The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson 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 Muppets in
The Muppets Studio several months after Jim Henson's death in 1990. Despite the collapse of the merger deal, by 1992, Disney and Jim Henson Productions had already struck a number of deals: The Henson family subsequently sold the entirety of the Jim Henson Company to German conglomerate EM.TV in 2000. In 2003, the Henson family repurchased The Jim Henson Company from EM.TV. Eisner, still interested in the Muppet properties, re-opened negotiations with the Hensons and announced the purchase of "The Muppets" and "Bear in the Big Blue House" assets from The Jim Henson Company for $75 million on February 17, 2004. The acquired