Memories galore at Jim Henson exhibit
LELAND, Miss.-- Size doesn't matter when it comes to creeks, frogs and museums.
And they meet in a big way at the Jim Henson Delta Boyhood permanent exhibit in the tiny Mississippi town of Leland, about 70 miles south of Clarksdale.
(AP)
We detoured through Leland (pop. 5,000) during a recent vacation through the Mississippi Delta. The three-room exhibit is in the Washington County Tourist Center/Leland Chamber of Commerce on the banks of Deer Creek.
Some genteel Southern ladies at an uptown (there are no downtowns in small towns) coffee shop gave us directions to the Muppet creator's exhibit. The coffee shop also had brochures on "Ten Great Reasons to Visit Our Town" and only "Seven Great Reasons to Live in Leland." Hmm.
Henson lived in Leland through age 12. His father was an agronomist who researched soybeans for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 1948 the Hensons moved to Hyattsville, Md., outside of Washington, D.C.
Henson died suddenly in May 1990 of pneumonia. He was 53.
The Henson exhibit opened in 1991. Exhibit advisory board member Ashley Zepponi is careful to describe the site as an "exhibit" and not a museum, although it looks and feels like a museum. The space includes a room of nearly 500 pieces of Muppet memorabilia including rare lunch boxes, Kermit slippers and a Miss Piggy Pez dispenser. You'll find a gift shop and Henson video corner with all the Muppet movies, Muppet shows, "Sesame Street" episodes and Henson-related documentaries.
In 1997 Henson's wife, Jane, donated an early version Kermit the Frog to the museum. The original Kermit is in the Smithsonian, gazing at visitors with eyes made from two halves of Ping-Pong balls.
Visitors also can have their photo taken with a life-size Kermit, which of course, is a riveting experience.
We ran into Emily Kearney, who was part curator/chamber ambassador. She was as sweet as Delta iced tea.
" 'Sesame Street' aired in 1969, which was the year I had my first child," Kearney reported. "My favorite character is Kermit, of course. My son's favorite is Oscar the Grouch, the one that lived in the garbage can. His Kermit pajamas that he wore at the age of 4 are in the memorabilia section. He's now 26, a first lieutenant stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga. He was in Iraq for 15 months."
I don't think you get this kind of repartee at the highfalootin' Art Institute of Chicago.
Visitors learn how Henson was a puppeteering pioneer by the way his earliest creations were cuddly and pliant during a time when most puppets were built with wood. Henson also gave puppets new life on television by having puppeteers work off camera. This way the figures appeared to be moving on their own. The Museum of Broadcast Communications' Web site suggests this seamlessness combined m(arionette) with (p)uppet, equaling "Muppet."
The exhibit also teaches visitors that Henson was a pioneer in the green movement. A section pays tribute to "The Song of the Cloud Forest," which premiered in 1989 as a segment of the NBC anthology series "The Jim Henson Hour." The short film used a combination of original songs, music, animation and puppets to illustrate the damaging effects of deforestation in rain forests.
"Jim never made it back to Leland," Kearney said. "He recognized Leland as the birthplace of Kermit. He had a friend named Kermit Scott. They were in the same classroom at Leland Elementary School."
Kermit Scott became a professor of philosophy at Purdue University. He lived in Harvard, Ill., near the Wisconsin border. He died in May 2008 in Lynchburg, Va. In a 2006 interview with Delta magazine the good-natured Scott said, "Everyone wants to show me to their kids. They have no trouble commenting that I am not as good-looking [as Kermit] or not the right color. I tell them I wear all these clothes to cover that up."
Kearney said up to 15,000 people visit the exhibit each year. Recession busters can pack a lunch and have a picnic along the banks of the sleepy Deer Creek.
Kearney has lived in Leland for 34 years. She grew up in Tennessee where her father was a Methodist minister.
"We lived here a few years before we found out Jim Henson had grown up here and that Kermit the Frog originated here," Kearney said. "After we found that out my daughter started a frog collection. There used to be a lot more frogs in Leland." Turtles, ducks, swans and fish now have taken over the creek.
"I started with the chamber before Jim's death," she said, before greeting visitors from Iowa. "We didn't have the funding to build a separate museum so the chamber moved back in the corner here. Sometimes I feel like I'm part Kermit since I've been here so long."