Have Geek Will Travel

Welcome to another Flashback travel blog. This time we’ve set our “WABAC Machine” to 2008 for a trip to see more Jim Henson displays over in Little Rock, AR.

After driving down to Leland, MS with Kermit a couple weeks earlier (see “Toadal Recall: Leland, MS- Home of the Frog” blog), Kevin Williams, Janet and Antone Wade and I left Memphis and crossed the Mississippi River on I-40 west into Arkansas to check out the Jim Henson’s Fantastic World exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center.

It was a great day for the 2hr drive to the other side of the Mississippi River and across the land of Clinton. We were all impressed with the exhibit (and museum!) which had original doodles, notes, storyboards that Jim Henson had done, video of the Muppets on talk shows and commercials, books on the Muppets and Jim Henson, costumes from The Dark Crystal movie, and- oh, yeah…Muppets! They had Rawlf the dog, Manah Manah and the two Snotes, some Fraggles and more. (Click here to see images from the exhibit.)

After we checked out the Henson exhibit and the gift shop down the hall, Kevin talked to the lady running the puppet booth out in the main lobby and agreed to do a couple puppet shows with her. They did The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Three Little Pigs. (I guess the show was brought to us by the #3..!) The kids and adults watching had a blast, and Kevin got to do some improved one-liners so he had fun, too. (You can see Kevin’s puppets at MuleyTheMule.com.)

We checked out a few more galleries at the art center, including a civil rights photo exhibit that was really cool, and kinda scary at the same time. Hard to believe most of the photos were about the same age as me..! (That’s me and a security guard at the Henson exhibit entrance. She was very nice and helpful.)

Once we left we drove around downtown Little Rock for a bit, did some sight seeing around Little Rock, grabbed some lunch and then headed east back to the M-town.

This day trip was “toadally awesome”, too!

Links-

Jim Henson’s Fantastic World exhibit

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service

Arkansas Arts Center

The Jim Henson Legacy

The Muppets

Exhibit tour itinerary

Next stop- 7/16/11-1/16/12 Museum of the Moving Image, New York, NY

(Jim Henson’s Fantastic World was organized by The Jim Henson Legacy and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service in cooperation with the Henson family, The Jim Henson Company, The Muppets Studio, LLC, and Sesame Workshop. This exhibition is made possible by The Biography Channel. Additional support has been provided by The Jane Henson Foundation and Cheryl Henson. )

BTW- don’t forget about the upcoming Leland Frog Fest– a Festival of the Arts in historic downtown Leland, MS on Saturday, September 24, 2011, which would have been Jim’s 75th birthday.