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01
Henson died a few days before the weekend he was going to sell his company to Disney for a reported $150 million, with plans to give proceeds to Muppet performers and employees.
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02
He had walking pneumonia for several days before his death but never told anyone, not even his family, because he did not want to be a burden.
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03
Jim once appeared on a radio show with Kermit the Frog, and a sound person pinned a lapel mic to Kermit’s collar without thinking.
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04
He was good friends with George Lucas, who offered him the role of Yoda in Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back; Henson declined and suggested Frank Oz.
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05
His memorial service at St. John the Divine in New York City on May 21, 1990 was attended by over 1,000 people and Muppets, including Frank Oz, George Lucas, Richard Curtis, Big Bird, and Lord Lew Grade.
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06
He created the original Kermit the Frog out of his mother’s old coat and a ping-pong ball; Kermit began as a lizard-like character and first appeared as a frog in Hey Cinderella! in 1969.
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07
Henson’s final televised appearance was on The Arsenio Hall Show just 12 days before his death.
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08
The University of Maryland commissioned a life-size statue of Henson and Kermit the Frog, dedicated on September 24, 2003.
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09
On a trip to Europe, he saw puppet theater being taken seriously by adults, which convinced him to create a puppet television show appealing to adults.
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10
A second memorial service was held at St Paul’s Cathedral in London two months after his death; at the entrance was a plinth with Kermit the Frog wearing a sign saying ‘I’ve lost my voice.
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11
He had a hit single singing Rubber Duckie as Ernie, which entered the Billboard Top 40 in August 1970 and stayed for seven weeks, peaking at number 16.
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12
In The Muppet Movie, Kermit sang The Rainbow Connection while perched on a log in a swamp, requiring Henson to perform from a specially designed diving bell underwater.
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13
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze was dedicated to his memory.
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14
Upon his death, Rowlf the Dog was not spoken for years out of respect; the character finally spoke again in The Muppets in 2011.
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15
Harry Belafonte sang Turn the World Around at Henson’s funeral, reportedly his favorite song.
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16
Henson was a lifelong fan of science fiction.
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17
He preferred using Kermit the Frog as his signature character because Kermit was the lightest of the regular puppets and most comfortable to perform for extended periods.
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18
He died the same day as Sammy Davis Jr.
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19
He requested that no one wear black at his memorial service, wanting to focus on his life rather than his death.
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20
He arrived at his high school graduation in a new Rolls Royce Silver Cloud bought with money earned from his puppets; he remained a lover of expensive luxury cars.
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21
He named Kermit the Frog after a childhood friend from Mississippi.
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22
The Wizard of Oz was one of his favorite films.
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23
He said his earliest artistic influence was his grandmother, Dear, who taught him to value everything he saw.
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24
Henson hoped to sell his company to Disney to focus on producing and directing; a sticking point was the rights to Sesame Street characters, which he refused to include.
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25
According to Frank Oz, Henson wanted to direct a film version of Beauty and the Beast in the late 1980s with Tom Cruise, but stopped when Disney announced its animated version.
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26
His original name for the Muppets was the Anything People.
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27
Lydia the Tattooed Lady was one of his favorite songs; the Muppets performed it at his memorial service.
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28
In his early television shows, he often lip-synched to records rather than performing voices live.
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29
He was pictured on a USA 37-cent commemorative stamp issued September 28, 2005, on a souvenir sheet honoring Jim Henson, the man behind the Muppets.
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30
His death was a complete shock because he did not tell anyone he was sick.
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31
He suffered severe depression after the critical and commercial failure of Labyrinth in 1986.
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32
Apart from his family and puppets, his greatest passion in life was music.
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33
Along with Frank Oz, he painted an unsightly configuration of pipes in his dressing room on The Tonight Show into Muppet designs; the studio now maintains them as a historical exhibit.
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34
His first television character was Pierre the French Rat, which began as a comic strip for a high-school publication in 1954.
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35
His earliest puppetry influences were Kukla, Fran Allison and Ollie, Bil Baird, and Edgar Bergen.
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36
Before his career in puppetry, he experimented with 8mm and 16mm film, often making animation.
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37
Although Jim Henson remained married to Jane Henson throughout his adult life, they maintained an open marriage and legally separated in 1986 but never divorced.
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38
A Jim Henson retrospective was held from September 1990 to February 1991 at London’s Museum of the Moving Image.
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39
Henson was raised on and heavily influenced by the early television shows of Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, and Ernie Kovacs.
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40
He publicly criticized NBC after the cancellation of MuppeTelevision in 1987, blaming the network’s constant time slot changes.
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41
He met Frank Oz in 1961 in Asilomar, California.
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42
He based his early Muppet designs on the drawings in Pogo by Walt Kelly.
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43
He cited Jen from The Dark Crystal as the hardest puppet to perform because the character was very lifelike and human.
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44
One of his films, The Muppet Movie, was selected for the National Film Registry as culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.
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45
During college, he won a local Emmy Award for a regular five-minute show on a Washington, D.C. television station featuring his own puppets.
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46
The Muppet Show became an immediate international success, winning numerous awards and attracting a worldwide audience of 235 million in over 100 countries.
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47
As part of the deal to sell the Muppets to Disney, he designed an area at Disney-MGM Studios with attractions like Muppetvision 3-D and a Gonzo pizza restaurant; only the 3-D attraction was built after the sale fell through.
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48
His least favorite character to perform was Guy Smiley due to the character’s boisterous voice being too rough on his throat; he often prerecorded the dialogue for earlier sketches on Sesame Street.
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49
He shared his birthday with Steve Whitmire, his successor as the voice of Kermit the Frog.
