Back in September on Jim Henson’s birthday, I got to be a part of a fantastic fan celebration with wonderful people, puppets, and music. Today I’m sharing those memories!
The day started out meeting up with Heather Henson from Ibex Puppetry (and Jim’s youngest daughter) at the Plaza Hotel just across the street from Central Park. The exterior of the building facing Grand Army Plaza was featured in The Muppets Take Manhattan for the scene where Miss Piggy spies on Kermit the Frog and Jenny after Kermit pitches Manhattan Melodies to Leonard Winesop. After Piggy is harassed by a trio of cat-callers, she returns to her job next door at Bergdorf Goodman (from the MuppetWiki).
We then headed into Central Park where numerous Muppet related projects were filmed like the previously mentioned The Muppets Take Manhattan, a National Wildlife Federation spot starring Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear, and various segments from Sesame Street.
Eventually we all made our way to the mall section of Central Park, specifically along Literary Walk—a wonderful spot I’ve visited numerous times before that has benches remembering many great historic figures. Legendary Sesame Street director Jon Stone has a bench right next to one for Jim. All of us decorated the benches with flowers, puppets (built by Richard Gomez), and chalk drawings before joining in an impromptu performance singing Happy Birthday and The Rainbow Connection. It was magical, or as our fearless leader Joe put it, “You all just had your own New York moment!”
We left Central Park and made our way past the old Henson Townhouse and the old Henson Workshop which is now a gym. However, as Heather pointed out, the impression of Kermit’s heels are still partially visible on the sidewalk!
Next we all filed into the Henson Carriage House where we ate lunch, mingled, and geeked out to the extreme over our shared fandom. It was then that Lucas Ross—oh yeah, did I mention he was there too?!—played his banjo and had us all singing and laughing.
After we left the Carriage House, the real party started over at The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens—a place I’ve referred to as the mecca of Muppet fandom—where Craig Shemin showed an amazing collection of clips featuring Rowlf on The Jimmy Dean Show!
It was an incredibly magical and wonderful day and a reminder how much I not only love being a part of this fandom, but how much I love all its fans too. Special thanks to Ibex Puppetry, Lucas Ross, Joe Hennes, Chris Stulz, Will Carroll, and everyone else who took and shared photos with me. Follow me on Instagram and thanks for stopping by!