‘Jim Henson: Idea Man’ celebrates the Muppets mastermind without shying away from the hand behind them

Review by Brian Lowry, CNN

(CNN) — “Jim Henson: Idea Man” threads a difficult needle, celebrating the creative genius of the Muppets mastermind without sidestepping or whitewashing the thornier aspects of his personal life, as related by his grown children. The result is a particularly rich Disney+ documentary that captures the man as well as the ideas that will ensure him a kind of immortality.

Henson is described as internal and quiet, an unlikely showman who would give the world Kermit the Frog, stumble into a family-friendly producing role with “Sesame Street” and try, with some frustration, to branch out beyond that with movies like “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth,” which have come to be more appreciated in later years than when they were released.

Frank Oz, who Henson recruited out of high school to work with him, says of Henson, “He was a very rare creature,” while he and others share amusing anecdotes, such as how Henson fashioned Kermit out of his mother’s coat and a ping pong ball he cut in half to make the eyes.

Still, “Idea Man” director Ron Howard and Henson’s kids who followed him into the entertainment industry, Brian and Lisa, don’t shy away from his more complicated personal side, including the fact that he was away much of the time – it was “an incredibly busy life,” Lisa Henson recalls – and frequently fought with their mother, Jane.

Brian Henson speaks of friction at the dinner table, and his father grappling with the strain of success, which sparked when he fled to England to produce “The Muppets Show” after US networks balked at the pitch, while still eager to explore creatively in a way that was illustrated by the experimental films he made early in his career.

Henson was negotiating to sell his company to Disney, in part to get back to making films and away from being preoccupied with business concerns, when he died of toxic shock syndrome in 1990 at 53. A clip of ABC News anchor Peter Jennings sums up the place Henson had come to occupy in the culture, describing the news as being “like a death in the family.”

Those close to Henson speak of his restlessness in the doc, which might explain why and how he accomplished so much in a relatively short span, deftly underscoring that with clips ranging from his earliest works to his directing efforts in the 1980s to Orson Welles interviewing him and Oz.

Kermit might have sung that it’s not easy being green, but watching “Jim Henson: Idea Man,” it’s very easy appreciating the mind that gave us the Muppets and more, while still acknowledging the human foibles of the hand behind them.

“Jim Henson: Idea Man” premieres May 31 on Disney+.

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