Kickstarter campaign seeks to make Jim Henson exhibition a reality in Queens

The Museum of the Moving Image has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund its permanent Jim Henson exhibition, which would put more than 40 original puppets, puppet prototypes, original character sketches, and rare behind-the-scenes footage and photographs from the visionary Henson on display. The exhibition was announced more than three years ago with plans to open in 2014, but hasn’t been able to do so just yet.

To bridge its funding gap, the folks at the Astoria institution are asking Muppets lovers, film fans, and all others to donate a total of $40,000 to help make the exhibition a reality at long last. It looks like this will be the campaign to finally launch the project—in the time it took to write this, the campaign, marked a Project We Love by Kickstarter, has pulled in more than $6,000. The campaign is open through May 11.

The Henson family bequeathed the Museum of the Moving Image a huge collection of the producer’s puppets and artifacts, including Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Elmo, Cookie Monster, and the Fraggles. But while those puppets may be the obvious draw for some visitors, the Museum of the Moving Image’s Executive Director, Carl Goodman, says the museum will take a “more holistic view” of Henson’s contributions to film and television.

The museum’s Jim Henson Collection currently includes more than 175 puppets donated by the Henson family that will be restored through a collaboration with the Jim Henson Creature Workshop.

A fun New York City aside: Henson previously ran the Creature Workshop out of a Upper East Side townhouse he picked up for $600,000 in 1977. His estate sold the townhouse for $12.4 million in 2005, and it would go on to be owned by Seagram heir Edgar Bronfman.

Find the Kickstarter campaign here.

• The Jim Henson Exhibition at Museum of the Moving Image [Kickstarter]