The Magic of Jim Henson and the Muppets

Let me lead with this: I love The Muppets. The Muppet Show was the first TV show I was exposed to and when I was a child, I looked forward to it all week. I can "impersonate" (immuppetate?) many of the Muppets, some to perfection.  I proposed to my wife by singing one of Kermit's songs, in Kermit's voice.  So many people know of my love for the Muppets that I have received several stuffed Kermits, and despite trying to live with a minimal amount of stuff, I have kept them all.

Toward the beginning of the pandemic, The Muppets released Kermit's Work-from-Home version of The Rainbow Connection on YouTube. It features Kermit with his banjo, sitting on a log in the swamp, singing to the webcam.

Having such a visceral reaction and reading comments from thousands of others who had the same reaction, I wonder, how is it that 40 years after its release, that song still resonates so strongly for so many?

And then it got me to thinking, "Why do people condemn magical thinking?"

Jim didn't know a lot about TV, nor about puppets. But he had a dream to change the world.  Turning a crazy dream into something like the Muppets, and something that would last as long as it has, is nothing short of magical.

It would have been impossible for Jim to look to any sort of proven methods.  Even he said, "I think if you study —if you learn too much of what others have dene, you may tend to take the same direction as everybody else."

So maybe that's it. Maybe following someone else's formula can lead you to a decent way to make a living.  But to make a life — to make an impact anywhere near as much as The Muppets have — for that, you need magic.

In what Jim did, there's none of that traditional business stuff about product-market fit, minimally-viable product, testing, focus groups, failing fast and early, etc. or any of those other platitudes. And while he did hire some of the best, he was smart enough to let them be them and put their own magic into it, knowing that magic mixed with magic can only lead to something great, even if you don't know ahead of time what it might look like.  

For example, Jim hired Paul Williams to write the score to The Muppet Movie. Paul went off and did that in solitude, but assured Jim that he'd have plenty of opportunity to review the score before they got into the studio.  Jim just told him that that wasn't necessary, that he trusted whatever he came up with. There was a ton riding on the release of this movie — their first feature production.  If it had been a flop, The Muppets could have been history.  Gone, along with Jim's dream.  But yet, he was willing to trust, to really trust. And that's what trust is — a leap of faith, not an afterthought of being shown the proof. Can you imagine that happening in today's business climate???

Yes, it points to not being a micro-manager. But I think there's more to it. I think that just as Jim knew that he was being guided by something bigger than himself, he knew that the others were as well. And, in contrast to whatever that was that was guiding him, his own commentary to the others would be inconsequential.

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