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This is certainly the raunchiest, if you use that word, raunchy. The roots of Jim Henson, though, was adult comedy.
Brian Henson
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Brian Henson
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: November 3
Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Puppeteer
Screenwriter
Television Director
Television Producer
New York City
New York
Brian David Henson
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Raunchy
Adult
Roots
Adults
Certainly
Comedy
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Though
Henson
More quotes by Brian Henson
And then while she's lip-syncing, I've Grown Accustomed To Your Face, to this little head next to her, the head eats the cloth fabric and swallows it and it's sort of this weird, demonic character there, who then tries to eat the singer. But it's a lot of fun. So there's a couple of pieces like that.
Brian Henson
The challenge is, well, there's a huge challenge, which is when you're improvising, you're meant to sort of clear your mind completely, just be open and funny, and paying, you know, paying attention.
Brian Henson
And that was always my father's favorite part about shooting as well. Often my dad would shoot very, very late, he was quite a workaholic, they would do 20, 20-hour shoots and stuff like that.
Brian Henson
The first show that my dad and my mom did together was for, was a comedy series, a short form that went in the middle of late-night news, and then through all of their career, it was always the Ed Sullivan Show, it was a variety act, my dad was on the Jimmy Dean Show for a few years.
Brian Henson
At that point, I thought probably special effects, something like that, and indeed, the early days when I was working with my dad, after I left school, I only went to less than one year of college, and then I was transferring, and then I delayed my transfer, and I did a movie, and then another movie, and then I never finished college.
Brian Henson
It's actually good when the performers are nervous, because it kind of sharpens up your brain and a little bit of adrenaline is good. Initially it's really tough.
Brian Henson
People would say to him, When you finish a movie, did it come out as good as you thought it was going to? Or, Did it come out the way you intended it to come out?
Brian Henson
We wanted to premiere it in New York, because New York is sort of the home of the Jim Henson Company and it's sort of the tone and flavor, always, of the puppet work that we've done traditionally. And that's what brought us here and now we're here.
Brian Henson
So while you're trying to improvise, you're also trying to puppeteer, you're doing everything that you need to do to perform a puppet in our style, for a camera.
Brian Henson
The first big thing that I did with my dad was the bicycle sequence in The Great Muppet Caper, where Kermit and Piggy are riding bicycles in Battersea Park in London and that was a complex marionetting and cranes driving through the park, it was a complicated scene, and I did that with my dad.
Brian Henson
So that's the challenge, you have a big technical aspect of what you're doing whilst you're creatively trying to improvise.
Brian Henson
In the show, we have recreated two sketches that my dad had, or pieces that my dad had developed. One that he had developed with my mother, one that Frank Oz had developed with my dad. And these are old pieces from the '50's and '60's, and we're going to develop more, too.
Brian Henson
Oh, well, I can't tell you it would be telling you the end. It's a one-character lip-syncing because in the early days, that's what my dad was doing.
Brian Henson
And one of the funnest things was watching what they did before the director called action and after the director called cut. And they'd keep their hands in the puppets, they'd stay in character, and then they'd start goofing around with each other and be off of script, and it would get quite blue.
Brian Henson
Really, initially what I very quickly realized that I was loving about the show was, because it reminded me of when I was a kid and I would visit the sets where my dad was shooting with the other puppeteers.
Brian Henson
We're also irreverent, we have an irreverent attitude towards puppets, as well. So a lot of what we do is we're kind of making fun of the puppets for being puppets, even while we're doing it. And again, that all feeds into the absurdity of this show.
Brian Henson
he puppeteers really responded to it. Patrick Bistrow really responded to it, it's great fun to do improve comedy with puppets.
Brian Henson
First of all, you're improvising through a puppet, so you're not always yourself: you're a cow or you're a pig or you're an old woman, you know, whatever puppet you pick, or you're a demon, you know, whatever you pick up, that's what you get to be in the scene.
Brian Henson
It was actually what my dad did and with the Muppets, the years with the Muppets, it was really all targeted to adults. It was in a time when everything had to be safe for the whole family. But he was targeting adults.
Brian Henson
And then after the success at Melbourne Comedy Festival, then we regrouped back in LA and we went back into workshopping and decided to develop a proper show and that's when we started working on Stuffed and Unstrung, which is a much bigger and sharper version of Puppet Up.
Brian Henson
