Brian Henson
Brian Henson
Brian Hensonis an American puppeteer, director, producer, technician, and the chairman of The Jim Henson Company. He is the son of puppeteers Jim and Jane Henson...
ProfessionTV Producer
Date of Birth3 November 1963
CityNew York City, NY
character cutting blue
And one of the funnest things was watching what they did before the director called action and after the director called cut. And they'd keep their hands in the puppets, they'd stay in character, and then they'd start goofing around with each other and be off of script, and it would get quite blue.
dad kids shooting
Really, initially what I very quickly realized that I was loving about the show was, because it reminded me of when I was a kid and I would visit the sets where my dad was shooting with the other puppeteers.
blue trying want
We try to keep it a classy show, but it certainly is blue at times. And it all depends on the audience, sometimes we've have audiences that don't really want us to go too far in that direction.
fun naughty suggestions
And if the audience is in a kind of naughty, raunchy mood, then they're going to make naughty, raunchy suggestions and then we take them and we do the scene anyway, and that's part of the fun.
awful scene audience
There's an awful lot of scenes where we don't know what the scene's going to be about, we ask the audience, pick a place that the scene is happening, pick the relationship, tell us who they are, things like that.
couple dad kids
"Sesame Street" was really the first kid's show that my dad did. He did a couple of TV specials that were targeted for kids before "Sesame Street," but really, it was, it's kind of going back to our roots, when we start to get adult. This show gets very adult sometimes, and that's because of the audience.
dad years safe
It was actually what my dad did and with the Muppets, the years with the Muppets, it was really all targeted to adults. It was in a time when everything had to be safe for the whole family. But he was targeting adults.
mom dad night
The first show that my dad and my mom did together was for, was a comedy series, a short form that went in the middle of late-night news, and then through all of their career, it was always the "Ed Sullivan Show," it was a variety act, my dad was on the "Jimmy Dean Show" for a few years.
song singing looks
So it's Rosemary Clooney - Rosemary? Rosemary Clooney, right? The singer? Yes. Clooney, doing, singing, "I've Grown Accustomed To Your Face," which is, you know, really a love song, but what we see on stage is we see one puppet that's got a ridiculous blonde wig on and she looks ridiculous, and next to her is a head that's just a piece of fabric with a pretty face on it.
couple fun character
And then while she's lip-syncing, "I've Grown Accustomed To Your Face," to this little head next to her, the head eats the cloth fabric and swallows it and it's sort of this weird, demonic character there, who then tries to eat the singer. But it's a lot of fun. So there's a couple of pieces like that.
character writing personality
Where does a character come from? Because a character, at the end of the day, a character will be the combination of the writing of the character, the voicing of the character, the personality of the character, and what the character looks like.
trying safe different
But if everybody's trying to stay safe, then you never really create something new and different and surprising.
mistake thinking people
I think in a creative effort, in any creative effort, you need to, people need to be able to be taking risks and if it turns out to be a mistake, if it turns out not to have been the right choice, that should be applauded, you know, by everybody, and it will come up with another plan.
mistake people trying
I try to emulate his approach of really get the most out of people by allowing them to experiment and certainly allowing people to make mistakes.