Many people know that I never was crazy about the purchase of the Muppet franchise by the Walt Disney Company years ago, but one of my growing concerns is the possibility of future generations not even knowing who Jim Henson was.
One thing that Walt Disney himself always encouraged creative people to do is to put their name on everything they create, and since the Disney purchase, I've seen Jim's name slowly disappear from various Muppet products, with the exception of DVDs that retain "Jim Henson's" or "Jim Henson Pictures/Productions/Home Entertainment Presents"... but you look at Muppet merchandise and such at, say, the Disney Store, you might see ONE product with Jim's name on it, whereas everything either has no name of it, or says "Disney's The Muppets". Even when you watch Sesame Street today, the closing credits no longer lists the Muppeteers under the title of "Jim Henson's Muppets" or "Jim Henson's Sesame Street Muppets", but rather "The Muppets of Sesame Street".
We lost Mr. Disney years before Jim even made it big with the Muppets, but to this day, his company lives on with booming business, and just about every knows who he was, and those of the future will probably know who he'll be... but would the same be said for Jim Henson? Naturally, Muppet fans know who he is, and continue to keep his legacy alive, but as far as the majority of the future generation is concerned, will they even recognize the name Jim Henson when they see it?
No comments:
Post a Comment