, the guy even had a good divorce and remained friends with his wife. Where’s the bread and butter then? The pain of his life? Well, Jim’s brother died when he was young. But judging by this script I have exactly no clue howsoever why the brother died. This would be the moment most screenwriters would try to hinge Henson’s death around, but this screenwriter tries to make us feel like Henson’s big dramatic flaw was he was afraid to ask for help. Really? That’s it? Yup.

When this script works, it’s nothing short of breathtaking. The last twenty pages had me shedding tears in an office full of people. By depicting the Muppets as elderly characters, the screenwriter is distorting some pretty heavy archetypes. This is why people went hog wild when Superman died, or why you see such a large turn out for the series finales of TV shows. It’s messing with what we know, and hope is a permanent thing. (On a side note, in a really weird way seeing Muppets depicted as beaten down haggard characters reminded me of Peter Jackson’s Meet the Feebles, a much less serious attempt on puppets dealing with adult issues). So if for no reason, it’s worth it for this jarring memory of the Muppets.

Mostly, this script is a weak attempt to capture the glory of the Muppets and Jim Henson’s legacy. Yet another gimmicky script attempting to cash in on a novel idea. That is, except for the bit about the Muppets growing old. That’s brilliant in its originality and how it distorts a comfortable concept. Judging by how the archivist (and chairman of the board of the Jim Henson legacy) reacted to my initial idea to make a movie based on Jim, I’d say the likelihood of this film being made is highly unlikely. That’s a good thing because this film doesn’t do Jim justice and makes a lot of unnecessary off the mark drama, but also a bad thing because lately judging by the small crowd pull for the 3D film at Disneyland and poor output of recent films, the Muppets are dwindling away into a sad state of obscurity.


Scooby Doo (Complete Crap)
Atilla (Poor, Few Redeeming Qualities)
Wedding Crashers (Mediocre)
X - Hot Rod (Good)
Definitely Maybe (Pretty Darn Good)

Isla Prospects: She could do the elderly Jane Henson thing in the future and knock it out of the park, but right now the role is too old for her.

If You Forget Everything Else: Biopics, if done correctly, can pack a strong emotional upper cut. But the problem you’re presented with a lot of the time, or at least what I would have found daunting about writing this script is worrying if I captured Henson’s “rhythm” of speaking. This script doesn’t worry about whether its Frank Oz lines, or Jim’s for that matter, read like they’d actually be said by any of the real life figures. But that doesn’t matter, I didn’t care. If you capture the elements and the dynamics of a character’s life strongly enough, I’ll be willing to make small imaginative leaps. Like if the dialogue isn’t spot on reminiscent of what it would have been.