The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson Bill Prady The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson is a one-hour special that aired on CBS on November 21, 1990. The program was a tribute to Muppet creator Jim Henson, who had died earlier in 1990 due to toxic shock syndrome caused by a streptococcus infection, and featured characters from "The Muppet Show", "Fraggle Rock", and "Sesame Street". It marked Steve Whitmire's first onscreen performance as Kermit the Frog. This was also one of Richard Hunt's final puppetry works before his death in 1992. Kermit the Frog is away traveling, leaving Fozzie Bear and the other
The Muppets character; the performer who controls the mouth usually provides the voice for the character. As technology has evolved, the Jim Henson team and other puppeteers have developed several means to operate the Muppets for film and television; these include the use of suspended rigs, internal motors, remote manipulators, and computer enhanced and superimposed images. Creative use of different technologies has allowed for scenes in which the Muppets appear to perform such complex movements as riding bicycles, rowing boats, and dancing wholly independently of the performer. According to writer Michael Davis, the characters tend to develop "organically", alluding to the performers