An Academic Eye on Jim Henson (2018 Panel with Brian Jay Jones & Brian Real)

After many requests, and one whole year of thinking it over, I finally decided it was worth releasing this audio as a podcast.  The video’s been up on YouTube for a year, which is why I was unsure as to whether this needed to be a podcast, but I think it does.  This is worth listening to, if only so you get to hear some of Brian Jay Jones’ great stories about Jim. Over the course of this talk, Professor Brian Real and author Brian Jay Jones dive into Jim Henson history to show how Jim Henson’s work was not only the product of his imagination, but of the changes in the media landscape in his lifetime.  This journey begins in a time when television is mostly local, small-budget productions and ends with the Walt Disney Company becoming the media juggernaut it is today. Brian Real taught the Jim Henson course at the University of Maryland, College Park (Jim Henson’s Alma Mater) for several years, and currently teaches at Southern Connecticut State University. You can purchase Brian Jay Jones’ best-selling biography of Jim Henson here, and pre-order his new book on Dr. Seuss here.