dark crystal

Your Favorite Jim Henson Moments?

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

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I had so much fun doing 60 for 60 last year for Steve’s birthday that I’ve been toying with the idea of doing something similar in honor of Jim Henson—who was, after all, the founder of the feast. The year 2020 not only marks the 30th anniversary of Jim Henson’s death (as unbelievable as that seems), but it also would have been his 84th birthday. Now, 84 is not a milestone the way we usually think of it, but it is divisible by 12. So in theory, I could do what I did for 60 in 60, only with seven pieces a month instead of five. 

Nevertheless, it’s a daunting prospect. Jim was so prolific that even with an extra two pieces a month, it would be difficult to cover everything. I could make an entire year-long tribute out of Sesame Street clips alone. Also, so much of his career happened before I was born, and there’s a lot of material that I have never even seen. 

I haven’t decided yet if this is an idea I will follow through on, but it got me wondering: What are your favorite Jim Henson moments, friends? What are the songs and skits that make you laugh or cry? What would you cite to represent the best of him and his work? Why do you gravitate toward the productions that you do? What about a specific work resonates with you?

Share your ideas in the comments, and please feel free to include video clips as well!

The Final Pieces to the Puzzle: Steve Whitmire’s OCon Q&A

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

I originally drafted this back in August but held off posting it in hopes that the OCon organizers would post video of the Q&A. They have yet to do so, but I revisited this entry and discovered that it is as complete as it can be under the circumstances, so I’m posting it now. 

When I first met Steve on that Sunday morning in Omaha Council Bluffs, one of the first things we talked about was the Q&A that he was scheduled to do at noon that day. I told him that I intended to take notes at the Q&A so I could write about it on my blog later. I also pointed out that I’d never really done anything like that before, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to go.

If I’d been more savvy and better organized, I would have tried to record it rather than taking notes. That way, even if I wasn’t able to post the video online, I would still have it as a reference and memory aid to help me write it.

Nevertheless, my notes of the Q&A probably would have been sufficient if I hadn’t spent the day at Steve’s booth and then devoted most of my mental energy towards remembering everything else that happened there. I should have reviewed my notes a few times in the immediate aftermath to encode those memories properly. Alas, I did not.

All of which is just to say that even with the benefit of notes, my memory of the Q&A is woefully incomplete. There are multiple phrases included in them that I have no idea what they mean. So unfortunately, (and ironically) my account of the Q&A is going to be less detailed than those of the rest of my day. I apologize. I’ll know better next time.

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CF3 Podcast on YouTube

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Hi, all! Happy New Year. Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet lately. Life is crazy. I’ve got a lot to say, and a lot of it is kind of cranky, and I don’t know when I will have time to get it all out of my system.

But in the meantime, I wanted to start off with something positive, and I’ve got something cool to show you. Remember last year when I went to OCon and I met Steve in the midst of his CF3 Podcast interview, and they recorded part of it? Well, they put that episode up on YouTube:

And because it is on YouTube, I can link specifically to certain parts of it, so here’s the start of Steve’s interview, and then about 30-35 seconds after that you can hear me getting all nervous and giggly. And then here’s the part where they ask him specifically about The Dark Crystal.

I want to say a thank you to Ethan, aka Captain Vegetable, who got in contact with me to tell me that this was on YouTube. I actually knew it already because I follow CF3 on Twitter, but I’m always, ALWAYS grateful for tips, so thank you so much for that.

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Sesame Saturday: A Panel Discussion With Sesame Street’s Gordon and Alan

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Yesterday I mentioned the existence of full panels from last year’s OCon on YouTube, but what I failed to mention was that one of them featured Sesame Street actors Roscoe Orman (aka Gordon) and Alan Muraoka. I thought about it today and realized that might be of interest, so here it is:

Also, it appears from this that OCon just doesn’t provide microphones for audience questions at all, which seems to be very unusual. Nevertheless, given how hard it is to hear the audience questions on the video, it makes me very glad that I have notes of Steve’s Q&A, although it remains to be seen how helpful they will be. 

Sixty for 60: Interviews

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Welcome back to 60 for 60, a year-long celebration of the work of Steve Whitmire in anticipation of his 60th birthday in a couple months. The theme for this month is interviews of Steve (not his characters), and it is unique in that not all five examples are available in video form. As a matter of fact, most of them are not.

Steve_Dave_stage

(Technically not a picture of an interview, but one I happen to like.)

I planned out the themes for each installment of 60 for 60 ten months ago. At that time, of course, I had no idea that I would actually have met Steve by this time. A lot has changed since I planned out this project, and the plan for this month has changed more than any other in the interim as I re-evaluate interviews that I was going to use and new interviews emerge. But what hasn’t changed is my wish to celebrate Steve himself rather than just his characters, although they’re important too.

I’m not a Muppet performer, and I’m not really a puppeteer despite a brief amateur stint. So I can’t say that I really know what it’s like, but I imagine that it must be an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand, the anonymity that it affords you could be very valuable, but on the other hand, I can imagine that it would sometimes get frustrating to be part of something that is so popular and well known but only rarely get credit or recognition for it.

This month is all about that recognition.

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CF3 Podcast Interviews Steve Whitmire (and I WAS THERE!)

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , 8 Comments

In the first part of my OCon “saga,” I talked about how Steve was in the midst of a podcast interview when I met him. The podcast is called CF3 (Cult Fans, Films & Finds), and the episode just went up. In addition to Steve’s interview, it also includes an interview with Gigi Edgley, a review of The Dark Crystal, and some other stuff.

A word of caution before I post a link to the content: while the interview segments are safe and appropriate for everyone, the rest of the episode contains some explicit language. I don’t think I’m able to link right to one particular segment, unfortunately.

