The Varied Adventures of Mischievous Miles

The Varied Adventures of Mischievous Miles was a concept for an "interactive movie" developed by Jim Henson, Lisa Henson, Maurice Sendak, and Jon Stone in the early 1980s.
During the film, the audience would be asked to choose the direction of the story. According to an outline for the project written by Jim and Lisa, Miles was a small boy with a fear of fish who "doesn't mean to get into trouble, but when there is an opportunity to be mischievous, he almost always takes it." His life in the real world and on an island of monsters would include original songs, and at five different points, the story would diverge and the audience would be able to influence what happens next.Jim Henson's Red Book: 4/19/1980 – ‘Meet with Jon Stone and Maurice Sendak – talk about idea. Go to Boston – see Brian.’ Based on the choices made by the audience, seventy-two different variations of the film would be possible.Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (pages 313-314)
The mechanics of producing a variable story were cumbersome. A curated entry of the Jim Henson's Red Book blog described the logistics, stating: "in 1980, this would have required multiple projectors and an agile projectionist."Jim Henson's Red Book: 4/15/1980 – ‘Lisa and I visit Sherry Lansing and hatch idea – Sendak movie. Fly to Albuquerque – see folks.’ Years later, Lisa Henson described the logistics of showing a nonlinear story to Henson biographer Brian Jay Jones stating: "the concept was you make a movie on a laserdisc, and then a computer program would drive it to play different bits of the disc depending on what choice was made . . . but it wasn't possible to do it on a commercial filmmaking level."Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (pages 313-314) It would take more than a decade before technology Would truly catch up with Henson's idea for an interactive movie; the ability for viewers to impact the direction of a story has since become standard in video games and digital entertainment. "Really, where it all ended up was in video games," Lisa Henson told Jones, "but we didn't know that at the time."Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (pages 313-314)
In April 1980, Jim and Lisa Henson met with Sherry Langsing, president of 20th Century Fox, to pitch the idea.Jim Henson's Red Book: 4/19/1980 – ‘Meet with Jon Stone and Maurice Sendak – talk about idea. Go to Boston – see Brian.’Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (pages 313-314) Jon Stone was to write the script and development continued for the next two years, but the project was shelved by 1983 due to Sendak and Henson becoming increasingly busy with other projects.Jim Henson's Red Book: 4/19/1980 – ‘Meet with Jon Stone and Maurice Sendak – talk about idea. Go to Boston – see Brian.’
Henson did get a chance to experiment with interactive home videos, albeit with simpler narrative options and mechanics, in the late 1980s when he produced Muppet titles for the View-Master Interactive Vision console.
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Category:Unfinished Movies