Jim Henson and Silence of the Lambs (Patreon)

After I ruined our vacation, Johnny and I were pretty depressed for a few days. But we've been trying to at least enjoy the time off, so we wen to the Museum of Moving images to see the Jim Henson exhibit.

It was amazing and inspiring. I'm always in awe of how far Jim Henson got by being his weirdo self. Yes, he made commercials and training videos, but they were still Jim Henson-weird. The pitch video for The Muppet Show was insane but also utterly perfect for The Muppet Show and, even crazier, it worked. It was great to see that he never stopped evolving and exploring. I'd seen his movie Time Piece before but I assumed it was a student film he made in college, not something he did in his off time while running a successful commercial film company. And not all of his concepts succeeded. There was a nightclub he made pitches and prototypes for that never got picked up even though it sounded really cool. But he just kept working and went from that to Sesame Street.

After we went through the exhibit, we went through the rest of the museum to find this lovely surprise!

Silence of the Lambs concept art and set design drawings!

They had blueprints of Buffalo Bill's house, with helpful design suggestions. And I had to explain to Johnny who Ed Gein was.

We also had to admit that we were really jealous of how big his house was. He had a whole room, just for skinning. And a different room just for exotic moths. And a gorgeous work room with adjoining dressing room.

And his very own dry well for some reason. Like, did he build that himself or what?

It was pretty great. And it felt like an auspicious sign since we're doing our Hannibal show next week.