Alas, Muppet*Vision 3D will soon be closing at Disney World’s Hollywood Studios. That’s right — on June 7, Nicky Napoleon and his penguin orchestra are concluding the gig they’ve started playing 34 years ago.
Understandably, a lot of Muppet fans and Disney park fans are sad about this. The new Monsters, Inc. ride sounds cool, but we’re going to miss getting sprayed with water from Fozzie’s trick flower. Too bad there are no other theme park 3D movies that spray water on the audience!
As fans have lamented the closure of Muppet*Vision, I’ve noticed one particular lament that many folks have been making, and that is some version of “It’s a shame that this attraction is closing because it’s the last thing Jim Henson ever worked on.” And indeed, it IS a shame that it’s closing, and it absolutely was ONE of the last things Jim Henson ever worked on before he passed away on May 16, 1990.
But was it really the very very last thing he worked on? He was a prolific artist, constantly performing, directing, writing, and developing stuff. I put on my 3D glasses and considered the possibilities. I didn’t get very far before I realized I had to clarify something: What counts as a thing Jim Henson worked on? And what determines whether it was the last thing?
Could you make a case for The Muppets at Walt Disney World? That TV special aired on May 6, just ten days before Jim’s passing. Maybe that should be the answer because he completed it while he was still with us. Or maybe not.
If you had asked me about this subject in 1990, when I was a nine-year-old Henson fan, I would have told you The Witches was the correct answer. That movie was released in the US a few months after Henson’s death, and because I was already a pop culture nerd, I was aware that he had worked on it in some kind of producing capacity, so I told everyone who would listen that The Witches was “the last thing Jim Henson worked on.”
[UPDATE: Tough Pigs reader Michael W pointed out that Muppet Wiki lists the release date of The Witches as February 16. I did some further clicking around, and found a list of various release dates on IMDb. According to that list, the film was released only in Orlando and Sacramento in February before being released across the United States in August. Why? I don’t know, but if I find out, I’ll add another update!]
The Witches, like The Muppets at Walt Disney World, was a production Jim saw through to completion — and The Witches was made available to the public after Disney World, in both the UK and the US. Was nine-year-old Ryan right?
Sorry, past-me, but I don’t think so. Jim almost certainly played a more hands-on (and hands-in) role on Muppet*Vision than he did on The Witches, and Muppet*Vision opened on May 16, 1991 — one year after Jim Henson’s passing. We know now that Frank Oz stepped in as director to finish a few things that weren’t 100% completed by Jim, but it’s pretty clear that Jim was present for the vast majority of the work on the attraction. So it sure seems like Muppet*Vision still has a good claim to the title.
Now consider this. The always excellent and informative Muppet Wiki has a page called “Posthumous works of Jim Henson,” and there are lots of productions that Jim was a part of that were released after his passing. Do these count? For example:
- Jim had been brainstorming a sitcom about a family of dinosaurs, which became… Dinosaurs, which debuted in 1991.
- Previously unaired episodes of The Jim Henson Hour were first seen in the US on Nickelodeon in 1993. Also in 1993, Rowlf the Dog’s solo album Ol’ Brown Ears is Back (recorded back in 1984) was freed from the archives and released for the first time.
- Material Jim contributed to for Sesame Street continued to be repurposed in new episodes of the show until 2008.
- Jim Henson and Jerry Juhl’s unproduced projects Tale of Sand and The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow were realized as graphic novels in 2012 and 2014, respectively, with Turkey Hollow later being adapted as a TV movie.
And that’s only a few examples!
I think there’s one more strong contender for the mantle of The Last Thing Jim Henson Worked On. That’s Handmade Video, which Muppet Wiki describes as “an experimental project produced by Jim Henson Productions on May 7, 1990.” (I’m not sure what the source is for the date… Does anyone out there know?)
As he explains in his introduction to the project, Jim Henson was excited by portable video cameras and their potential for allowing creative people to make films and television more easily than before. The rest of the presentation follows three comedians on a road trip, documenting their travels with their handycams. Yes, one of Jim Henson’s final acts was to predict the future of reality TV and online video platforms.
Was Handmade Video the last project Jim Henson worked on? The whole thing was never officially released in full to a home viewing audience, and it appears to be more of a pilot or a pitch presentation anyway. But I think it should be in the conversation because a) It was ONE of his last projects, and b) It’s a cool thing that not many people know about.
As I read back over everything I’ve mentioned here, a few thoughts come to mind. First and foremost, it truly is tragic that Jim Henson died when he had so many amazing and creative ideas for new movies, TV shows, and more that he never got to realize. Also — and this has been said before, but it’s still true — it’s remarkable that one man had so many amazing and creative ideas in his head to begin with! And finally, it’s pretty terrific that he got to share as many of his ideas as he did in the time he had.
Whether Muppet*Vision 3D was Jim Henson’s last project doesn’t really matter. What really matters is that it existed, and that it’s entertained thousands (millions?) of people over three and a half decades.
Wow. Three and a half decades of Muppet*Vision 3D. That’s more than a decade for each D!
Click here to celebrate stuff Jim Henson worked on on the Tough Pigs Discord!
by Ryan Roe – [email protected]
