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He had made enough money to be able to drive his own Rolls-Royce to his college graduation, but he wasn't sure he wanted to remain a puppetmaster. He wandered off to Europe for several months, and there he met people who practiced puppeteering as an art. He returned to Washington certain of his direction. He and Jane were married a few months later, and both the marriage and the partnership prospered.
The rest is hysteria, as Kermit might say. The Muppets did guest appearances for everyone who had air time, and were well established by the time Sesame Street took form. Henson had everything except his own series, and this the networks refused to provide unless it was aimed strictly at children. Finally the FCC opened the 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. slot to local programming suitable for both children and adults, and HA! bypassed the networks by signing an extraordinary deal with Lord Grade's ACC group: 24 shows a year, international syndication, a healthy budget and complete artistic control.
Jane Henson dropped out of full-time Muppeting to raise their children (all five of whom have worked on The Muppet Show). She says she reached her limit as a puppeteer when the Muppets began to talk. She still works from time to time on Sesame Street, voicelessly.
And Henson? Run a lab analysis of genius and you get a few dollars' worth of chemicals. Like his wife, he practices Transcendental Meditation, reads a lot, frequently about psychic phenomena, and lives fairly simply. He likes to play tennis and ski with the children. In London he enjoys an occasional evening of blackjack at a casino, and driving fast in a Kermit-green Lotus through the English countryside. Although Jim is away from the family home in Bedford, N.Y.. for almost six months of each year, the Henson marriage seems to be anything but the disposable show business model. Jim and Jane possess powerful internal gyroscopes, which have not importantly changed direction in 20 years.