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All Of It with Alison Stewart
Director Ron Howard's New Film spotlights the work of Jim Henson
00:27:09
Ron Howard discusses his new documentary about the creator of Sesame Street, Jim Henson
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- [00:00]
Casual Speaker / Nephew
I' ma put you on, nephew.
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Ron Howard
All right, unk.
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McDonald's Employee / Capella University Announcer
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Casual Speaker / Nephew
Listener Supported WNYC Studios.
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Koosha Navadar
This is all of it. I'm Koosha Navadar in for Alison Stewart. I moved to the United States when I was one and a half and I told that I stopped talking for about six months when we moved. While I didn't talk a lot, I did watch a lot of tv, especially Sesame Street. Eventually I started talking again and I have to believe that that show helped. I've always had a very deep place in my heart for the Muppets and their creator, Jim Henson, and I am not the only one. That's why I'm thrilled to get things started on the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational chat about Jim Henson on our show. We're talking about a documentary about Jim Henson, the man with the mind behind your favorite Muppets and Sesame street characters and fraggles. It's called Jim Henson Idea man from director Ron Howard and it dropped on Disney last Friday, which means you can stream it now. And listeners, we can take your calls about the work of Jim Henson. Call in and tell us how the Muppets or the Fraggles or the Sesame street crew have been an important part of your life. You can get to us at 212-433-9692. That's 21243433 WNYC. You can text us at that number too, if you want. Or maybe you've already had a chance to see the documentary, which is Jim Henson, Idea man, and it's been streaming for a week on Disney. You can call in and ask director Ron Howard a question about the film or, and I would love this, if you have a story about meeting Jim Henson or having a chance to work with Jim Henson, call in with that story, too. We're at 212-433-9692. Or hit us up on social. We're at Olive NYC. And joining us now to talk about the documentary, I'm lucky to be sitting right across from the table from the director, Ron Howard. Ron, thanks for joining us today.
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Ron Howard
A pleasure, real pleasure. And I look forward to talking to people. I'm sure I'm going to hear some stories that we wish we had in the movie, but we had so much footage, so many comments, so many great bits that, you know, musical numbers. I love where we landed with the film, but it really was a process because, you know, there were just, there were, there were so many great creative opportunities because he was, he and his team were just so prolific, you know, beyond even the stuff that we're all most aware of. Muppets.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah, absolutely. So how did you decide where to point the laser or, like where to point the aperture?
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Ron Howard
It, you know what, when you're working on a documentary. And of course, I move back and forth these days this last 10 years between scripted, you know, movies and television projects and documentaries. And you do take a lot of leads from new information sources. Like you'll do an interview and somebody says something really interesting and you do a little research and follow up and suddenly you find a clip that reinforces that in some way and it becomes a building block. Maybe in a new sequence or a scene within the documentary, you start building around the idea of sequences. So, like, what are the pillar events? What are the things you know, you've, you know, you must deal with. And out of those, you begin learning more about the person, you more about the process. And I'm always fascinated by process and kind of the journey. I mean, somebody was telling me I sort of turn every film into some kind of a survival story. I don't know if that's exactly true, but I am interested in sort of how people get from here to there. And in this case, there was also a really interesting family story. I felt underneath it was that one.
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Koosha Navadar
Of the first themes that really approached you is that family.
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Ron Howard
Well, that was a big surprise because I, you know, I mean, I knew quite a bit about Jim and I'd done some reading about Jim, but when I met the family and I recognized, you know, what a whirlwind he created in the most positive, playful, loving way. But this, this sort of non stop creative engine of his was inspiring. But of course, there's a human side to it and even a cost. And, and you know, his wife Jane, the two of them together built the Muppets. They were partners before they even really fell in love and romantically connected and ultimately married. But it's also interesting that that was its own journey. And ultimately they drifted apart in a way. The thing they built wound up kind of pulling them apart. There's something very human about that. But at the end of the day, they did a good job with that aspect of their lives as well. Because I could see these kids, I could hear them talk about their parents and recognize that there was a lot of love, there was a lot of respect there, even if there was some sadness that they hadn't been able to go the distance as a couple.
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Koosha Navadar
What surprised you about the family story? Was it the cost or was it something else?
