There are moments when the spark of creation suddenly ignites and history stops. Like when the Wright brothers got a plane to fly. Or when Oreo added double filling. Maybe just as resonant was when Jim Henson cut up his mother’s green coat into odd shapes and added ping-pong balls for eyes.
At that moment, he birthed Kermit the Frog, who would go on to enchant generations. Kermit’s humble beginnings are part of the engrossing and enlightening documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man” and it’s apt to start with the sweetly outgoing Kermit, who is in many ways Henson’s alter ego.
The Ron Howard-directed Disney+ movie is a kinetic mix of show clips, interviews, bloopers, behind-the-scenes workplace videos, home movies and artist sketches — as animated as Henson’s Muppets, who educated millions on “Sesame Street” and entertained even more on “The Muppet Show.”
Viewers are walked chronologically through Henson’s early life in rural Mississippi, his teaming up with his wife, Jane, on early late-night TV appearances, his often oddball sensibility, his self-doubt, embrace of educational TV, his marriage crumbling, the red-hot height of fame and then the fall with “Labyrinth.” It’s a definitive as you can get. We even learn why he chose to grow a beard: acne scars.
