Podcast 117: Sharing the Birthplace of Kermit the Frog

The Preservation Technology Podcast Episode 117

Catherine Cooper speaks with Stephanie, a volunteer at the Jim Henson Boyhood Exhibit, Birthplace of the Frog.

The Preservation Technology Podcast is a series about the people and projects that bring innovation to preservation. Read articles based on episodes, listen, or subscribe. This podcast is produced by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT).

A Museum in Leland, Mississippi

Jim Henson Boyhood Exhibit: Birthplace of the Frog museum with bridge over the bayou.

Photo by NPS

Catherine Cooper: My name's Catherine Cooper. I'm here with...

Stephanie Park: Stephanie Park.

Catherine Cooper: And we are at Jim Henson Boyhood Exhibit.

Stephanie Park: Birthplace of the Frog.

Catherine Cooper: In Leland, Mississippi. Can you tell me a bit about this museum? And why it's in Leland, Mississippi.

Stephanie Park: Jim Henson was not born in Leland, he was born in Greenville; I don't think Leland had a hospital at the time. But his father was a research scientist at Stoneville, which is an affiliation with Mississippi State University. He had a PhD in agronomy and he worked out there from the time Jim was born until he was 12. They had moved here from the University of Iowa. After he finished his research project here, they moved to the University of Maryland and that's where Jim Henson actually went to college, but he spent the first 12 years of his life in Leland.

He went through the fourth grade here and then moved up to Maryland. And it is here because they wanted to do something to honor the native son, so to speak. And this started out as the Chamber of Commerce building. I don't know exactly the order, how this came about, but I think they got the frog first, the big frog back there. And then people started bringing in their, for lack of a better word, stuff that had to do with Kermit and Sesame Street Muppets and the regular Muppets. And we got the family involved, or the family became involved. And that's how we got these two display cases, those were donated by the family as were a lot of these pictures. And it just sort of grew into this. The Chamber eventually had to move, because we got to the point that we needed all the space. And here we are.

Making Muppets

Smocked Muppets from Song of the Cloud Forest, donated by the Henson family

Photo by NPS

Catherine Cooper: Jim Henson created The Muppets and the Kermit in this display, is special. Correct?

Stephanie Park: He's special because he was built specifically for us. It's a replica of the opening scene from the original Muppet movie. And it was built by the people who built the set for the original Muppet movie. So he's a one of the kind. And the animals behind you were also from the family. They are prototypes for a movie that came out in 1989 called, Song of the Cloud Forest. It was a cartoon aimed at three to six year olds on ecology. And I've tried to watch it. I can't really get interested in it, I guess, because it was aimed at three to six year olds and I'm in my seventies, different viewpoint altogether.

But the workmanship that went into those with the smocking and the detail work, I think is absolutely terrific. If anybody's ever done smocking, you have two basic kinds of smocking. The pulled smocking and then the English smocking, where they put it through a pleating machine. This is the pulled smocking. This is the hard kind to do. And he did it with one of his daughters. So they were handmade by Jim Henson and one of his daughters. To my knowledge, that's the only thing we've got here that he actually touched.

Catherine Cooper: How did Jim Henson get involved in making Muppets?

Kermit the Frog with a banjo in a bayou, display based on a scene from the original Muppet Movie

Photo by NPS

Stephanie Park: He made Kermit out one of his mother's old coats and he liked puppets. His grandmother had given him a love of creating things and he created Kermit. And he did it so that he could make different expressions, you know marionettes are all strings but the expression stays the same. In fact, on most puppets, expression stays the same. But on Muppets with your hand in it, you could actually make smiles or frowns and they had facial expressions. And if anybody looks at it and compares a Muppet to another type of puppet, if it's pointed out to them, they'll realize the difference once they start looking hard.

Catherine Cooper: Did he get permission from his mother to use her coat?

Stephanie Park: I would guess not at that age. I don't know. I don't think I've read that one way or the other, but I know when my son was pretty young, he didn't ask for permission to do anything. He might have been a very good child though and asked for permission, who knows.

Catherine Cooper: We always have this idea in our heads that it's Kermit green.

Stephanie Park: Right.

Catherine Cooper: So I'm assuming that coat was Kermit green.

Stephanie Park: All right. If you look back there, the picture of the two Kermit's, the one on the right was the original. He lives in the Smithsonian now. And I think he's a little bit lighter than the other one. And I don't know what the reason for the color change was. Maybe the one on the left was as close as they could get to that. But if you're from anywhere in the south, we have those green tree frogs and I personally think that's what he's based on. I might be dead wrong on that, but he looks like a green tree frog. Same color, green tree frog.

Catherine Cooper: Jim Henson lived in or nearby Leland until he was 12.

Stephanie Park: Right. His dad worked at the experiment station out at Stoneville and at that point in time the campus out there was small enough that they had bungalows. And if you look at these pictures, you can see the little houses that were out there with the experiment station actually in the back. So he lived on the Creek basically in Stoneville. Just about everything out there is affiliated somehow with Mississippi State University.

Puppeteering as a Career

Photos of Jim Henson at various ages with various Muppets, including Kermit

Photo by NPS

Catherine Cooper: How did he turn his love of puppets into a career?

