From their modest beginnings as the stars of TV commercials and children's programming, Jim Henson's Muppets rose to a worldwide fame rivaling Walt Disney's mouse or Warner Brothers' bunny. Henson (1936-1990) coined the term Muppets by combining the words "marionette" and "puppet," which pretty much describes these sock puppets with arms that were usually operated by a single puppeteer. Henson felt that the intimate medium of television demanded of puppets a greater flexibility and expressiveness than the usual painted wooden faces such as Charlie McCarthy or Howdy Doody could provide, but it wasn't only his puppets' faces that were flexible: the Muppets' loose and loopy sense of humor offered TV viewers a refreshing brand of comedy which almost immediately set Henson's work apart from that of his contemporaries.

In the 1950s, fresh out of high school, young Henson secured a job as a puppeteer at the...