Inevitability. It was impossible to avoid the eventual documentary that would be about Jim Henson. Luckily, it is directed by Ron Howard, which feels like an upgrade of sorts, except he’s more known for features.There was a lot of hesitation on my part, this being a Disney Plus release, and whether or not Disney or the Henson family would ever let anyone “go there”. Like, no one is perfect, and a documentary that does nothing but paint their topics as carefully crafted masters of art that left no wake aren’t interesting to me. Even Fred Roger’s, one of the nicest dudes around at least had a few softball complaints in Won’t You Be My Neighbor. That’s kind of where idea Man lands.
We explore how Henson really didn’t initially want to be a puppeteer, but ironically became the most well known. All his feelings about exclusively making content for children, which he had a lot of ideas beyond just Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. We see some of that in movies like The Dark Crystal, but for the most part, he kept coming up with new and fresh ideas, which eventually would catch the eye of Michael Eisner and Disney.
Along the way, there are bumps. His marriage suffers because he is dedicated to his work. He’s so dedicated, it literally killed him of something that just needed to be caught a few days earlier than it was. He died at 53. Howard brings in family members, and those who got to work with Henson, to help frame the life of the puppet master, and this becomes a nice documentary. It still feels a little safe, but to be the creator of such childhood icons, I’m not sure anyone would let much more darkness in than “his marriage suffered”.
I was impressed at the attempt in the audio description by Pixel Logic, narrated by Darren Rivets. I did want more. There’s a Broadway show he was kicking around, and some loose footage is shown and I was SO interested in that. I felt like I didn’t get enough. A spindley muppet? Granted, I’m pretty certain that anyone who would watch this is already a fan, meaning they know what a muppet is, and even a blind audience has probably had most of the main muppets well described. It really doesn’t feel like kids would stay awake during this. So, unless you’ve never seen any of Henson’s work, likely the audio description is fine. If for some reason you are an alien coming to earth, and you are doing things completely out of order, I suggest you watch some of his work before learning why he was important.
basically, another doc about a famous person that is pretty good, but seems to not have anything groundbreaking to say. Which, ultimately is sad because of just how groundbreaking this idea man was.
Final Grade: A-