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Ron Howard
Well, I had no. I just didn't know anything about Jane. I mean, I really didn't. And, you know, so I thought that was an interesting element, that even somebody as brilliant as Jim, he was kind of characterized as a boy genius creatively in his high school and first years in college. People just kind of knew he was one of those guys. But it was, you know, it wasn't about puppets. He didn't really have any interest in puppets. He met Jane in a puppet class, but there you go. He's not interested in puppets yet he takes a puppet class. Why? Because he's curious. That's what's driving him. She recognized this gift. She was a few years older and I think really helped give him direction and focus and help him know kind of what he had to do and how he could, you know, use his creativity and, you know, and make it his life's work. And they, they established that together, you know, together. But the other thing I didn't know was kind of what fueled. Might have fueled that, that race against time. I mean, his own Academy Award nominated documentary doc, short film, sorry, it's called Timepiece, you can see it online. It's. It's great because it is. I mean, as a filmmaker, you realize how ahead of the curve it was stylistically. It was very modern and very avant garde and experimental and still funny, still witty, still very Jim Henson. In fact, you see a lot of what you'll find, you know, years later, you're going to see on Sesame street kind of in his experimental work. But what was it really about? It was really about a guy who was just searching, just trying to find his way in the world and racing against the clock and all kinds of crazy impulses and crazy obstacles were coming his way. And he was just sort of like paddling up river, you know, as fast as he could. And every once in a while, you cut to a crazy shot of him head in a toilet bowl or dangling from something, going, saying, help. So, you know, he was aware. He knew that there was a part of him that could just never really be satisfied. And I think that was also some of the rocket fuel that gave him the energy to give us, you know. You know, all those. All those iconic characters that we remember.
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Koosha Navadar
That term aware, I think, is so important. I mean, when I was watching the documentary, the whole Orson Welles clips really struck me. And, you know, Orson Welles described Jim Henson as Rasputin, but as an Eagle Scout. That's quite.
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Ron Howard
I think he was going with the look Jim had, the kind of, the beard. I don't think he had any Rasputin characteristics, although he did have. He did have people who were devoted to him, and we interviewed some of them, and I've met many others. But he wasn't diabolical. There was nothing manipulative about him. He found it fun. He made good, logical sense to people because why not make something great? Let's go do it. Why not take this funny character and do something unexpected with it? Why not push the boundaries and, you know, follow me, Come with me. He led by example, you know, minute by minute.
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Koosha Navadar
If you are thinking about your work as being. You said you were bouncing between scripted and documentary features for a while. How is it for you going with the flow? Do you often find it difficult to have your preconceptions either challenged and to adapt on the fly as you're doing? Is it a different muscle for you versus when you're scripting?
- [10:31]
Ron Howard
Well, I love hanging around and spending time with the pure documentarians. You know, they're sort of, you know, they're. They're like journalists at heart. They're, you know, they're just. They're asking questions and seeking answers, whatever the tone of whatever they're working on might be. And they're also used to that particular high wire. And I've kind of stopped asking the question. But for the first four or five documentaries I made, I remember getting to about a halfway point where we'd have lots of footage collected and edited together in various buckets, because that's what you do. You don't really worry about a story sequence yet. You just collect all the information and then you start to see, you know, ways to build a narrative. And I literally, literally once just like, just put my head in my hands and looked up and after looking at an editorial session, and I said, is this a movie? Do we even have a movie? And they all kind of laughed at me, kind of the way you're laughing and nodding your now, which is just relax, Ron. We're old pros at this. We're doing fine. We're ahead of the curve. Believe it or not, but the late, great Jonathan Demme was the guy that actually urged me to finally get into trying to move from scripted and experiment with documentaries. And he said to me, we were both board members at Jacob Byrd's Film center, and I was contemplating getting involved in a project, and I asked him about Jonathan, about it, and he said, oh, go for it. He said, you're going to use a lot more of your muscles than you realize. It's not that different, but you have to go in with a plan, a point of view. You think you know the story, you think you know what you're looking for and just be ready to be wrong. And that is a different thing than having a screenplay. And yet when you work on scripted stuff, you know, there are a lot of surprises. And if you're. I think the documentaries in some ways are helping me to relax a little bit and not only follow the script, but also look for those surprising turns, take advantage of a moment. I'm also learning a lot more about real human nature and how people respond and the surprising ways in which they do when there can be much bigger than life than you ever would have guessed or, you know, the way they cope with something is to get real small. And so there are kind of extremes of human behavior that I'm actually understanding more from working in the documentary side of things than, you know, than working with the world's greatest actors.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah. I mean, sometimes nothing is stranger than the truth is stranger than fiction.
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Ron Howard
Almost always.
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Koosha Navadar
Almost always.
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Ron Howard
Which is why I've done a lot of movies based on real events.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah.
