The Muppet Man Joins His Cuddly Crew : Henson Variety Show Will Debut Tonight

After more than 20 years as the man behind the Muppets, Jim Henson is understandably reluctant to come out from behind the curtain.

But Henson, 52, has decided to brave the cameras as host of a series for NBC, “The Jim Henson Hour,” a comedy-variety program that blends old Muppets, some new Muppets, live action and computer animation and debuts at 8 tonight.

NBC had originally planned to introduce the series in January, but it was postponed due to production delays and lack of an appropriate time slot. Henson had hoped the show would land in the 7 p.m. Sunday time slot now occupied by “The Magical World of Disney.”

But in any time slot, Henson said in an interview, he was not terribly pleased to find himself thrust into the spotlight.

“I always prefer to be slightly behind camera,” said Henson, a professorially absent-minded sort with longish gray hair and a neat beard of the same hue. “But (appearing on camera) seemed like the logical thing for this type of a show.”

The type of show Henson meant is the family variety hour, a genre that has had few successful incarnations in recent years. By coming out for a fireside chat with the audience, Henson hopes to re-create the magic of Walt Disney’s family series, which has survived in various incarnations since 1958--most of which featured the grandfatherly Walt in conversation with his audience, as well as his animated friends.

Brian Frons, the NBC programming vice president overseeing the show, thinks the Henson hour has a chance to resuscitate variety shows.

Today’s audience has grown too sophisticated for the traditional song-and-dance variety shows, he said, but they remain eager to sample new varieties of variety.

“ ‘Real People’ in 1979 and 1983’s ‘Bloopers and Practical Jokes’ were variety shows,” he said. “And I know this is going to sound strange, but ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ (NBC’s real-life crime series), while it is not a variety show in the traditional or any other sense of the word, is a new form, it’s reinventing the form. I think Henson would fall into the same category.”

Although the Henson show has been in development for two years, Frons said the series also fits nicely into the network’s plan to provide more wholesome family shows--partly in response to the recent deluge of complaints about “trash TV” programming on the networks.

“There is no question that, in an attempt to respond to the viewers and the advertisers, whom we have heard loud and clear, we are trying to show that we are a full-service network, and that we have things we can point to with pride,” Frons said.

Unconcerned with network politics, Henson only hopes he can fall into the same category as Kermit the Frog. Henson, who performs the voice of Kermit, believes his presence can be the amiable glue that holds the format-less show together--much as Kermit provides the voice of sanity among the motley Muppets. Kermit will co-host the variety show, 12 episodes of which have been ordered.

“I used to think that Kermit was a normal person in the middle of a bunch of crazies,” Henson mused. “And I guess I sort of see myself in that role.”

The show’s collection of oddball characters is even broader and more colorful than Henson’s usual. “The Jim Henson Hour” rockets Muppetry into the Space Age by creating Muppet Central, a computer-generated control room from which Kermit and other regulars program the show. Among those regulars is Waldo C. Graphic, a colorful, hummingbird-sized, computer-generated entity who travels at high speed among the Muppets and human guest stars. Also new to the Muppet clan is Digit, an off-kilter half-human-half-robot, who helps Kermit run Muppet Central.

Other new Muppets include characters of the more traditionally cuddly sort, including the relentlessly adorable Bean Bunny--hired by Kermit to be cute, as Henson said, “so the rest of us don’t have to be.” Bean’s aggressive side, however, will be revealed in a future sequence titled “Bambo.”

Henson at first did not want to get involved in the NBC project, having plenty of other projects to keep him busy. His New York-based company, Henson Associates, produces Saturday morning cartoon series, cable TV series, live arena shows and feature films and runs a healthy licensing business for Muppet products. Henson dreams of doing a Broadway show based on his characters.

But NBC managed to land him, he said, by offering him the opportunity to do a show whose format can vary from week to week. The series also provides a new forum for Henson’s “The Storyteller,” an Emmy Award-winning collection of live-action fables hosted by John Hurt, which formerly ran on NBC as occasional specials.

“Those are nice,” Henson said modestly. “They won a couple of Emmys. They’re some of the prettiest television we’ve ever done.”

Along with “The Storyteller,” the second half-hour each week will feature dramatic pieces, including the animated “Snake Samba”--which Henson says creates a “whole new look,” with bright paint-box colors culled from African art--and “Dog City,” a parody of several old movie classics with a cast of animated canines.

Occasionally, the entire Henson hour will be devoted to one subject; some upcoming specials include “Living With Dinosaurs,” the story of a 9-year-old boy and his stuffed prehistoric pet, and “Monster Maker,” about a teen-ager who gets a job building the creatures for fantasy films.

Henson said the show will blend child-pleasing Muppet antics with sophisticated adult satire in hopes of appealing to both age groups.

“It’s a chance to do something outside of ‘Sesame Street,’ which is specifically aimed at children,” he said. “We do this show at a level we enjoy.”