Full video

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let's hear you sing the alphabet a b c d

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you might not know this but you can

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thank this guy for teaching you your

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abcs my name is jim henson and i'm a

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puppeteer

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jim henson he was the most prolific

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puppeteer of all time

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my dad

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never really wanted to be a children's

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entertainer

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but the whole industry was trying to say

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jim stay there in preschool because

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that's where you belong and he just

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wouldn't take it jim henson brought

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together an all-star team to create a

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film that would showcase his creations

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for an older audience

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the film was called labyrinth think 80s

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eyeliner and illusions

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and it was the biggest box office

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failure of jim's career

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so why 30 years later is it a major cult

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classic

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[Music]

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as a puppeteer you have to learn to

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focus your whole performance through

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your hand my dad jim henson he held

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children's entertainment in high esteem

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but that was exactly what was

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making him bristle

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was that people would look at his

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muppets and they'd say that's so cute i

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bet kids love that jim henson wanted you

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to know his work wasn't just for kids

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labyrinth is by far the biggest project

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i've seen from you true enough it's one

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of the biggest things we've tried to do

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bringing in george lucas and terry jones

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and david bowie

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um

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these very big heavy hitting

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talent

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was something he was excited about at

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that point which he hadn't really done

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before that the movie follows jennifer

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conley's character sarah through an

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enchanted labyrinth to rescue her

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brother from the goblin king played by

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david bowie

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and she finds friends along the way

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did you say hello no i said hello but

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that's close enough one of them is named

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hoggle i played haggle the plan was not

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for me to voice the character so

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you know it's one of the worst kind of

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british accents ever done

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i said where is it where is what the

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door

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jim's creature shop would innovate in

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big ways most muppets had one or two

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puppeteers behind them but in labyrinth

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some characters had eight or nine

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puppeteers working together to make one

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character's seamless performance it was

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so technically complicated that we all

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had to think as one hoggle was a complex

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character he had four puppeteers motors

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in his face and an actress named sherry

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weiser inside the outfit and she was

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three foot two inches tall so sherry's

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face is inside hollow's mouth

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all painted black so that hopefully you

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can't see her in there but she couldn't

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see anything unless the mouth was open

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and because of that that's why hago

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makes all the crazy sounds that he makes

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like he's always like oh god

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he's always like talking to himself

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but the truth is if he didn't do that

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hollow would keep walking into

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the work that the creature shop was able

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to pull off impressed the entire

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industry but that wasn't enough to make

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it a success

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i never really got to fully understand

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why the movie

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wasn't successful the budget of

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labyrinth was 25 million and it only

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ended up earning half of that in the box

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office the movie was quickly pulled from

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theaters it hit my dad real hard this

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was jim's last feature film that he

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directed before he died four years after

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the film premiered but after his death a

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cult-like following started to grow

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around his fantasy 80s musical

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interestingly i believe the movie made

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more money every year than the year it

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was released in the theaters so the

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movie just got more and more and more

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popular and successful my dad would have

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gone i well i knew i knew that it would

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that labyrinth was going to work

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it of course it would eventually

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so my question for you is are are

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puppets just for kids

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no

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puppets are not just for kids

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the puppets are for the kid in all of us

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the audience has no

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baggage when they're watching puppets

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they can't

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make all their assumptions by their

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accent and

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age and the color of their skin

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which is really important because if you

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can talk to an adult and get past all

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the assumptions

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and you can tell them

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powerful stuff about themselves and they

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won't get mad at you

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[Music]

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you