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Ron Howard
Starting with Apollo 13 was my first and that came out In, I think, 95 and, and Brian Grazer and I had imagined both, you know, have come to really, you know, look for those, look for those projects. We're still, still into fantasy, still into comedy, you know, happy to do, you know, Nutty professor or, you know, but, but, but the, you know, there's something about finding the thematic values in those stories and sharing them, whether it's through the doc, the documentary side of things, or scripted, where you're using, you know, great actors and directors and the artifice of the medium to try to transport people in that way.
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Koosha Navadar
And that exploration and that transportation is such at the heart of Jim Henson's work too. And it was wild to me how he didn't even think about being a puppeteer to begin with. It's just me medium that he wanted to do.
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Ron Howard
Well, it was tv. And this interested me because I started thinking about this and I thought, oh, that was the new tech for him and Jane. That was the latest, most interesting thing to possibly work on. And what did they do? Experimental short form entertainment where they started to pick up an audience and started to understand what their voice, how it worked, how it landed, what it meant to people, what they could learn from it, where else they could take their, their talent and their interest and their point of view. And, you know, what do content creators, you know, do today? That, that's the experiment they're engaged in.
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Koosha Navadar
I thought about that. Exactly.
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Ron Howard
And you know, for them, that was somehow getting a five, five minute spot on late night television on the local station today. It's, you know, it's TikTok or, you know, getting on YouTube.
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Koosha Navadar
Absolutely. It's wild how the parallels work out there. Listeners, we're talking to director Ron Howard about Jim Henson Idea Man. It's a documentary that's streaming now on Disney. We're also taking your calls. We got to go to break soon, but I want to be sure we get at least one caller in. You can give us a call at 212-433-9692. If you've got a story about Jim Henson or you want to talk about how his work and Jane's influenced your life. Let's go to Debbie in Sussex County, New Jersey. Hey, Debbie. Welcome to the show.
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Debbie from Sussex County, NJ
Hi, Mr. Howard. May I call you Ron?
- [15:34]
Ron Howard
Please do.
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Debbie from Sussex County, NJ
I just want to thank you so much for the documentary. I just watched it and I was fascinated by all the aspects of Jim Henson's life. I didn't know he was from Mississipp I had. You know, he was such an amazing artist. He wasn't just hands on, he was hands in, into all his puppets, literally. And I just had a wonderful experience once before Jim passed away, and I really regret. I remember wanting to take the day off from work to go to his amazing funeral. But before that, he was. I'm. I was very good friends with the author Isaac Asimov. And Isaac was invited to do an interview for Muppet magazine. And we went to. Then it was called HA Associates. And we went in, and there was this. Everything you could ever imagine a workshop with Muppets might look like. And it was where they first created the prototypes of the baby, of the Muppet Babies. And every detail, every detail was there. And they were taking pictures for calendar called the Kermitage, where they would duplicate classic paintings using Kermit instead of a traditional Rembrandt or something. But what I also wanted to say to you was happy birthday, because you and Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey and a bunch of other people, we've all turned 70 this year.
- [16:49]
Ron Howard
Yeah.
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Debbie from Sussex County, NJ
So happy, happy. Me too.
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Koosha Navadar
Debbie.
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Ron Howard
Thank you.
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Koosha Navadar
Thank you so much for that. Wonderful birthdays all around. We're talking to Ron Howard, the director, about the film, the documentary Jim Henson Idea Man. We gotta go to break, but when come. When we come back, we're gonna talk more about Jim Henson's life, what it meant to make this documentary, and definitely take some more of your calls and texts. Stay with us. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Kusha Navadar, and we're talking about Jim Henson, specifically the documentary Jim Henson Idea man, which is streaming now on Disney. We're here with Ron Howard, the director of the documentary, and listeners were taking your calls about the work of Jim Henson. So if you have a piece that really made a difference in your life or you have a story about Jim Henson, give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692. Ron, before the break, we heard from Debbie in New Jersey about the details that you can see in Jim Henson's work and that kind of incremental development.
