James Maury Henson , born September 24th 1936 and passed away May 16th 1990, was an American artist who achieved world wide fame for creating ' The Muppets' and 'Fraggle Rock'.
Jim Henson made the pioneering leap from the traditional hard materials of theatre puppetry to the flexibility of fabric and foam, transforming the art form for the new medium of television.
In the 1960’s Jim created a team to help create his vision of desiging a unique look and style to endless characters. Jim encouraged his colleagues to explore and invent things that could seemingly be possible for example a dog flying a kite.
In the 1970’s Hensons workshop had creatrd hundreds of characters for Sesame Street and The Muppets. Jim began a partnership with British illustrator Brian Froud, with help of artisans Jim created a new entity he named Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. The group was soon onto cutting edge of effects innovation and they were set to take on groundbreaking Henson projects like Labryrinth.
The innovations of the London Creature shop and the New York workshop came together in the 1980’s with the development of Fraggle Rock.
The Muppets were created by Jim Henson and his wife Jane Henson in 1955, they are an ensemble cast of puppet characters known for their self-aware,burlesque style of variety sketch comedy.
The Muppets originated in the short-form television series Sam and Friends, which aired from 1955 to 1961. Following appearances on late night talk shows and in advertising during the 1960s, the Muppets began appearing on Sesame Street in 1969. The Muppets attained celebrity status and international recognition through their breakout roles in The Muppet Show (1976–1981), a primetime television series that garnered four Primetime Emmy Award wins and twenty-one nominations during its five-year run.
Disney acquired the Muppets in February 2004, allowing the characters to gain broader public exposure than in previous years.[1][2][3]Under Disney, the Muppets achieved revitalized success, starring in two films - The Muppets (2011) and Muppets Most Wanted (2014) - as well as a short-lived primetime television series on ABC[4][5][6][7][8] and a reboot of the Muppet Babies animated series. - Wikipedia
Kermit the Frog is Jim’s most well- known creation, his debut was in 1955 and he acts as a protagonist in most Muppet productions , most notably Sesame Street. Henson himself originally performed Kermit until his death in 1990. Worldwide Kermit is no longer seen as a puppet but as a person, he even has his own developed character biography. Kermit relationship with another muppet character, Miss Piggy, his volitile diva girlfriend. Increased his popularity wildly as people tuned in to witness the couples petty disputes. There relationship began in 1978 and ended finally in 2015 as the public felt Kermit was being abused by Miss Piggy.
Avenue Q is an American Musical in two acts, with music by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. Avenue Q is about the coming of age parable, its themes addresses the issues an anxieties we all face when becoming an adult. The characters reminisce about how when they were younger they were told all their dreams would come true but as adults they feel inadequate and that they have wasted their lives.
Avenue Q's cast consists of three human characters and eleven puppet characters who interact as if human, Sesame Street-style. The puppets are animated and voiced by puppeteers who are present, unconcealed, onstage. Puppets and human characters completely ignore the puppeteers. The same puppet may be operated by different puppeteers in different scenes, and the actor voicing the puppet may not be the one animating it. To minimise distraction, the puppeteers wear plain gray clothing in contrast to the human characters' colorful costumes. One puppeteer sometimes voices two or more puppets simultaneously. Conversely, the so-called "live-hands" puppets (see Puppets) require two puppeteers—again, in full view of the audience.
The show draws inspiration from and imitates the format of children's educational television shows Sesame Street and The Muppets. Marx interned at the program early in his career, and all four of the original cast's principal puppeteers—John Tartaglia, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Jennifer Barnhart and Rick Lyon—were Sesame Street performers (D'Abruzzo returned to Sesame Street after leaving Avenue Q[9]). Three of the puppet characters are direct recognizable parodies of Sesame Street puppets: Roommates Rod and Nicky are a riff on Bert and Ernie, while Trekkie Monster bears the distinctive voice and disposition of Cookie Monster, though not his obsession with baked goods. (The production officially disclaims any connection with either Sesame Workshop or The Jim Henson Company.)[10]
- wikipedia.
The difference between Avenue Q and The Muppets is that Avenue Q is more adult humoured and the dilemmas
the characters face in that play compared to the simplistic dilemmas in The Muppets are more realistic and therefore
relatable to a older audience. The show includes profanity in the dialogue as well as sexual intercourse between puppets
it addresses adult themes such as pornography and schadenfreude therefore inappropriate for child viewing.
The ironic humour emerges with age and highlights the innocence of being a child and seeing things for how they appear compared to being an adult and seeing the same thing but now a darker subliminal meaning behind it, making it entertaining for adults because it's wrong and ridiculous as it's being executed by adults.
The show also employs a real-life celebrity as a fictional character within the story. Gary Coleman, the juvenile actor who played Arnold Jackson in the 1980s American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes and later sued his parents and business advisers for stealing his earnings during that time period,[11] is portrayed (by a woman in most productions) as an adult, who happens to be the building superintendent in the run-down Avenue Q neighborhood to earn as much money as possible to keep on living.
Marx and Lopez said that they originally intended to offer the Gary Coleman role to Coleman himself, and he expressed interest in accepting it, but did not show up for a meeting scheduled to discuss it.[1] Coleman later threatened repeatedly to sue Avenue Q producers for their depiction of him, but ultimately did not.[12] - wikipedia
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