Stephanie Park: He didn't think he could. He thought that would not be a way to support a family. And he made a trip to Europe and saw the puppeteering going on over there. And when he came back, apparently decided let's give it a shot. And he and his future wife did Kermit and this little hardheaded puppet named Sam. And when he was still in college, I think this is correct, he had a five minute show before the Steve Allen show, which was the predecessor to Johnny Carson, just in the Washington DC viewing area. And it was so popular by the end of his college career, he had made enough money to buy a Rolls Royce to drive to graduation. A used one, but still a Rolls Royce. He found that he probably could make a living doing that and pursued it. And of course everybody's thankful for that.

Catherine Cooper: Out of curiosity, how did he get involved with Sesame Street? Was that his brainchild or did he get invited in?

Stephanie Park: He got invited in. There was a girl named Jane, she had seen Kermit and she asked him to develop some puppets for Sesame Street that would interest the kids. And Sesame Street, they created it thinking that this would be a preschool alternative to inner-city children that didn't have access to preschool. And so they concentrated on the alphabet and counting and shapes and colors like you get in preschool. And then it just evolved from there. His first Sesame Street puppet was actually Ernie. And Ernie was followed by Burt and then it just grew from there. And I think he developed... And in fact, I know until his death, he developed all of them that were on Sesame Street. Now Julia's come about since then and a couple others.

Catherine Cooper: Did he train other puppet makers and puppeteers?

Stephanie Park: He worked with a man named Frank Oz who is still in puppetry and according to his biography, yes he did.

Catherine Cooper: Why do you think The Muppets have had so much staying power? Cause they still are part of our cultural consciousness.

Stephanie Park: Absolutely. I think, my opinion on that, is that they catch the kids' attention. And parents know that it's good television, that they don't have to worry about the kids watching and it's educational. It's come out in movie form and television. Originally The Muppet Show at night was produced in London because nobody in the United States wanted to do a puppet show for adults. They didn't think it would go over, but it did very well. Actually Europe got The Muppet Show a little before we did.

Catherine Cooper: And Jim Henson continued to work with the European market.

Stephanie Park: Right. He had an office in London and he had one in New York and I'm going to say he had one in Los Angeles and Florida.

Catherine Cooper: That's a lot of work.

Stephanie Park: All over. You know, everybody loves The Muppets.

Visiting the Birthplace of the Frog

Donated Muppet and Sesame Street memorabilia including a black-haired Miss Piggy

Photo by NPS

Catherine Cooper: How long have you been working at this museum?

Stephanie Park: I want to say since 2014.

Catherine Cooper: What made you start?

Stephanie Park: They needed somebody and I had just retired and I had figured out that I didn't like keeping house. They contacted me after I'd been retired about three months and I thought “That would be fun.” A whole lot better than wrestling with third and fourth graders or eighth graders or whatever I happened to be teaching at the time. I started coming over here part-time and I've been here ever since and meet absolutely fascinating people.

Catherine Cooper: Do you mind telling us a couple stories of fun or favorite interactions you've had since working here?

Stephanie Park: We haven't had as many since COVID hit because of the ban on tours basically, but I've met some really interesting people from overseas. Last week, we had a couple from Switzerland. And we've had school groups, usually the teachers end up enjoying it more than the kids, but the kids like it too. And we've got the little playroom for the kids and the older kids can sit down and read.

Catherine Cooper: So people come here from all over the world?

Stephanie Park: Literally. I thought it was very unusual the first month I worked here. And then after that first month, when a third of the people made... Because it was during the summertime when I started, at least one third of the people were from overseas somewhere. I was just, "wow." I had no idea that it was that far reaching until then. I knew that he was known worldwide, but I had no idea that they watched The Muppet Show and they watched Sesame Street and everything like our kids do. So that was enlightening. And then like I said, nowadays, most of the parents like this probably more than the kids do because they grew up with The Muppets and Sesame Street.And anybody, I guess from 40 to about maybe 55, before they had just a huge choice like Nickelodeon and all that. That's what they watched, mama and daddy made sure that or mama did. That's what they watched in the afternoon. We'd like to have more tourists now that people can travel again. And it's not that far off the beaten path. I mean we're right on the main highway coming to Mississippi and this is one of the three main bridges from Memphis down. And so we get a lot of people coming through here just to get to Arkansas or Louisiana or whatnot. And we are just right here.

Catherine Cooper: What hours are you open?

Stephanie Park: From Labor Day until Memorial day during the winter, we are open from 10 to 4. During the summer hours, during school vacation, we are open from 10 to 5. We take donations in the form of Sesame Street memorabilia, any kind of Muppet memorabilia at all. And we will keep it for the donor on display so people can see it.

Catherine Cooper: Have people just walked in the door with donations and said, "Here."?

Stephanie Park: Absolutely. In fact, we had somebody last week. And I came in one day and if you look back on that display case with the black hair, Ms. Piggy, I came in and there she was. I've never seen one like that before. But we have people coming in several times a year and we welcome them and we will take care of the stuff and display it for them. And if they absolutely want it back, we give it back to them. We encourage anybody because some of the things are just absolutely fascinating. And since they started producing it, which I would guess would be since maybe 1965 ish. There's no telling how much has been produced on Sesame Street and on The Muppets.

Catherine Cooper: Thank you so much for talking with me today.

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