Jim Henson's LIMBO: THE ORGINIZED MIND
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
If you grew up watching Sesame Street, it's quite possible your young mind was traumatized by this sequence where a creepy, rubber-band face monster floats around in an inky black void and teaches you to count to 10.
The character was called Nobody, and he'd actually made his debut on The Tonight Show in the early '70s, starring in an extremely disturbing sketch called Limbo: The Organized Mind. (That's Jim Henson doing the voice. I'm not sure who was voicing Nobody in that first clip.)
Henson was most famous for his kids' shows, but he had a much darker, more adult side that he sometimes expressed in bits like this. In this clip it's interesting to watch him go right from this freaky little vignette to joining Johnny Carson on the couch, with a chatty Kermit the Frog on his arm. It gives us a little insight into two very different but somehow complimentary aspects of the man.
Got a tip for Monsters and Rockets? Want to contribute to the site? Send us an email.
2 comments:
The music for this was done by Raymond Scott, a composer whose work was adapted by Carl Stalling for Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies cartoons. In his later career he moved into electronic music. This piece complete with voiceover is available on Scott's Manhattan Research Inc double CD.
I didn't realize that was Scott. I've been meaning to do a post about him.
Post a Comment