I recently had the opportunity to visit The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, New York. It’s home to the Jim Henson Exhibition, which I had been excited to see since before it opened. This was my main reason for the visit, but the Museum has much more to see the Jim Henson Exhibit is more or less set up chronologically. It begins with Henson’s early work in advertising and corporate training films, early versions of some familiar faces appear in some of these, which is quite amusing. Rowlf on The Jimmy Dean Show and Kermit on Sam and Friends were some of the first appearances of The Muppets as we know and love them.
Next comes the Sesame Street years. There’s a full sized Big Bird, he’s well named, even as an adult it’s easy to feel small next to him. Operating such a large puppet/costume was not an easy job, he was the first of Henson’s large wearable puppets to include monitors to assist the performer. These only got more elaborate over the years.
I was most excited to see the Muppet Show era section. I remember watching it as a kid, and The Great Muppet Caper is still one of my all-time favorite movies. The detail that was put into each episode was incredible. Throughout the exhibit, there are conceptual sketches and notes that really show the process.
The last section of the Jim Henson Exhibit is what I call the “world building” area. These are the stories that have limited or no interaction with the regular world. The creation of the underground universe of Fraggle Rock is very thoroughly shown, with lots of sketches and notes. This area also had beautifully detailed puppets and costumes from Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal.
There are interactive sections, too. Try your hand at operating a rod puppet, or designing your own anything muppet. An anything muppet is a background player, the best known is “Fat Blue”, a regular on Sesame Street. You can choose from many facial features and wigs to attach to the muppet base. The Museum recommends that you bring headphones with you. There are stations where you plug them in to watch clips from TV guest appearances, test shoots, and other clips. There are headphones at each station or you can purchase some at the front desk, also.
Outside of the muppets is the Museum’s main exhibit called Behind the Screen. It covers all of the histories of movies and television from the very beginning. There are continuing playings of silent movies and historic equipment. Part of the exhibit is a step by step journey through the process of filmmaking with scripts, production notes, fascinating scale models of sets, and costumes. I love seeing the details of them close-up.
My favorite part was the hair and make-up section. It had a focus on special effects make-up. The process of turning an actor into someone or something else with appliances; starting with taking a lifecast of the actor, designing and sculpting the pieces, mold making, and finally painting and adding hair. It covers a huge span of time from Bride of Frankenstein to Black Swan.
For the fandom inclined, the Museum has a huge array of tie-in merchandise. Books, toys, and collectibles all the way from the beginning of film, from dolls and games that your grandparents (or even great-grandparents) played with to the Star Wars action figures that we enjoyed. Do you like video games? There’s a bunch of playable old-school arcade games
I really enjoyed my trip to the Museum of the Moving Image. There are new exhibits opening in the fall. Their website is movingimage.us if you want to check it out.
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