![]() ![]() He wisely realized that the TV screen itself is the stage. ![]() The second innovation was to get rid of the stage that all puppets on TV hid behind, just as they did in conventional theater. The first is that he did away with tiny one-hand puppets whose heads only bobbed when they talked, preferring instead to use puppets with moving mouths and often real hands. Jim Henson made several important innovations in terms of how puppets were used on TV. Of the cast of characters created for this series, only Kermit would remain as a major figure with Jim Henson for later productions. Henson's co-puppeteer was the woman who would later become his wife, Jane Nebel. ![]() The five-minute shows aired live twice a day after the news, and often involved the puppets lip-syncing to a comedy or novelty record. In 1955, while a college student at the University of Maryland, WRC-TV offered Henson his own show, resulting in the creation of Sam and Friends. Although the show lasted only three weeks before being cancelled, Henson quickly landed a puppeteering job on the show Afternoon at NBC affiliate WRC-TV. The two created the puppet Pierre the French Rat and performed on The Junior Morning Show on local station WTOP. Henson made his earliest foray into television puppetry with friend and first puppeteering partner Russell Wall in the summer of 1954. Henson graduated as a member of the National Honor Society from Northwestern Senior High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, on June 14, 1954. He would grow up to pay tribute to-and work with-many of these same legends. While growing up, he loved watching Disney films and movies with comic legends like Bob Hope and George Burns, and enjoyed listening to such radio acts as Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. Ten years later, in 1946, Henson moved with his family to Hyattsville, Maryland, a suburb near Washington, D.C. Henson attended elementary school in the neighboring community of Leland. The Henson family lived in Stoneville, an adjacent unincorporated community where Henson's father worked as a USDA agronomist. James Maury Henson was born in Greenville, Mississippi on September 24, 1936. ![]()
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