The Street Gang
Posted By Kathleen David on January 23, 2022
There is a fascinating documentary on HBO about the creation of Sesame Street entitled The Street Gang.
I knew most of what they talked about; however, I did learn some new things and it was worth it for the Muppet antics.
For Christmas, Peter got me the Sesame Street Lego that I have been coveting since it was announced. It’s my next build project for Lego. I have a Baker Street to do as well then onto the three NASA related boxes.
I watched Sesame Street from the beginning because I had a younger brother and sister who were the target audience. I love it on so many levels.
That was really my introduction to the Muppets.
I know they were on SNL for a season and what happened there is another essay in itself. I was too young for SNL at the time also it was waaaay past my bedtime.
The Tales from Muppetland was a favorite for me that that time,
With the Muppets show, I was introduced to a more adult version of the Muppets and I loved them.
The Dark Crystal blew my mind by showing me what could be done with puppets. The immersive world I could believe was taken on another planet. All the little things and puppets in the corners just made it that much better.
Then there is Labyrinth which changed my world. I was already a Bowie fan because of his music but this turned me into a super fan. Again, I was taken by the complete world building. I just loved everything about it. Years later I was lucky enough to score some props from the movie included a battle used goblin axe, the prototype for the axes, and one of the masks used in the ballroom scene.
I loved the Muppet movies as well. The opening of the Muppet Movie still makes me tear up.
Fraggle Rock is why my parents got the premium channel HBO in the very early days of cable. I enjoyed the interaction between our world and the Fraggles. Uncle Traveling Matt, whose name still makes me smile, was a fun way of showing how our world would look to another species. They tackled some tough social subjects head on.
One of my personal favorites was the Storyteller which then became part of the Jim Henson hour. The use of puppetry to tell old fairy tales is a thing of beauty.
Jim passed in 1990. I was up at Yale in my third year and working on my thesis.
That Jim passed didn’t stop the Muppets.
A year later we were introduced to the prehistoric Dinosaurs. It hit all the right buttons for me. Some of my favorites were “When food goes bad” (Episode 7 in Season 2) and “A New Leaf” (Episode 17 Season 2) where they had one of the best PSA at the end which boiled down to “Don’t do drugs so we don’t have to do stupid shows about drug use and how it is bad for you”
The next try at a new Version of The Muppet Show was entitled Muppets Tonight which almost but not quite there. The last try Muppets Now was much closer.
We also had Emmet Otter, The Ghost of Faffner Hall and others.
My favorite AJ (After Jim) show was Farscape which was a slick science fiction series about an astronaut John Crichton who obtains faster than light travel and ends up joining up with a rag tag much of rebels fighting the peacekeepers and hilarity ensues.
Over the years I have become friends with a lot of Muppeteers and have heard many great stories about how the different shows worked. I have learned from them a lot of how they built the Muppets and I have a group of go to people I can ask questions of.
I miss Jim and Jane and Richard and Jerry and so many others I have met who have passed.
I am grateful that I met them and got to hear their stories and wisdom.
