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the
years. Diana Birkenfield worked for a summer on Time Piece , then
became a full-time producer for Henson in the sixties and seventies, and later
returned to freelancing with the company in the eighties. [70] Michael Frith started out as a freelance designer for The Muppet Musicians
of Bremen and later became the full-time Henson Associates’ art director. [71]
    Though Jerry Juhl and Bonnie left Henson,
they too returned. Juhl worked from home with the help of new computer
technology. Bonnie Erickson left to start her own business, and Henson became
one of her first clients. And Jerry Nelson may have been let go when Frank Oz
came back from Europe, but Nelson returned to work on Sesame Street for
the rest of his career. Getting to work for Henson once often meant the chance
to work for Henson again. And from Henson’s perspective, it was perhaps the
longest audition process possible; he got to see over a span of years who would
work out and who wouldn’t.
    Freelance work is risky because one doesn’t know
in advance one’s yearly earnings, yet for many salaried employees, the ax can
drop at any moment as well. There are really no days in the year on which we can
wake up and be totally secure in our financial future. Working freelance simply
makes one more aware of that reality.
    It’s also worthwhile to note that Henson’s first
work at WRC was as a freelancer. [72] It gave him exposure without being weighted down by what were effectively
stepping stones in his career. It was likely he was himself an AFTRA union
member at the time, and when he was working on such unambitious programs like Footlight
Theater and Circle 4 Ranch , he was perhaps happy to know his job had
an end date. During Henson’s “very major big year” [73] of 1979, Henson had seventy-one full-time employees. [74] But he also had a wide net of freelancers, past and present, with whom he could
potentially collaborate on future projects. Seventy-one is a small number
for such a successful company, but even so, taking care of seventy-one people
is a lot of responsibility for one artist to take on. It’s not easy being a
boss.
    HERE’S ANOTHER OPTION
YOU CAN BE A HENSON OR YOU CAN BE A SPINNEY
    Jim Henson and Caroll Spinney are both geniuses of puppetry
who believed in the power of hard work. But they worked differently. Henson
liked to work the whole night through and into the day and into the night
again. He was willing to sacrifice family and a normal life for his work.
Spinney wasn’t, and he told Henson so. When Henson asked if he liked to work
all night, Spinney recalled, “I should have been diplomatic and said that I
did, but the truth was out. ‘No way!’ I said. I like a solid eight hours’ sleep
every night.” [75] Spinney was destined to be famous and successful, but he was not destined to be
a boss.
    Tellingly, they differed when it came to the way
they treated puppets . Jim Henson believed that a puppet’s personality
came from what it looked like—down to every minute eye placement and seam. But
he wasn’t precious about the physical puppets. His first Kermit was made from
one of his mother’s old coats. He had to destroy something valuable to make
art. On the other hand, Spinney’s first puppets were sewn by his mother or
bought from a store with saved-up money. They were precious to him.
    Spinney describes the difference:
    Jim was never sentimental about the puppets.… Jim
just started ripping Oscar apart to reuse the material, which actually came
from a bath mat dyed orange. I was horrified.… Jim and Don didn’t care.
They had the puppet stripped down in a few minutes and were thinking about how
to build another one. “Let’s keep the eyebrows,” I suggested. [76]
    In another instance:
    Jim dropped the puppet on the floor. He had to get a
prop, and since Ernie was in his way, he nudged him aside with his foot. I
picked Ernie up and said to him, “Oh, Ernie. Jim didn’t mean to do that.”
    Jim said, “Yes, I