Jim Henson's magical Muppetness

Jim Henson wanted to make the world a better place, and he did.

But back in the 1960s, Henson also wanted to come up with a funny way to sell Linit Fabric Finish and Pak-Nit pre-shrunk fabric, and he did that, too.

(For the latter, he dreamed up two Hansel-and-Gretel-ish creatures, Shrinkel and Stretchel, who get thrown into an oven by a witch and live to tell the tale, with no marked size change.)

At various times in his life, on avenues other than Sesame Street, Henson sought to explore surrealistic themes of time and confinement, fantasy and world peace, human emotions and futility, all through visual metaphors of Muppetness and Dali-ness, the mystical and the mythological, with a bit of Tolkienesque sci-fi thrown in.

Not only that, but the creator of Kermit the Frog and the genius behind the Muppets, who died in 1990 at age 53, dreamed of building a pink psychedelic nightclub in the shape of a geodesic dome.

Like, wow, Kermit.

All of these ideas, some of which never made it off the story board (a "what were we thinking" proposal for a Johnny Carson-hosted Muppet show), and some of which changed the planet (Big Bird), are on display at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, through Nov. 29.

The exhibit, "Jim Henson's Fantastic World," is a production of the Jim Henson Legacy and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and was seen by more than 350,000 people when it was in Washington.

It is the inaugural exhibit in the Sharon B. and Sydney F. Martin Wing of the Michener, an $11 million expansion that officials of the museum - which markets itself as "The Art & Soul of Bucks County" - plan to fill with traveling exhibits focusing on both pop culture (a coming one on the graphic novel) and more traditional art shows.

The new 5,500-square-foot space is known as the Della Penna-Fernberger/Paton/Smith Galleries, which sounds a bit like the beginning of a Muppet counting song, of which there are several very cool examples in the exhibit ("Number Twelve Rocks" manages a Sisyphus-meets-Woodstock existential aesthetic: "There is a murmur from the crowd," the story board instructs. "One pebble rolls forward hesitantly, and a single voice says, 'One.' ").

"What we're trying to do in the exhibit is get inside his head a bit," said Karen Falk, the curator and director of archives for the Henson Legacy. "People know the work, but might not know where Jim got his ideas."

Henson was first and foremost a visual thinker, and his basic Muppet look was present in even his earliest drawings. The exhibit makes it clear: Kermit the Frog was along for the ride from the beginning, although his origins were somewhat lizard-like. With a cloth head that allowed Henson to communicate subtle facial expressions by simply moving his knuckles around, Kermit was just the first of the Muppets that would revolutionize puppetry and children's entertainment, Falk said.

The original Kermit puppet was made in 1955 from Henson's mother's old spring coat and a Ping-Pong ball split in half for the eyes. (Miss Piggy, in fitting diva-style, does not appear in the exhibit except for one group photo from The Muppet Show, the result of Paula Abdul-esque legal wrangling.)

A Kermit puppet from the 1970s opens the show in a glass case, and there are plenty of kid-pleasing exhibits, from 1968's King Goshposh and Featherstone to Bert and Ernie (natch) to, more obscurely, Muppet scientist Dr. Bredlaw Freedly to characters from Fraggle Rock, Henson's 1980s global show that urged tolerance and peace among neighbors quite different from one another.

"There's a real affection for the characters," says Falk. "People at the museum keep glass cleaner around for when people kiss the cases."

The exhibit also features an extensive creative space for children, with stations to engage in Muppet- and puppetry-related activities. There are film screenings, including Henson's film Labyrinth on Sept. 21 at the County Theater in Doylestown. On Oct. 25th, members of Henson's creative team will be at the museum for a panel discussion.

Although Henson's earlier film work and later animated projects were of a darker, more experimental, and edgier vein than the work he's most known for, the biographical side of Henson yields mostly sunny days. He kept the clouds away.

Inspired, the exhibit points out, by the funny dinner conversations held around the kitchen tables of his youth, he was a family man who never lost sight of the commercial end of his creativity. "He was a very astute businessman," said Falk. "He ran his companies well."

Fran Brill, who was the first woman to play a female character on Sesame Street, first as Prairie Dawn and later as Zoe and Rosita, among hundreds of other Muppet roles, said Henson was a true collaborator. The actors do not just do puppet voices, but they also operate the puppets, usually while sitting on the floor or lying on big pillows, as Henson did not want the child actors to have to be on risers. Often, the personalities of the characters came from the actors themselves, from an original idea of Henson's.

"I feel like we're all sort of disciples of Jim," Brill said in a telephone interview the day she premiered a new character, Elmo's mom, on the Today show, with a Southern drawl she says she modeled after her mother-in-law. "He never raised his voice. He always worked with praise. I learned more about being a good human being from him.

"He really wanted to use television as a force for good in the world, and we can all agree he succeeded," she said. "The Henson mindset continues. The humor is edgy, but there's never a mean, evil character. He said, 'We don't want to put that forth. There's enough of that without us adding to it.' "

Still, he was always pushing the envelope, Brill said, and surely had much left to create, more than likely along the more experimental lines he had begun with and to which he was returning in mid-life with such films as The Dark Crystal (1982). He died suddenly in 1990 of a streptococcal infection.

"I don't know where ideas come from," the exhibit quotes Henson as saying. "It's just a matter of figuring out how to receive the ideas waiting to be heard."

Through Nov. 29 at the James A. Michener Museum, 138 S. Pine St., Doylestown. 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. $10 general,

$9 for seniors, $7.50 for college students, $5 for

ages 6-18, younger than

6 admitted free. Advance purchase of timed tickets recommended for nonmembers. 1-800-595-4849 or http://www.michener museum.org/.EndText