‘Jim Henson: Idea Man’ review: Ron Howard’s Disney+ doc celebrates the Muppets mastermind and his complex life

CNN
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“Jim Henson: Idea Man” threads a difficult needle, celebrating the creative genius of the Muppets mastermind without eliding or whitewashing the thornier aspects of his personal life, as told by his adult children. The result is a particularly rich Disney+ documentary that captures the man and the ideas that will ensure him a kind of immortality.

Henson is described as inner and quiet, an unlikely showman who would give the world Kermit the Frog, stumble upon a family producer role with “Sesame Street” and try, with some frustration, to go beyond that with films like “Sesame Street.” The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth,” which have become more beloved in recent years than when they were released.

Frank Oz, whom Henson recruited out of high school to work with him, says of Henson, “He was a very rare creature,” while he and others share amusing anecdotes, like how Henson shaped Kermit from his mother’s coat and a ping. pong ball that he cut in half to make the eyes.

Yet Idea Man director Ron Howard and Henson’s children who followed him into the entertainment industry, Brian and Lisa, aren’t afraid of his more complicated personal side, including the fact that He was absent most of the time – it was “an incredibly busy life,” Lisa Henson recalls – and frequently argued with their mother, Jane.

Brian Henson talks about friction at the dinner table and his father grappling with the tension of success, which erupted when he fled to England to produce “The Muppets Show” after American networks faltered on the pitch, all always being eager to explore creatively in a way that was exemplified by the experimental films he made early in his career.

Henson was negotiating the sale of his company to Disney, in part to get back to making films and free himself from business concerns, when he died of toxic shock syndrome in 1990, at the age of 53 years. A clip from ABC News anchor Peter Jennings sums it up. the place Henson had come to occupy in the culture, describing the news as being “like a death in the family.”

Those close to Henson talk about his hustle in the documentary, which might explain why and how he accomplished so much in a relatively short time, skillfully highlighting it with clips ranging from his early works to his directorial efforts in the 1980s to Orson Welles interviewing him. and Oz.

Kermit may have sung that it’s not easy being green, but watching “Jim Henson: Idea Man” it’s very easy to appreciate the spirit that gave us the Muppets and so much more, while recognizing the human weaknesses of the hand behind them.

“Jim Henson: Idea Man” premieres May 31 on Disney+.