What happened was that because my dad had made 'Sesame Street' and it was a huge hit, everyone said, 'Oh, ('The Muppet Show') is for kids. We don't want something that's feeling extra silly.' It was never intended to be for kids. My dad was a very determined salesman. He always had faith that his work would be successful. He never stopped trying to sell The Muppets.
Brian Henson
dad work faith feeling determined kids successful made silly muppets
The reason he did 'Saturday Night Live' was because he was pissed off. He wanted everyone to know that Muppets aren't just for kids.
reason kids night muppets
Lew Grade told my dad, I'll make your TV show. I know it's going to be a big hit,'.. The show had definitely not run its course when my dad decided to end the show. My dad just liked doing a lot of stuff. He was so full of stuff he wanted to do.
dad end run tv big
With puppets, you follow the head and the arms will follow, but Frank didn't really do that with the Swedish Chef. He and my dad were best friends, but they were very competitive. They were always doing things to see who could be funnier and how could they upstage each other,.. Frank was often leading. He'd be picking stuff up and choking things. My dad would be talking mock-Swedish and he'd have to try to keep up. After a while, Frank would say, Maybe someone else should do the hands,' but my dad would never let him. He said, No, you're doing the hands.'
dad friends talking hands things head arms
Where we used to just look at the visitor as a whole, now we are breaking it down to families, youth groups, school groups, tourists, tour groups,.. A family is going to be reached differently from a school group.
youth family school families tourists breaking
We're used to releasing Muppet movies in the off-season, not on the on-season. We've always done well that way.
movies
It wasn't harder for me to direct than it was for me to run the company, which wasn't necessarily what came naturally to me.
company run
I was very advanced in physics, so I thought that something in astrophysics was where I would go? I was thinking about NASA and stuff like that.
thought physics thinking
In going forward, I really am doing much the same as my father did. He sort of had a grand scheme that wasn't too specific. Out projects were always innovative.
forward father projects
What we're trying to do is entertain ourselves, and we are mostly a bunch of adults, but at a basic level that works for everybody.
works adults
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