Jim Henson Will Get His Own Gallery In NYC’s Museum Of The Moving Image

The Museum of the Moving Image in New York City has announced it will build a special gallery devoted to the art of Jim Henson.

Jim Henson’s family has donated nearly 400 puppets, costumes, props, and other objects to the museum. They include items from all of his major projects such as “The Muppet Show,” “Sesame Street,” “Fraggle Rock,” “The Dark Crystal” and others. The biggest stars included in the collection are Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Elmo, Ernie, Bert, Count von Count, Gobo Fraggle, the Swedish Chef, and Statler and Waldorf.

The 2,200 square-foot exhibition space will also feature storyboards, scripts, and video clips.

The new gallery will open in the winter of 2014-15. It will cost $5 million to build and has already received $2.75 million for the City of New York.

Muppet bar opens in San Francisco’s Mission District

Wakka, wakka, wakka (sorry, I couldn’t resist). SFist reports that San Francisco’s much-anticipated muppet-themed bar, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, has at last opened its doors. Located in the hipsterfied but culturally diverse Mission District, the bar is owned by the same group responsible for several other popular City watering holes.

“Mayhem” will serve infantilized pub-style food (Sample item: fried chicken with a jelly doughnut, although there’s allegedly a burger garnished with ghost pepper–the world’s hottest–as well, which would be pretty messed up to serve to a kid, in retrospect…).

The bar had a soft opening last week (“It’s a nice place to sit and have a can of Bud on a Wednesday night,” reports neighborhood daily Mission Mission). The interior is apparently a work in progress; there’s a distinct lack of Muppet memorabilia, but word is there’s more decor to be done and Jameson on tap is coming soon.

While I’m not sure how the Muppet’s correlate with drinking your face off, like most people, I have a deep fondness for the show (especially those chickens!). Whether or not that encourages patronage is anyone’s guess, but the Mission embraces quirkiness. Here’s looking at you, Dr. Teeth.

[Photo credit: Flickr user Alexandre Alves Andrade]