THE FAIRY TALES OF JIM HENSON feat. TALES OF THE TINKERDEE (1962)

As part of Through Mirrors, Webs, & Woods: A Month of Folk & Fairy Tales at PRS, a journey through the strange, magical, and transformative worlds of folk and fairy tales, 7th House and Cinemyth proudly present a very special evening exploring Jim Henson’s lifelong fascination with fairy tales and folklore, and the many ways they inspired and shaped his work throughout his career. Featuring an exclusively recorded and audiovisually illuminated conversation with author and Henson scholar Dr. Andrea Wright, rare archival materials provided by the Jim Henson Legacy, and a complete screening of Henson’s unaired fairy-tale series pilot TALES OF THE TINKERDEE (1962) from an HD scan of the original kinescope, the evening will be followed by a separate, free RSVP screening of episodes of Jim Henson’s acclaimed television series THE STORYTELLER (1987–89)*.

Long before The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, fairy tales were woven through Henson’s extraordinary body of work. Spurred by a trip to Europe in 1958, the young puppeteer began developing an ultimately unfinished version of Hansel and Gretel, and over the next three decades, fairy and folk tales became a persistent, if sometimes overlooked, thread running through his work. From playful retellings of familiar stories to the creation of elaborate new fantasy worlds, Henson returned to the forms, characters, and traditions of fairy tales again and again, his restless creativity continually finding within them new possibilities for puppetry, storytelling, and world-building.

It’s this often overlooked dimension of Henson’s work that Dr. Andrea Wright explores in her new book, The Fairy Tales of Jim Henson: Keeping the Best Place by the Fire, the first book devoted specifically to considering Henson as an important creator of fairy tales for the screen. In an exclusively recorded and audiovisually illuminated conversation with 7th House and Cinemyth programmers Alex McDonald and Devon Deimler, Wright will trace Henson’s engagement with the form across his career: from the unrealized Hansel and Gretel and two unaired fairy-tale series pilots, Tales of the Tinkerdee (1962) and The Land of Tinkerdee (1964), through the playful late-’60s/early-’70s “Muppetization” of Cinderella, The Frog Prince, and The Bremen Town Musicians in Tales from Muppetland. Fairy tales would turn up in some less expected corners, too, from a pair of wonderfully strange 1965 commercials for pre-shrunk Pak-Nit fabric—featuring Henson’s Hansel and Gretel surrogates, Shrinkel and Stretchel—to recurring riffs on familiar stories in Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.

The conversation with Dr. Wright will lead us further along this path into the 1980s, where Henson’s engagement with fairy tales expanded into the creation of elaborate worlds of his own, from the dark, intricately imagined mythology of The Dark Crystal (1982) to Labyrinth (1986), a coming-of-age fantasy drawing on Alice’s Wonderland adventures and Dorothy’s journey through Oz, and ultimately to The Storyteller (1987–89), in which Henson devoted an entire series to exploring the fairy and folk tales that had fascinated him throughout his career. Encouraged by his daughter Lisa’s folklore studies at Harvard, Henson looked beyond the best-known stories to the stranger, darker corners of the European folk-tale tradition, bringing them to life through his remarkable command of puppetry, performance, and creature-making.

The program will showcase rare archival materials provided by the Jim Henson Legacy, featuring Henson’s fairy-tale-themed Wilkins Coffee commercials, the Pak-Nit Hansel and Gretel riff “Shrinkel and Stretchel,” and rare color footage of the Tinkerdee characters shot by Jim Henson himself, before concluding with a rare screening of the unaired 1962 pilot TALES OF THE TINKERDEE in its entirety, scanned in high definition from the original kinescope recording.

Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind, tailor-made program, presented for one night only and exclusively at the Philosophical Research Society. Come celebrate the wondrous, strange, and endlessly imaginative worlds of one of the great creative minds of the 20th century.

Suitable for all ages.

*PLEASE NOTE: The Storyteller screening is a separate, free event and requires its own RSVP. Ticketholders for The Fairy Tales of Jim Henson who have also RSVP’d for The Storyteller will receive priority re-entry before general RSVP admission. General RSVP admission to The Storyteller is first come, first served and subject to capacity; an RSVP does not guarantee admission. A ticket to The Fairy Tales of Jim Henson does not constitute an RSVP for The Storyteller; ticketholders wishing to attend the free screening must RSVP separately. Click here to view info and RSVP.

Tickets: $15 (All Screenings Are In Person Only)

Please email events@prs.org or phone 323-663-2167 with any questions.