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
class interesting rose
Patrick thought we should try to put an audience in front of one of the workshops, basically in front of the class and see how the performers rose to having an audience there, because he said, "You know, it's a really interesting test, because sometimes it gets even funnier."
class littles scripts
"Stuffed and Unstrung" started as a workshop, actually, classes within our company. We found that our puppeteers were not ad libbing as well as traditionally, Jim Henson Company puppeteers have. We're sort of famous for going off script a little bit and ad libbing.
gentle humorous jerry naughty people soul
When people say about the Muppets, 'It's a gentle soul with a naughty sense of humor,' Jerry was just as responsible for that as my dad,'
arms best best-friends choking dad follow frank funnier head maybe picking stuff swedish talking
With puppets, you follow the head and the arms will follow, but Frank didn't really do that with the Swedish Chef. He and my dad were best friends, but they were very competitive. They were always doing things to see who could be funnier and how could they upstage each other, ... Frank was often leading. He'd be picking stuff up and choking things. My dad would be talking mock-Swedish and he'd have to try to keep up. After a while, Frank would say, Maybe someone else should do the hands,' but my dad would never let him. He said, No, you're doing the hands.'
dad determined extra faith feeling happened huge intended muppet sell stopped trying work
What happened was that because my dad had made 'Sesame Street' and it was a huge hit, everyone said, 'Oh, ('The Muppet Show') is for kids. We don't want something that's feeling extra silly.' It was never intended to be for kids. My dad was a very determined salesman. He always had faith that his work would be successful. He never stopped trying to sell The Muppets.
night reason
The reason he did 'Saturday Night Live' was because he was pissed off. He wanted everyone to know that Muppets aren't just for kids.
course dad decided definitely full grade liked run stuff tv
Lew Grade told my dad, I'll make your TV show. I know it's going to be a big hit,' ... The show had definitely not run its course when my dad decided to end the show. My dad just liked doing a lot of stuff. He was so full of stuff he wanted to do.
roots use adults
This is certainly the raunchiest, if you use that word, raunchy. The roots of Jim Henson, though, was adult comedy.
mom dad puppets
My dad and mom were, they would take what were popular hits, and lip-sync to them with puppets and do a ridiculous story.
dad character would-be
Oh, well, I can't tell you; it would be telling you the end. It's a one-character lip-syncing because in the early days, that's what my dad was doing.
dad years pieces
It's really great to do one piece, "I've Grown Accustomed To Your Face," my dad developed in 1956, when he was 20 years old, and it's great to do that piece again now and see that it still really works as well as it ever did.
mother dad two
In the show, we have recreated two sketches that my dad had, or pieces that my dad had developed. One that he had developed with my mother, one that Frank Oz had developed with my dad. And these are old pieces from the '50's and '60's, and we're going to develop more, too.
fun attitude puppets
We're also irreverent, we have an irreverent attitude towards puppets, as well. So a lot of what we do is we're kind of making fun of the puppets for being puppets, even while we're doing it. And again, that all feeds into the absurdity of this show.
philosophy civilization trying
And again, we're kind of trying to be in that place, that's just so absurd and irreverent and hysterical and it's something that at our company we're kind of, we're so irreverent about everything, we're sort of irreverent about the establishment, we're irreverent about civilization, we're irreverent about philosophy, we're irreverent about religion.