The Jim Henson Hour - Format

Format

The Jim Henson Hour was modeled after the old Walt Disney Presents specials, in which every week Disney would show off the latest innovations and creations of his production company. At the beginning of each episode, Jim Henson would enter an oddly-decorated set (alongside the Thought Lion puppet from his series The Storyteller) and introduce the evening's show. Beyond that, the series never had a set structure. The room where Jim and the Thought Lion performed their introduction was computer animated.

Three of the thirteen installments were hour-long mini-movies:

• The faux film noir "Dog City", narrated by Muppet Rowlf the Dog
• "Monster Maker", in which an alienated teenager begins secretly working at a special-effects company
• "Living with Dinosaurs", in which a young boy's stuffed Dinosaur comes to life and helps him deal with a troubled family life.

Other shows like "Secrets of the Muppets" went behind the scenes at Henson studios, showing how the Muppets are built and operated.

Ordinarily, however, the hour was split into two thirty-minute segments. These shows would always start with a modernized variation of The Muppet Show, titled MuppeTelevision (see below). That would often lead into more serious and sometimes darker content, such as a rerun of The Storyteller. Occasionally, a light-hearted story or more Muppet antics would close out the hour in the second half.

The first episode produced -- Sesame Street... 20 Years & Still Counting—was aired as a lone special. Henson's series officially premiered a week later.