Heather Henson the daughter of Jim Henson, of Muppets fame, gave a at a lunchtime bag lunch talk about her fathers work at the History Center. She began the talk by showing early black and white television commercials her dad was doing at the beginning of his career. This early advertising work was surprisingly violent and over the top. The dead pan expressions on the Muppets made the zany skits all the more funny.
There was some trouble with the audio so she began talking over the muffled soundtrack. She explained that Kermit the Frog had originally been made from parts of one of her mother’s coats. In the early days her mom had been much more involved in the day to day production work.
Answering a question from the audience, Heather explained that holidays in the Henson home involved creating everything from scratch. Christmas ornaments would be simple Styrofoam which was then hand decorated by the children.
Heather has formed her own puppet company here in town called Ibex Puppetry and I follow their work as often as I can.
Retro Game Night
The Orlando History Center hosted Retro Game Night and Terry expressed an interest in going. Retro attire was encouraged so I put on a very old Hawaiian shirt that Terry’s dad once wore. Being a member of the museum, admission was free, non-members just had to pay a $5 cover. I wandered from room to room on all 3 floors to see every room filled with card tables all set up with every imaginable board game.
I wandered past 2 girls playing Rockum-Sockum Robots and one screamed when she knocked the other girls block off. I also notices a fast paced game of Hungry Hippos.
I decided to sit on a wooden bench in the stairwell to watch as people played the old video games like Pac Man and Space Invaders. The fellow in the blue tee shirt played for well over an hour. I could tell that he had logged in many hours on similar video games.
The monopoly pinball game also had a constant crowd. When the sketch was finished I called Terry since I was surprised she hadn’t showed yet. It turned out that she was at home and had forgotten about the event. I decided I might as well get home, but the place was really hopping when I left. It was so crowded that it was hard to move room to room. People really love retro games. I wouldn’t have minded playing Risk and taking over the world, oh well, maybe next time.