The Jim Henson Revolution

There were a hell of a lot of Muppets on TV in 1970s/1980s. Jesus, there were a lot of Muppets.

To my knowledge, this all started with Jim Henson (Muppets, duh), but the Henson influence stretched long and seeped deep into the collective consciousness of 1980s culture. I rmeember Apple's popular ad campaign in the late 1990s and early 2000s, during the iMac promotion (God, are THEY taking over the world now or what? ithis and ithat). "Think different" ran the slogan. Alongside the slogan were black and white images of visionaries like John Lennon and, of course, Jim Henson. They were right. This guy changed the rules, at least for a while.

The Henson effect even started new trends in horror films. It is very sad to see us relying almost soleley on chessy CGI these days. Newer is not always better.

The Muppets themselves were everywhere. The early real-life Muppets on "The Muppet Show" soon gave way to animated series like "Muppet Babies" (which I watched as a kid) and to Seseme Street (currently dying a long, slow death at the hands of Elmo . . . when are they going to just rename it "the Elmo Show?"). The Muppets had a number of live action feature films, my favorite of which is still on my wish list ("The Great Muppet Caper" from 1981). Let's not forget Fraggle Rock and Henson's contributions to Seseme Street either. Grover is my all-time favorite (sorry, Big Bird, but you were always a total pansy).

But Muppets were ripped off and suddenly appeared everywhere. The first Muppets movie didn't come out until 1979 (featuring my mom's personal favorite Muppet song, "The Rainbow Connection," which we still have on LP in the downstairs closet) but is it any coincidence that the next and last of the first threee classic Star Wars films, Return the the Jedi, which came out four years later in 1983, had unmistakably Muppet-like characters in the either hated or adored Ewoks. The next Star Wars related live-action film was NOT Episode I, mind you. It was "The Ewok Adventure." The furry Muppets proved so popular among (hopefully mostly) women and children that a major motion picture was made featuring them. Furry critters appeared everywhere in the 1980s, from "The Neverending Story" 1 and 2, The Jim Henson projects Labyrinth (with a VERY 1980s hair metal David Bowie) and Dark Crystal, E.T., and Gremlins. Fuzzy guys were everywhere. I'll bet readers can come up with many more examples I have neglected to mention. My childhood is laced with memories of looking through my older brother and sister's sticker books, containing many scratch-and-sniffs, Shel Silverstein-like paraphenilia, Atari paraphenialia, and Gremlins, Ewok, Yoda, and E.T. sitckers. This was a pop cultural revolution. These little (and big) guys were often christened "animatronics" as the technology got better. Many will argue that this is significantly different than the revativelty lower-tech Henson "puppets" or "marionettes" and that the revolution had already begun with films like Jaw, where Spielberg's hulking shark also paved the way for the "blockbuster" films which still grace (sometimes plague) us today. This arguement definitely has legs, but I would counter that Henson's Muppets not only embodied the late 1970s and 1980s entertainment aesthetic but also started a revolution that predated CGI in itself.

The Muppets were animated as traditional 2D cartoons in "Muppet Babies," but a slew of new cartoons featured colorful characters that still strike me as very "Muppet-like." These include, but are not limited to, the Smurfs and The Snorks (anyone remember these guys?). Maybe I'm, again, reaching here.

Gremlins 1 and 2 were VERY popular. So popular they became a long-running franchise unto themselves. You know its a cultural phenomenon when stickers of Gizmo, and even of the nasty evil Gremlins (they got pissed when they got wet, right?). However, this was a significantly darker take of the Muppets mania. It frightened and disgusted me as a child, so much so that I couldn't watch much of either the first or second film. and even in horror films like The Gate, and the cheesier Puppet Master series, Ghoulies series, Critters series, and many more. This is not surprising, as puppets have an uncanny ability (like clown and spiders) to frighten as well as entertain, sometimes for no apparent reason. This was put to great effect in the Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg joint project "Poltergeist" and in it's follow up sequels. "Poltergiest" in itself, along with E.T., "Batteries Not Included," "Short Circuit," and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (and even "Cocoon" and "Not Quite Human," as I recall) each featured a uniquely 1980s aesthetic that combines the sense of 1980s cheese wonderment, blockbuster, and Muppet-like qualities that made the 1980s special to me, even though I was too-often too young to remember the genesis of all this).

How can I forget to mention "Alf?" "Alf" came to prominence during the 1980s and early 90s (I think) as well, and he was essentially a Muppet with brown fur and a combover. It's both shameful and delightful to imagine such a bizarre concept could have made it on television, but considering the considerable success of "The A-Team," "Small Wonder," "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" (AND "Big Adventure") and "Out of This World," maybe it's not so unusual that "Alf" had the success it did.

The aesthetic I recognize from all this may just be the result the fact that all of this hold sentimental value to me, but I also believe that each decade seems to have had its own general aesthetic feel as well. In researching this article, I also found that Steven Spielberg was also a creative force behind a GREAT deal of these projects, including Gremlins. The man may be a merchandising machine, but he definitely has had vision, even if his execution hasn't always come through in the end. Is it just me, or does Pac-Man's mouth remind me a lot of that of the Muppets? Anyone remember "The Missing Piece" (the chilren's book)? Am I reaching here?

In the end, I still feel like the CGI revolution, even though it's advancing technologically, has produced films that have become dated faster than a lot of the output we saw in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s. Jaws still looks good to me, but I can personally attest that the early CGI films, and many of the newer ones made by lazy or underfunded graphic designers(that AWFUL Wolverine Movie comes to mind . . . . those claws look like they were made by Mattel) often look like crap only mere years after they come out, and sometimes even on release date. CGI is overused, and there is no substitute for a stunt man who actually occupies physicalspace in front of the camera, rather than placticine special effects added in post production. I hereby salute the often-derided "Punisher" movie, starring Thomas Janes, whose directer opted for rea stunts and virtually no CGI in an homage to Steve McQueen's "Bullitt." Here's to taking chances. And E.T. will always occupy a special place in my heart.