Jim Henson, The Biography. Illustration by Nathan Gelgud, 2013.

In Brian Jay Jones’s exhaustive new biography Jim Henson, the author builds to an explosion of Henson’s universe into an array of filmed content that would shape countless childhoods and change the way we watch television.

One of Henson’s first breakthroughs was the creation of a series of pithy, off-kilter coffee commercials featuring early iterations of his hand puppet characters. Jones gives a detailed account of how the spots were thought up, created, and marketed. The coffee commercial characters would evolve into icons, of course, and each of the book’s chapters keeps you on the edge of your seat in building toward the debut of The Muppet Show.

Reading about Henson’s system of elevated stages and strategically placed monitors, you get a look behind the curtain that doesn’t break the spell of his shows, but enhances it. We see Henson and his co-creator Frank Oz twisting around each other to do their Ernie and Bert act, find out why Rowlf the Dog didn’t get more screen time, and learn the science of Muppet eye placement.

Watching the evolution of the crude puppet that would become Kermit is to watch the magic of invention slowed down into a careful narrative of hard work, persistence, and artistic breakthroughs. Seeing the results, it’s clear that Henson was brilliant -- probably a genius beamed down from another planet.

Through Jones’s rendering, Henson’s inventiveness feels real, tangible, and somehow possible in a way that makes it required reading for anyone interested in puppets, kids, entertainment, television, art … actually, this story should just be required reading for everybody.

Jim Henson, The Biography. Illustration by Nathan Gelgud, 2013.