Jim Henson Jim Henson ( September 24 , 1936 - May 16 , 1990 ) was the creator of the Muppets , founder of The Jim Henson Company , and the performer behind many of his company ' s most famous characters , including Kermit the Frog , Ernie , and Rowlf the Dog . Early Years . James Maury Henson was born in Greenville , Mississippi on September 24 , 1936 . Ten years later , in 1946 , Henson moved with his family to Hyattsville , Maryland , a suburb near Washington , D . C . . 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 . He would grow up to pay tribute to — and work with — many of these same legends . Henson graduated as a member of the National Honor Society from Northwestern Senior High School in Hyattsville , Maryland , on June 14 , 1954 . Sam and Friends . Henson made his earliest foray into television puppetry with friend and first puppeteering partner Russell Wall in the summer of 1954 . The two created and performed the puppets Pierre the French Rat and Longhorn and Shorthorn for " The Junior Morning Show " on local station WTOP . 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 . 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 " . 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 . Henson ' s co - puppeteer was the woman who would later become his wife , Jane Nebel . The two wed on May 28 , 1959 . Of the cast of characters created for this series , only Kermit would remain as a major figure with Jim Henson for later productions . Jim Henson made several important innovations in terms of how puppets were used on TV . 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 . The second innovation was to get rid of the stage that all puppets on TV hid behind , just as they did in conventional theater . He wisely realized that the TV screen itself is the stage . Freeing the puppets from the constrictions of the past , Henson found that the characters were able to move around their environment in a much more imaginative and exciting way . Beginning in the late 1950s , while still producing " Sam and Friends " , Henson kept his fledgling company afloat by using his puppets in TV commercials . Early forays included Wilkins and Wontkins and other characters for local companies , under the name " Muppets Inc . " , formed in 1958 . By the 1960s , the burgeoning Muppets Inc . had expanded to national campaigns , and one of the characters created for these commercials was Rowlf the Dog . Rowlf helped Henson get nationwide attention for the first time by appearing in regular comedy bits on " The Jimmy Dean Show " . This led to increased appearances by the Muppets on variety shows and talk shows , including " Today " and " The Ed Sullivan Show " . During this time , Jim Henson met and hired two more people who would become enormously important to his work : Frank Oz , who Henson once called " absolutely the greatest puppeteer in the world " and Jerry Juhl , who would have a hand in writing nearly every Muppet production for 35 years . In 1962 , Don Sahlin also joined the Muppets , building Rowlf and laying the foundations for the Muppet Workshop . Apart from puppetry , Henson also experimented as an animator and filmmaker , with such films as the 1965 Academy Award nominated short " Time Piece " ( which he wrote , directed , and starred in ) , several comedic industrial films ( paving the way for the Muppet Meeting Films ) , the documentary " Youth ' 68 " , and the hour - long experimental drama " The Cube " in 1969 . Sesame Street . That same year , Joan Ganz Cooney and the newly - formed Children ' s Television Workshop approached Henson about creating and performing puppets on a new show aimed at preschoolers . The show would become " Sesame Street " , and it introduced viewers to such memorable characters as Big Bird , Oscar the Grouch , Bert and Ernie , Count von Count , Cookie Monster , Grover , and eventually Elmo as well . Jim Henson was initially reluctant to use his characters on an educational kids ' series , for fear of being typecast as a children ' s entertainer . However , Joan Ganz Cooney , once remarked that while the show ' s creative team had a collective brilliance , Henson was the only " individual genius . " : " He was our era ' s Charlie Chaplin , Mae West , W . C . Fields and Marx Brothers , " Cooney said , " and indeed he drew from all of them to create a new art form that influenced popular culture around the world . " On " Sesame Street " , Jim Henson performed Kermit the Frog , the only major established Muppet to appear regularly on the new series ( although Rowlf made one cameo ) . He also performed such new characters as Ernie and game show host Guy Smiley . Continuing his penchant for animation and live film - making , Henson produced , wrote , and directed such inserts as the quiet and gentle Doll House film , and the Number Song Series that always ended with a baker falling down the stairs ( Henson dubbed the voice , even though a different actor portrayed the baker ) and several animated shorts , including " King of 8 " , " Queen of 6 " , and " Eleven Cheer . " According to season two research studies found in , " All of the Henson films are extremely effective in getting the children to watch and to participate . The involvement of children viewing these films is remarkable . " Although increasingly individuals like Don Sahlin , Kermit Love , and other Muppet Workshop employees gained greater responsibility for character development , Henson still supplied the initial sketches for many of the key characters , including Ernie , Bert , and The Amazing Mumford . As evidenced in " Jim Henson ' s Designs and Doodles " , while Love and Sahlin built Big Bird , Henson devised the initial concept of a full bodied character , and supplied sketches showing how he would be performed . By the late 1970s / early 1980s , he became more involved with other projects , and therefore mainly just performed his characters in inserts rather than in the main street plots . However , he was still involved in related productions , performing his characters in the first " Sesame Street " movie , " Follow That Bird " , performing his characters ' voices in various " Sesame Street Live " shows , and also performing in " Christmas Eve on Sesame Street " , " Big Bird in China " , " Don ' t Eat the Pictures " , " The Sesame Street Special " , and " " . In the last production mentioned , Henson also appeared as himself in two scenes . He was also interviewed on " The Sesame Street Experiment " and " Sing ! Sesame Street Remembers Joe Raposo and His Music " . Jim Henson ' s last segments for the show were taped on November 21 , 1989 . Henson ' s later performances include " The Bird Family , " a Sesame Street News Flash segment in which Kermit interviews a bird whose parents live in different trees , Kermit ' s song " I Wonder ' Bout the World Above Up There , " and Ernie ' s song " Don ' t Throw That Trash on the Ground . " The Muppet Show . Henson always felt that puppetry should be for all ages , including adults , and he was frustrated that " Sesame Street " , even with its appeal to adults , was still children ' s programming . The Muppets were labeled " kiddie entertainment " by network executives . His agent Bernie Brillstein got him as an act on the first season of the groundbreaking " Saturday Night Live " with the " Land of Gorch " , but with the content not written by his staff and with certain cast members annoyed of sharing the show with puppets , Henson never felt right there . Fortunately , he received another break when Lew Grade invited him to produce a proposed half - hour show in England . The resulting " Muppet Show " became one of the most successful TV shows of all time . In addition to Kermit as the host , the show featured characters that would quickly become household names , such as Miss Piggy , Fozzie Bear , Gonzo , Dr . Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker , and Dr . Teeth and the Electric Mayhem . Performers who joined Henson ' s ever - growing team during this period include Dave Goelz , Louise Gold , and Steve Whitmire . Henson created another innovation starting with " The Muppet Show " : from now on , all productions would be platformed up , so that humans could move about freely and interact convincingly with the puppets , while the puppeteers could remain easily hidden , and move about their environment with even greater fluidity than before . In 1979 , Jerry Juhl described Henson ' s unique working style in an article about the making of " The Muppets Go Hollywood " special : " The [ production assistants ] are running around screaming , ' How are we ever going to do all this ? ' And Jim is wandering around in the middle of it all , perfectly calm , perfectly content . You go to him and ask , ' How ' s it going ? ' And he says , ' Oh , fine . There were hardly any airplanes overhead when we filmed Miss Piggy by the pool . ' He ' s just like Kermit - - if " The Muppet Show " had a basketball team , the score would always be Frog 99 , Chaos 98 . " " The Muppet Show " was so successful that it spawned three movies during Henson ' s lifetime ( and more since ) : " The Muppet Movie " , " The Great Muppet Caper " , and " The Muppets Take Manhattan " . Each film provided Henson with further opportunities to break technological barriers , including allowing Kermit to ride a bike . Fantasy Films . Never one to rest on his laurels , Henson moved on to an even more ambitious project . With the help of fantasy illustrator Brian Froud , he created a Tolkien - like world for the film " The Dark Crystal " . This production was entirely populated by extremely detailed , realistic - looking puppets - - a major breakthrough and change from the ( intended ) cartoony look of the earlier Muppets . Though an initial box - office failure , " The Dark Crystal " later developed a following as a widely respected cult film . Based on what he and his team learned from their experiences on " The Dark Crystal , " Jim Henson founded