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
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.
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.
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.
trying safe different
But if everybody's trying to stay safe, then you never really create something new and different and surprising.
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.
challenges trying aspect
So that's the challenge, you have a big technical aspect of what you're doing whilst you're creatively trying to improvise.
style trying puppets
So while you're trying to improvise, you're also trying to puppeteer, you're doing everything that you need to do to perform a puppet in our style, for a camera.
basic bunch entertain level mostly trying works
What we're trying to do is entertain ourselves, and we are mostly a bunch of adults, but at a basic level that works for everybody.
movies muppet releasing
We're used to releasing Muppet movies in the off-season, not on the on-season. We've always done well that way.
advanced nasa stuff thinking
I was very advanced in physics, so I thought that something in astrophysics was where I would go ? I was thinking about NASA and stuff like that.
breaking family reached school tour visitor youth
Where we used to just look at the visitor as a whole, now we are breaking it down to families, youth groups, school groups, tourists, tour groups, ... A family is going to be reached differently from a school group.
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.
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.'
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.