Read Online Make Art Make Money: Lessons From Jim Henson on Fueling Your Creative Career by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens - Free Book Online

Sneakers.” If you watch it, you are promised in
sing-song rhyme diapers that “never rot,” and are then encouraged to “buy a
pot” of Cavity Candies. A boy falls off a “Tipsy Toy” and a girl models a
“Boo-boo Band-Aid” with a head gash still red with blood. The end of the
commercial tells the endlessly credulous parent, “friend,” if your kids already
have all these products, buy them a mutual fund, “open end.” [33]
    According to Falk, Henson made “Flapsole
Sneakers” to “play around.” [34] But more than that, the fake ad displays Henson’s obvious disdain for, and
discomfort with, the job he was paid to do. “Flapsole Sneakers” is a parody of
opportunist advertising, of selling unrealistic desires, and its complicit
knowledge that products are not what they seem. At the end, it seems to say,
none of these products will ever be enough, so when you’ve bought them all,
we’ll sell you imaginary financial “products,” which, of course, will make the
fund managers rich.
    At its core, advertising is a game of
con-artistry. At its most honest, it tells you where you can throw away your
money on fleeting pleasure. And so, when you make a commercial for someone
else, you are lowering yourself to become a puppet for someone else’s greed.
Ads trick us, making us think they’re our friend, when they’re really working
for someone with interests that conflict with ours—put frankly, they want to
take our money out of our pockets and make us believe we did it in our own best
interest, which, by the laws of capitalism, can’t be true in order for the
company to profit. If you watch “Flapsole Sneakers,” you get a sense that
Henson is critiquing advertising in this manner—showing us that nothing “seen
on TV” is something we really need.
    And here is how Henson the artist managed to
survive in the world of commercials for so long. Henson didn’t just parody ads
in this for-fun reel. He parodied ads in every one of his for-real commercials. The satirical streak we saw in the Esskay “Mirror, mirror” spot—a knowingness shared with the viewer—runs through all of Henson’s ads.

PARODY THE AD
WHILE STILL PLAYING THE GAME
    There is a clear element of satire involved in all of
Henson’s commercial work. At a recent Henson exhibit, Karen Falk said:
    He was … making fun of Madison Avenue and the way things were sold, and yet he was
very successful at it. He was much loved by the Madison Avenue executives.
Maybe having it come from a puppet character made it O.K. [35]
    Falk has described this kind of humor as “bit[ing] the hand
that feeds you.” [36] For example, when Henson did a private show for the salesmen of Thom McAn shoe
stores, Rowlf sang, “Thom McAn, we love your credo, but we love the money even
more!” He also did a “customized” version of Stan Freberg’s “Money,” [37] whose original lines were “Give me buckets full of ducats, give me case-os full
of pesos … money money money money money.” Falk puts it best: “Typically,
Jim was making fun of the capitalistic ambitions of the people that hired him.” [38]
    In a presentation film Henson made for the sales
team at Wilson’s Meats, the mouthy character Skip greets the audience, “Hi
there, all you lovers of hot dogs and money!” [39] In another, he says, “Hi there, all you hot-shot Wilson’s Meat sales-type
people!” [40] They then go on to parody everything involving advertising. When doing customer
“research,” Frank Oz knocks over a customer’s vase, candles, and books, until
she chases him out of her house. One of the commercials they audience-test is
described as using “a lot of filmic gimmickry,” such as a shot of a hot dog
thrown bowling-style at a stack of hot dogs. It has the same absurdist feel as
a Terry Gilliam animation. Another “test” commercial is full of glasses-wearing
lab coats using a machine labeled “smokeometer.” The product doesn’t look
appealing and neither