Read Jim Henson: The Biography for Free Online

exotic tales of the Far East, this was like a genie’s sorcery. “I loved the idea that what you saw was taking place somewhere else at the same time,” Jim recalled. “It was one of those absolutely wonderful things.” After watching television at a friend’s house in late 1949, Jim was convinced his family had to have a television set of their very own. Now.
    There was one problem: as a relatively new and rare commodity—in 1948, there were an estimated 350,000 television sets in use, compared with 66 million radios—televisions were expensive. In 1950, a sixteen-inch black-and-white television—likethe boxy Admiral, with an “Automatic Picture Lock-In” guaranteed to “bring you steady, clear reception even in hard to reach areas”—would set afamily back $250, the equivalent of about $2,000 today. Fancier televisions with footed cabinets or, for the big money, those with a radio and record player built in, could run as much as $399, about $3,500 today.
    Despite the costs, Jim was determined. “I badgered my family into buying a set,” he later admitted somewhat sheepishly. “I absolutely
loved
television.” It was a battle of wills Paul Henson, Sr., had little chance of winning. In 1950, Jim Henson had his television. And he watched it. Religiously.
    There were four television channels available in the Washington, D.C., area in 1950—not bad, considering that only two years earlier there were fewer than forty television stations broadcasting in only twenty-three cities nationally. In fact, by 1950, it was reported that people in the Baltimore-Washington area already spentmore time watching TV than listening to the radio. As stations played with the new technology and different formats, local shows came and went, some wildly experimental, some mundane, and most lasting only a few weeks before being pulled from the air, never to be heard of again. Jim watched them all, and as he did so, one thing quickly became clear: “I immediately wanted to work in television.”
    Doing exactly what, he wasn’t certain—but in the meantime, Jim soaked up all television had to offer, including the conventions and formats that he would lovingly parody later in life, and the technical tricks he would master, then reinvent. He was especially intrigued with variety shows, one of the staples of the early television era, many with ensemble casts featuring comedians, singers, orchestras, magicians—and all performed live, with comedy sketches, songs, monologues, and performances of every kind boomeranging off each other at a breakneck pace. And more often than not, presiding over the show was a host or emcee, who was usually just as much a part of the chaos around him despite his best efforts to keep things moving smoothly. It was a format Jim found irresistible.
    In the evenings, for example, Jim found Milton Berle, whose madcap performances on
Texaco Star Theater
did much to popularize TV and make it a must-have gadget. Spinning the television dial over to
Your Show of Shows
, front man Sid Caesar could often be found careening wildly off-script, ad-libbing madly, dropping intodifferent voices and accents, even incoherent double-talk, all in the name of a laugh. But Caesar’s show was also home to some of the smartest comedy writers around—including Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks—giving Caesar solid material from which he could vamp and improvise. It was a smart show that didn’t mind looking silly—a kind of humor Jim could appreciate.
    As inspired as Caesar’s performances could be, they were nothing, as far as Jim was concerned, compared to those ofErnie Kovacs. More than just a master of deadpan comic delivery, Kovacs inherently understood the new TV medium like few others. Kovacs appreciated that it was the image on the TV screen that mattered the most, not what a live audience might see in studio—and he delighted in routines using visual tricks that only worked when seen on a television screen. Some involved