Oh, and by the way…I’M IN THIS PODCAST! They paused it briefly so Steve could talk to me but resumed it when they realized that we were acquainted. So you can hear me say hi to him (which I have NO MEMORY of doing, by the way), and then you can hear me getting giggly from nerves when Steve compliments my blog.

For some reason, the embed function isn’t working, so here’s the web address:

http://cf3pod.com/022-the-dark-crystal-1982-w-steve-whitmire-gigi-edgley

I’ve been told that it is also available through the various podcast apps, if that’s more convenient. 

I wanted to give you timestamps to help you find the most relevant content on your own, but for some inexplicable reason, the points where I’m finding the content are different every time I try to seek them out, so I can only give you approximate time stamps:

  • Start of Steve’s interview: Approximately 5 minutes (plus or minus 15 seconds)
  • My brief contribution: Approximately 6 minutes (plus or minus 40 seconds)
  • Steve’s rating of The Dark Crystal: Approximately 1 hour (plus or minus 6 minutes)

It’s not ideal, but that’s the best I can do.

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Mark Hamill Reveals Skeksis Scientist Voice

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Well, I decided to follow Mark Hamill on Twitter just in time to hear his version of the Skeksis Scientist’s voice as he plugs the Dark Crystal panel at San Diego Comic Con.

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Meeting Steve Whitmire, Part 3: Basking in Reflected Glory

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

I took notes at the Q&A so I could talk about it in detail regardless of whether or not any video of it shows up online. I intend to do that in a separate post, but here I’d like to give just a brief overview and mention the parts that are relevant to the rest of my story.

Before I talk about Steve’s Q&A, I need to back up a bit to talk about one of his visitors from the morning. I mentioned her briefly in one of my other posts. She was the lady who was part of her church’s puppet troupe, and she brought along a Whatnot for him to sign (one of those ones that Disney marketed and sold for a while). She was accompanied by two teenage kids, but of the three of them it was pretty clear that she was the one most excited to meet Steve (not that the teenagers were entirely disinterested). Her Whatnot was one that they allowed new puppeteers in their group to practice on and learn with, so Steve not only signed it across the back of its head, he also wrote a short message of encouragement.

The autographed Whatnot was one of several puppets present at the Q&A. Scrubby was there with Ethan, and the lady and the baby were there with their Wembley, and there was also a guy there with a Kermit. I’m not sure if it was a fan-made Kermit or a toy that he’d bought, but they appear briefly in the following video alongside Steve (and Mitzi):

https://twitter.com/OmahaComicCon/status/1144794016694919168

Also, it wasn’t a puppet per se, but there was someone there with a very detailed plush toy of Rizzo. I meant to ask the guy where he acquired such a thing, but then I didn’t get around to it.

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Men in a Tub Interview Steve Whitmire

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

But first the bad news: I’m having some sort of issue with my left wrist, so trying to lay off typing for a while, which means a delay in the rest of my OCon saga. 

And now the good news: Whatever was going on with my wrist last week seems to have resolved, so I can now talk a little bit about this interview, although I don’t have that much to say about it.

I really appreciate that this interviewer purposely tries to delve into the more obscure stuff. I mean, I knew that Dreamchild exists, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about it before. 

However, I don’t like the fact that, when searching for stock Kermit images, they decided on a screen grab from the first Vogel!Kermit video. I imagine that it wasn’t intentional, but now it seems like Simula-Kerm is looking over Steve’s shoulder and mocking him. I wonder if Steve noticed what graphic they were using at the time. 

Meanwhile, I’m continuing to scour YouTube for more videos or other content from OCon. If anyone has any or knows of any, please let me know. Thanks. 

Meeting Steve Whitmire, Part 1: An Old Friend I’ve Just Met

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Before you begin reading, I should warn you: This is an extensive, detailed, impressionistic, lengthy, and potentially incoherent account of my trip to Omaha Comic Con to meet Steve Whitmire. I’m writing it in such great detail not because I think it will be interesting to you (although I hope it will be!) but mostly to fix my own memories of it as firmly in my mind as possible.

If you want the tl;dr version, the entire experience can basically be summed up in five emojis:

😱🤩🤗😊😂

I knew that meeting Steve at OCon was going to be an emotional experience. I anticipated that, as a result, I was going to have difficulty controlling my tears, that all the feels were going to turn my brain into guacamole, and that I was going to have a hard time talking to him as a result.

I tried to prepare myself beforehand to counteract these effects. I made notes about what I wanted to say, and I tried to imagine what would happen when I met him. When it happened for real, I was successful in the former regard (controlling my tears) but had less success in the latter (communicating articulately). All things considered, I think I did pretty well, because there was NO WAY I could ever have predicted or prepared for what actually happened.

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Thoughts on the Dark Crystal Prequel Series Trailer

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

I’ve been really looking forward to the trailer for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance despite the fact that, for various reasons that I don’t want to get into right now, I don’t subscribe to Netflix. The Dark Crystal is my favorite non-Muppet creation of Jim Henson’s and I was looking forward to getting at least a peek back into the world of Thra. In a way, it felt like coming home. 

It all looks spectacular, and if anything could convince me to subscribe to Netflix, this would be it. Even if I don’t get to see it, I’m still glad that it exists, and that it seems to be branching off in new directions while remaining rooted within the mythos and ethos of the original movie. 

I do have some specific thoughts about it, however. Most good, some bad…

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Back to Louisville: Another Steve Whitmire Comic-Con Panel

Mary A. Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Approximately two months ago (wow, really?), I posted an interview that Steve gave at the Supercon in Louisville around the end of November, I believe. This week (well, technically last week) I received notification of video of a panel discussion from the same event. 

Couple of noteworthy things about it: 

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