“Sam and Friends”: The Definitive Book About Early Jim Henson

We plugged this book a couple of days ago; time to lean into that a little more for Jim Henson’s birthday! This is our seventh post about the Muppet mogul and/or his felt companions, and it’s a bit more niche than the previous ones. But die-hard fans of the Muppet-verse ought to be glad to know about it.

First though we must introduce you to its author, Craig Shemin, who is basically the Homer of Hensonalia. Currently the President of the non-profit Jim Henson Legacy, he was a staff write for Jim Henson Productions for 14 years. He is the author of the Muppets Character Encyclopedia (2014), published by Disney, the director of the 2005 film Behind the Scenes in Frogtown Hollow (a documentary about the making of Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas), and was the curator of the Jim Henson film series at the Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI).

As you may know, MoMI is located in Paramount’s old Astoria, Queens movie studio facility where the Marx Brothers filmed The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers. We mention this because Shemin is a Marx Brothers buff. He attended Marfext earlier this year, and co-hosted a screening of the Marxes’ first two features at MoMI back in June. He was also a guest on episode #67 of the Marx Brothers Council Podcast, speaking about the crossover between the Muppets and the Marx Brothers.

In addition to having written for the Henson folks, the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, the Cartoon Network, and other TV outfits, Shemin is also a playwright. Two of his more intriguing stage projects include Dick Cavett Ruined My Life (speaking of Groucho), in which Mr. Cavett himself starred in a 2009 reading; and an updated book for Victor Herbert’s Babes in Toyland, which has been produced twice by the Little Orchestra Society at Lincoln Center.

I find myself a Kermit-esque shade of green in my envy of Shemin’s career. It is highly unlikely that anyone else could or would have written Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson’s First Television Show (2022). Plenty of people may be just as obsessed, but few of those would also have had both the talent and the ACCESS. Frank Oz wrote the foreword, and there are interviews with various members of the Henson family (including the late Jane) and other collaborators, as well as scores of photos, script materials, and other production information from the Henson archives. Sam and Friends was a local show, produced and broadcast in Washington, DC but it wasn’t just a blip in Henson’s life. It was on the air from 1955 through 1961, over six years. It was a laboratory where Henson (and his wife Jane, whom he married midway through the run) experimented and evolved. Of the thousands of episodes (the show was only five minutes long, and aired daily) only a few survive, but there are hundreds of audio recordings, photos, and paper records.

Henson operated most of the characters himself, and many of them foreshadow his famous Muppet creations of his peak years. There was a prototypical version of Kermit (though he was not yet a frog, but a more nebulous lizard of some sort). There was Harry the Hipster who calls to mind Dr. Teeth and various other Muppet rock and jazz musician characters. A character named Yorick compulsively ate things, a trope that reminds one of both Cookie Monster and Animal. Sam himself was bald and had big ears like the comic strip character Henry, or Dopey of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, though his name reminds me of the conservative eagle character of later years. There was also a duo named Hank and Frank, an early expression of Henson’s love of comedy teams, later manifested in the characters of Ernie and Bert, and Statler and Waldorf.

Sam and Friends was also the show on which Henson devised many of the pioneering puppetry-for-television techniques that became his signature. And it was stepping stone to national television, initially on programs like The Tonight Show (with both Steve Allen and Jack Paar) and The Ed Sullivan Show. It is in fact, a major if forgotten chapter in Henson’s career, as fascinating, possibly moreso, than any that came after. And Shemin more than does it justice in this book.

Much more about Sam and Friends is here.

And stay tuned! Shemin promised a sequel to this book (which will include scripts not featured in the first book) as well as a a new book about Jack Benny. And in other related news, AMMI’s new retrospective of the films of Frank Oz is coming up on October 4! Naturally, Mr. Shemin is front and center at those events, as well.