- [17:56]
Ron Howard
Right. Yeah. Well, she was knocked out because she went in and saw how they were all made. And when I visited, in making the documentary and preparing it, it just reminded me also of what you would see in the Creature Workshops, you know, at Lucasfilm or, you know, and Industrial Light and Magic. And it's just a reminder. Yeah, Jim, the premieres were great. That's not really. Was his Thing getting good ratings. Of course he wanted to succeed, but he was all about process and everyone around him was. And it was about the joy of this kind of the very. And the patience required to just beat by beat, step by step, keep advancing a creative idea. And for him, it was play. You know, it wasn't drudgery, but it still required discipline and it still required, you know, follow through. And I sort of hope people, when they watch the film, pick up on that because there's a lesson in it because nothing just happens. Nothing remarkable just happens. In fact, when I look at those experimental films in Sesame street, that's what really blew my mind. I didn't know that much about the Muppets or Jimmy Hinson back then, but when I saw Sesame street and saw this tone and this style, and it was so cool using the animation and the stop motion and all of those things and the syncopated soundtracks, I just thought it was. It was cutting edge stuff. And it made me sit and want to watch Sesame street with, you know, with my kids, you know, and. And I. It wasn't until later that I realized, well, all that stuff is just a function of a couple of decades of him experimenting, whether it was his home movies or he had his own animation stand where he would tirelessly create these little stop motion animations or, you know, with pieces of material and things that are just so visual and cool. We use some of them in the film. That it's, you know, it's inspiring to remember that creativity is not sort of just for genius level people, but it does require follow through.
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah. And discipline and every piece and just do it.
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Ron Howard
Make things. Like everybody around Jibbs just said he just liked to make things. And that's the way his family felt. They were raised to make things.
- [20:13]
Koosha Navadar
We've got a text in here that I think is especially pertinent. Says, I highly recommend that everyone check out the Jim Henson exhibit at the Museum of the Moving Image. It's so lovingly curated and brought me to tears. It shows everything from high school doodles to early Muppets to his more obscure work like his collaborations with Raymond Scott. And where else can you see David Bowie's costume from the Labyrinth, complete with cotton piece. So shout out to that movie Labyrinth.
- [20:37]
Ron Howard
That's good advice. It's a great way to spend some hours and really fun.
- [20:43]
Koosha Navadar
We've also got a couple callers I want to get to. Here is Jack in Brooklyn. Hey, Jack, welcome to the show.
- [20:49]
Jack and Paul (Callers)
Hey, can you hear me?
- [20:50]
Koosha Navadar
Yeah, hi.
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Debbie from Sussex County, NJ
Yeah, hi.
- [20:53]
Jack and Paul (Callers)
You were talking about Watching Sesame street with family, and it brought to mind when I was a kid in the 1970s, my parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe, and we would both watch Sesame street and basically learn English together. You know, it wasn't a conscious effort, but basically my parents would be watching Sesame street and learning language lessons the same way I did as a kid.
- [21:19]
Koosha Navadar
Jack, thank you so much for that.
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Ron Howard
That's an amazing story, and it makes absolute sense to me. But what was great is that he was really an entertainer and a communicator. And as we say in the documentary, he didn't think he was going to be an educator, per se. He just wanted to entertain and share, you know, his playtime, the results of his playtime with people.
- [21:41]
Koosha Navadar
Well, it's interesting because in the documentary, it also talks about the next thing he wanted to do after Sesame street, how that influenced the way he wanted to take his career, kind of wanted to push against it a little bit.
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Ron Howard
Well, he wasn't really a careerist because otherwise the Muppets would probably still be on. He left after five years when it was a top show. You know, he wanted to leave Sesame street in a way. And then he didn't leave because he realized he could still do other things and still make a commitment to Sesame street, which he maintained throughout his life. Part of Jim's problem is he created so much that he still had a finger in and still had involvement with that. His life was becoming so hectic and so round the clock, but he was living the life he wanted to live. All too short. We lost him far too young.
- [22:33]
Koosha Navadar
Let's go to Paul in Brooklyn. Hey, Paul, welcome to the show.
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Jack and Paul (Callers)
Hi, can you hear me?
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Koosha Navadar
Yeah. Hi.
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Jack and Paul (Callers)
Hi. I wanted to tell the story of going to Jim Henson's funeral at the Church of St. John the Divine in 1990. I was, excuse me, living in that area, and it was an open funeral, so anybody could go. And it was just. I mean, it was a tragic. You know, it was a tragic event, obviously. And I remember distinctly, you know, a lot of very sad Muppets around the church. And I believe I remember the Big Bird saying, it's not easy being green. It was just a devastating moment. So.
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Ron Howard
Well, there are scenes in the documentary of that funeral, and it will bring back. Bring back memories. It's very emotional for everyone who was there, and I hope we reflect some of that emotion through the film. But there was also a sense of joy. His son Brian was speaking and reading something that Jim wrote. And it's funny, you know, and it's Irreverent. And it's satire at the end of the day. You know, whether it was gentle or cutting edge, you know, Jim was, you know, sort of a silly satirist. And whether they were making TV commercials back in the 50s and 60s or doing the Muppets later, they were, you know, they were always finding that way to kind of hold a mirror up to ourselves and say, aren't we a little ridiculous? You know, we are. Come on and use the puppets to achieve that.
