Naughty Puppets Invade Jim Henson Studio Lot

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It's been a decade since award-winning director and producer Brian Henson brought the irreverent Puppet Up! – Uncensored home to Hollywood. But on Saturday, March 11, he's staging it for the first time at the historic Charlie Chaplin sound stage on The Jim Henson Company Studio lot.

PCMag passed through the ironwork gates, under the vast Kermit statue in a Chaplin bowler hat, and sat down with Henson to talk about naughty puppets and digital trickery.

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Tell us how Puppet Up! – Uncensored got started.
Well, it's a cool weird biggish story. Pretty much going all the way back to 1991 when I took over the company after my dad, Jim Henson, died—I'm now chairman and my elder sister, Lisa Henson, is CEO. We were looking for a new comedic direction and tone that puppets could take. Things had moved on. When The Muppet Show went on air in 1976, it was a different time, people were watching and laughing at Carol Burnett, at Bob Newhart, and so on. We had tried with writers to figure out a new angle but it wasn't really working. In 2005, I was sharing my frustration with my wife, Mia Sara. As she's an actress [Sloane in Ferris Bueller's Day Off], she suggested we start with the performers, rather than the writers, and that I get together with a good improvisational director.

Enter improv expert Patrick Bristow of Ellen, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Whose Line Is It Anyway? fame?
Exactly. Mia contacted him and Patrick met with me. We got on really well because we both have high squeaky nasal voices (laughs). He said, "It'll never work, but I'll try it." Because rule No. 1 of improv comedy is you have to look the other performers in the eye to anticipate what they're going to say and do next.

But your puppeteers are looking down at their television monitors, while operating the hand puppets, right?
naughty-puppets-invade-jim-henson-studio-lot photo 3Yes. But—and I'm going out on a tangent now—when people ask us, "What makes a good puppeteer?" we say, "When you can see the puppet thinking." So our puppeteers reach a very high bar in their skill and artistry. Back to the question: yes they are, but it worked. They went gang busters and it took off.

We should mention that Puppet Up! – Uncensored is not your classic half hour variety television show. You're producing this under the Henson Alternative label for adult audiences. Your dad was also doing adult comedy back in 1955, for Sam & Friends, the puppet skit lead-in for The Tonight Show.
In a way, I've been able to uncensor what my dad was doing. We didn't set out to make it blue; it just came naturally in the original workshops we did with Bristow. We knew we had something great, and really new. Having said that, my dad's work was very adult, but below the surface, all his collaborators were adult, edgy comedians. In fact, when my dad and Frank Oz were ad-libbing Kermit and Miss Piggy, off-camera, coming up with their personalities, they were often very blue. In Puppet Up! – Uncensored, initially it's shocking when you hear a puppet say something blue, but then you're inside this different world and along for the ride.

What do you think your dad would have thought of Puppet Up! – Uncensored?
I think he would have loved it. Because, finally, we can go there.

Take us back for a moment—and we should probably point out that the Walt Disney Company, now own the Muppets through the wholly owned subsidiary, The Muppets Studio—did you ever consider not working for the family firm?
To be honest, yes. I thought I was on more of a science track, in my life—physics, particularly astrophysics, was very important to me. But, when I was on a summer break from school, my dad asked me to help figure out the complex engineering problem behind operating the marionettes in the bicycle scene in The Great Muppet Caper. And all the puppets I was operating until I was 24 were animatronic in nature, or required hydraulics, all very technical.

So it's not a surprise that you've won many digital awards, including an Oscar (1992) for the "Henson Performance Control System," a custom puppeteers interface and a Primetime Emmy Award (2009) for the "Henson Digital Puppetry Studio," a proprietary real-time digital character manipulation system.
There's plenty of digital trickery in Puppet Up! – Uncensored, involving mapping and composites, using the long video delay unit, and some really cool tools that we've used, in-camera, in television, to create layers of visuals which loop in real time.

To clarify, you're doing this live, on stage, it's not pre-recorded digital wizardry?
Nope, we're using all these digital tools inside live performance, while operating a combination of hand puppets and digital 3D animated characters, and doing live improv and sketch comedy, which is really exciting. You can see the puppeteers on stage at all time, because we want you to see how the magic comes to life.

Finally, you're bringing Puppet Up! – Uncensored to this historic lot, where Charlie Chaplin shot most of his movies from 1917 onwards, and, in later years, under different owners, where 1950's TV series Adventures of Superman was recorded. Can you explain the significance of this place to you?
When my dad made The Muppet Movie [in 1979], it was all about his dream of Hollywood, a place that didn't really exist in the way it should, in real life, and I always felt the same way. So, we'd been looking for years for a new home, beginning in the early 90s and, when this lot suddenly came up for market in 1999, I jumped. When I come through the gates every morning I have this feeling of joy because this place is what Hollywood was meant to be.

Ticket info: general admission tickets ($60) for the March 11 event at The Jim Henson Company—1416 N La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90028—can be purchased at puppetup.tix.com. A limited amount of VIP Parking on The Jim Henson Company lot is available for advance purchase only for $15. Puppet Up! – Uncensored is not recommended for ages 16 and under.

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