Normally I miss this day. It slips past me and I recall it after the fact and I'm okay. This week I was reminded it was approaching so today I'm stuck with the awareness of what happened nineteen years ago today.
Jim Henson died.
Man, even all this time later, just typing the words together makes my eyes water. That happens to me a lot with Jim, sometimes out of happiness, sometimes sadness. As silly as it may sound, pieces of felt and ping-pong ball eyes have a way of stirring my emotions. The Muppets are the first things I remember being a fan of as a kid, growing up at the right time to have both Sesame Street and The Muppet Show on at the same time. I joined the fan club. They've always been around.
When Jim died, they didn't seem to be around as much. I still had magazines I'd collected and my viewmasters, but the show wasn't on as much. They weren't on tape either. Not much anyway. I gathered what little I could and continued to be amused by it.
The past few years have been a happy revivification of the gang. There were the waves of toys; the toys I'd wanted as a youth that I was thrilled to see as an older youth. DVDs of the show have slowly been released. The Muppets have started to appear in new productions, ones that seem closer to the spirit of the older productions. There's a comic book now that's funny. I got to see Muppetvision 4D at Walt Disney World, one of the last projects Jim worked on.
It would still be better if Jim were still here.
"Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It's a good life, enjoy it" - Jim Henson
2 comments:
You are aware of this, no?
http://www.sites.si.edu/henson/locations.html
Yup! We've already been making loose plans to go when it arrives in Chicago next year.
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