- [24:12]
Koosha Navadar
Yeah. Let's go to Rachel in Nyack, New York. Hey, Rachel. Welcome to the show.
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Rachel (Caller)
Hi. So I wanted to share that my brother, Richard Hunt, was one of Jim's first original Muppeteers as well. He was hired on the same time as Fran Brill, who you interviewed. And the reason my brother isn't there to be interviewed is that he died about nine months after Jim during the AIDS crisis. But Richard was. In those letters that Jim left behind with instructions for his funeral that you just talked about, he had asked that if Richard Hunt was still alive to please have him emcee and direct that funeral. And so my brother coordinated and put that funeral together that that person was just talking about, which is pretty amazing.
- [25:00]
Ron Howard
Yes, it is.
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Rachel (Caller)
That he just said that. And actually, I've had a lot of people say to me, I'm sorry we didn't get to see Richard in that, but that's okay. What I was going to say also, that I wanted to add is something that frankly said. And I had the great fortune of. Richard was nine years older than I, so I got to grow up on Sesame street, too, because I was, you know, he. Jim hired him straight out of high school, just like he did Frank. My brother called Henson. They answered the phone. He said, hi, I'm a puppeteer. Do you need anybody? And they said, well, as a matter of fact, why don't you talk to Mr. Henson? And he's like, okay. He called from a pay phone in the city, and they told them there were auditions the next day. And Jim's ability to choose talent was beyond what anybody else has had since. And I think that's one of the reasons that Muppets. And I don't mean to be mean, but it's not the same. Since Jim died, he could choose the most talented people in the most amazing way. And so I just. I kind of just wanted to add.
- [26:13]
Koosha Navadar
And, Rachel, thank you so much. We're gonna have to pause you there for time, but we really appreciate.
- [26:17]
Ron Howard
Thank you for that.
- [26:18]
Koosha Navadar
Yeah. And especially the eye for talent. Do you want to talk about that?
- [26:20]
Ron Howard
Well, definitely the eye for talent. And also that what we had to leave out of the documentary because there are so many. So many people like Richard, like, you know, and so many others on the musical side as well that were at one point a part of the documentary and ultimately got, you know, just as we focused it and made it movie length. So, you know, it's always a bit of a struggle. But thank you for calling in. He had a great eye for talent. And, you know. And by the way, so did Jane, who said, I, you know, I found him. I found Jim Henson, by the way. And she did, but she also helped with that sort of recruiting and identifying talent. But. But he found people. It wasn't like they had to do it his way. They just had to want to play and invent and create and, of course, and the aesthetic grew out of the community as much as it did out of Jim.
- [27:17]
Koosha Navadar
You know, we're running short on time, and there's so much to get to. So I just want to thank listeners first for all of their input. Ron, got less than a minute left. But you're a storyteller, so is Jim. What are some of the things that resonate with you that maybe you'll carry forward with?
- [27:31]
Ron Howard
The way Jim approach storytelling, his willingness to take risks, and I like to believe that I share that. But I think he's a supreme example of somebody who, despite success, never, you know, desirous of financial success for what it meant to his company and his life. Sure. But never prioritized that. Always prioritized exploration creatively and sort of seeing what he had to offer that he could share.
- [28:10]
Koosha Navadar
The director is Ron Howard. The movie is Jim Idea Man. We have been listening to Ron wonderfully talking about Jim Henson and all of your calls. You can take a look at it on Disney. It's streaming now. Ron, thanks so much for hanging out with us.
- [28:29]
Ron Howard
What a pleasure. Thanks.
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Koosha Navadar
And that's it for all of it today. Coming up tomorrow, a lot of people say they want to find a third place. One that's not work or home, but a spot where they can hang out with friends and neighbors. So on tomorrow's show, we're gonna talk about how to find one of those places. Stay with us. We'll talk to you tomorrow.
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Casual Speaker / Nephew
I'm gonna put you on, nephew.
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Ron Howard
All right, unk.
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McDonald's Employee / Capella University Announcer
Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss?
- [28:53]
Casual Speaker / Nephew
I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack rack. What's a snack wrap it's the return of something great. Snack Wrap is back.
- [29:03]
McDonald's Employee / Capella University Announcer
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- [29:32]
MultiCare / Tide Announcer
Eduardo.