Word: muppeteers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...those who have been out of touch with this aspect of reality, what, exactly, is a Muppet? The word was coined from "marionette" and "puppet," says Jim Henson, 42, the skinny, bearded Zeus from whose brow the creatures began to spring 20-odd years ago, when he was a teen-ager hooked on television. He is the rarest of creatures in the imitative and adaptive world of entertainment, an originator. His brilliant central perception was that puppets could throw away the Punch and Judy box that had confined them for centuries and let the television set be their stage...
...analysis. If you peel art away, layer after layer, what you have at the end is all peelings and no onion. For years Henson, who plays Kermit, insisted that the character was not a frog but "a froglike creature." Peel that, you peelers. Now he backtracks and says that "muppet" was simply a word that sounded good to him. The sound combination of puppet and marionette is merely an explanation that happens to sound logical...
Logic peeling aside, a Muppet is (most of the time but not always) a largish arm puppet, whose body contains the arm and whose head surrounds the hand of its operator. When the operator's thumb and fingers come together, the Muppet's mouth closes; when thumb and fingers separate, the mouth opens. If the Muppet's face is pliable, as Kirmit's is?he is not much more than a green felt sock that fits over a human hand, with a wide pink split for the mouth and what look like glued-on halves of Ping Pong balls...
...observation made with some regalarity is that Kermit the Frog is the Mickey Mouse of the 1970s, and that Jim Henson's firm, Henson Associates?known somewhat alarmingly as HA!? will become the Disney organization of what remains of the 20th century. Maybe so; the Muppets have just finished making an $8 million film in Hollywood, called The Muppet Movie, which chronicles their journey from the boondocks to show business glory. Another film is under discussion; an astonishing variety of Muppet toys and other artifacts, including arm puppets, fills the stores; a theme amusement park of the Disneyland sort...
...most convincing reason for taking notice of the Muppets, however, is that they are funny. In fact, with Laugh-In long gone, theirs is, give or take Saturday Night Live, the funniest show on television. This year the Muppets won an Emmy Award as TV's "outstanding comedy, variety or musical series." A gentle but consistent satirical breeze blows through The Muppet Show and saves Jim Henson's creatures from the grisly danger of being too lovable. Mostly the satire turns inward, joshing show business (the assumption that frames the series is that the Muppets are members of a theatrical...