Luke Epplin explores the multi-faceted projects of Jim Henson before he struck gold with the Muppets. The polymath “tried his hand at documentaries, experimental films, animation, acting, music, corporate promotional videos, and even nightclub ownership”:
In the latter half of the ’60s, Henson became more and more influenced by that decade’s countercultural movements. His experimental documentary, Youth ’68: Everything’s Changing…Or Maybe It Isn’t, spliced together interviews, rock music, and trippy dance sequences to create a sort of filmic collage of youth culture. But Henson’s most beguiling project involved a dome-shaped nightclub called Cyclia that would immerse its patrons into a perfectly synchronized environment of music, images, and dance. In the sales brochures, Henson asserted that Cyclia would be “a sensational glimpse into the inner contents of our time—a vital, living, expanding experience that consumes its audience. It is total involvement, total communication … Cyclia is the entertainment experience of the future—theater of the year 2000.”
Colin Marshall digs up the above video, one of Henson’s many surrealist short films:
Ripples Henson and Scott put together for Montreal’s Expo 1967. It takes place, like Memories and Limbo, inside human consciousness: an architect (Sesame Street writer-producer Jon Stone) drops a sugar cube in his coffee, and its ripples trigger a memory of throwing pebbles into a pond, which itself sends ripples through a host of his other potential thoughts. You’ve got to watch to understand how Henson and Scott pulled this off; conveniently, they only take one minute to do it.
The Dish 