the Creature Shop to create new characters both for Henson movies and for outside productions . In - house productions during his lifetime included " Labyrinth " and " The StoryTeller " , while outside productions included " Dreamchild " , " The Bear " , " Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles " , and " The Witches " . Fraggle Rock . In 1983 , Henson introduced a new show for children called " Fraggle Rock " . The show was concerned with promoting understanding across cultures and around the world , a subject that was very important to him . Henson was the guiding force in developing the concept for the series , which began with his own notes for " The Woozle World " scribbled on a small pad . Later , in collaboration with such team members as Jerry Juhl and Jocelyn Stevenson , this extended to specific personality details coining and character names ( with Boober named after a cow encountered by Henson ' s daughters ) . As Henson defined the series ' purpose in that first draft , " What the show is really about is people getting along with other people , and understanding the delicate balance of the natural world . These are topics that can be dealt with in a symbolic way , which is what puppets basically do all the time . " From the beginning , Henson also insisted that the show be tailored for different countries , so that the message about brotherhood and understanding conflicting cultures could be spread to as many nations as possible . This led to , with involvements ranging from completely new frame sequences tailored to each nation to unique Uncle Traveling Matt postcard inserts , to simple dialogue dubs . Although very much involved in the series as a creator , and serving as a director on several episodes , by this point Jim Henson was becoming increasingly " hands - off " as a performer and beginning to look at ambitious " realistic " puppet projects , instead assigning the regular roles to " The Muppet Show " veterans as well as up - and - comers and Canadian talent . However , his very occasional appearances on " Fraggle Rock " showcased two scene - stealing characters , the enigmatic , " implacably calm " Cantus the Minstrel , who represented Henson ' s Zen - like beliefs and musical interests , and the flamboyant , fast - talking Convincing John , representing Henson ' s more frenetic , showman qualities . The Jim Henson Hour . Jim Henson continued to innovate with the creation of the computer - generated puppet character Waldo C . Graphic for " The Jim Henson Hour " in 1989 . Years before the widespread use of CGI and the rise of Pixar Animation Studios , Henson had a computerized character interacting with Muppets on a weekly TV show . A puppeteer could perform the character in real time with the other Muppets , thanks to the Henson Performance Control System . Waldo would later have a prominent role in " Muppet * Vision 3D " . On " The Jim Henson Hour " , Jim Henson appeared as himself in introductions and closings for the show . He hosted the Jim Henson Hour pitch tape and " " . Jim Henson also won an Emmy for directing one special featured in this series , " Dog City " . Although most of his major characters from " The Muppet Show " made at least one appearance on " The Jim Henson Hour " , Henson did not perform any new recurring characters in the series . Henson ' s Legacy . In late 1989 , Henson made a radical change in his career . Wanting to become less of a businessman and focus more on the creative side of his company , he entered into talks with Michael Eisner to sell his company and characters ( minus those of " Sesame Street " ) to The Walt Disney Company . After Henson ' s sudden and untimely death , negotiations went awry , and Disney would not acquire until February 2004 , which it now controls through the wholly - owned subsidiary The Muppets Studio . Henson became infected with an extremely rare bacterium called Group A streptococcus in May 1990 that was discovered too late for him to receive proper treatment . He died at 1 : 21 a . m . on Wednesday , May 16 , 1990 , approximately 20 hours after checking himself into the emergency room at New York Hospital , not realizing how sick he really was . Henson was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in New York , and his ashes were interred near Taos , New Mexico , in May 1992 . Today , Jim Henson ' s legacy is carried on in different forms . Sesame Workshop ( formerly the Children ' s Television Workshop ) now owns all of the " Sesame Street " characters and continues to experiment with its format . As noted , The Walt Disney Company owns The Muppets characters and continues to use them in new productions . The Jim Henson Company itself , under the guidance of Henson ' s children Brian , Lisa , Cheryl , and Heather ( John Henson died in February 2014 ) , continues to release new material , including Creature Shop films and original content such as " Sid the Science Kid " , " Pajanimals " , and Henson Alternative . _ _ NOWYSIWYG _ _