Jim Henson

  Born Sept. 24, 1936. died May 16, 1990

"When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope still is to leave the world a little bit better for my having been here."

Jim Henson created the original Kermit the Frog out of his mother's old coat and a ping-pong ball. In the beginning Kermit was not a frog, but a lizard-like character. He gradually evolved, and first appeared as Kermit The Frog in "Hey Cinderella!" (1969) and has remained so ever since.

One of the main reasons why Henson preferred to use Kermit for his signature character was that he was the lightest in weight of the regular puppets and therefore one of the most comfortable for use for extended periods of time.

In an interview, Juliana Donald (who played Jenny in 1984's "The Muppets Take Manhattan') recalled how filming of the jogging scene in the park was temporarily delayed by a camera problem. In wide eyed amazement, a little boy passing by approached and started talking to Kermit, oblivious to Jim Henson operating him. Despite the surrounding commotion of technicians trying to fix the camera issue, Jim started interacting with the boy. Moments later, Jim found himself doing an impromptu performance with Kermit for an entire group of children who had gathered around to watch. Juliana said, "It was so memorable to me because time just stopped. It was a wonderfully magical moment where you experience someone's true joy with their work."

Henson's alma mater, University of Maryland, commissioned a life-size statue of Henson and Kermit the Frog, which was dedicated on September 24, 2003.

"Some people claim Kermit is my alter-ego. I'm not sure I know what that means. I like to work Kermit because there's a lot of leeway for ad-libbing, which I don't have with most other characters, but I'm not sure that I'm not Kermit."