While visiting the Museum of Moving Inages in Queens, New York last week, we spent time in an exhibit on Jim Henson, which included lots of Sesame Street and The Muppet show artifacts.
I grew up watching both shows, and they had a significant and positive impact on my life. They endlessly entertained me, but at the same time, they taught me so much.
I’m sad to think my kids will never know The Muppet Show like I did. Even if they watch the show on Disney Plus, where it’s currently available, so many of the jokes will fail to land, and many, if not most of the guest hosts, will mean nothing to them.
The show will still be funny in many ways and brilliant in structure and story, but guest stars like Gilda Radner, Linda Lavin, and Jonathan Winters won’t have the same cultural relevance for my kids as they did for me.
Happily, the museum had my two favorite Muppet Show characters, Stattler and Waldorf, and my favorite Sesame Street character, Cookie Mosnter.
Seeing those puppets brought so much nostalgia and joy to my heart. They made my childhood feel like it was just one inch away from the moment I was standing beside them.
A student in one of my Mastermind courses, who has been absorbing all things Matthew Dicks over the past two weeks, heard me talk about The Muppet Show lunch box I owned as a kid, and in the middle of one of our workshops, held up the exact lunchbox into the camera.
He had the same lunchbox while growing up and still owns it!
Then he opened it to reveal a yellow thermos emblazoned with Kermit, which I also owned and had forgotten about until that moment.
Nostalgia punched me in the face joyously and delightfully. I drank from that Thermos hundreds of times as a kid, and just like that, those moments were returned to me in force.
It’s always a wonderful feeling when the gap between adulthood and childhood is closed, even for the briefest moment, by standing beside puppets that meant everything to you as a kid or seeing a childhood artifact brought back to life, even on a laptop camera.
I highly recommend The Museum of Moving Images. It’s a great museum filled with television and movie nostalgia, fascinating behind-the-scenes information, and precious artifacts.
And somehow, because Elysha and I are teachers, our entrance fee for the four of us was just $20, making it the least expensive museum we’ve ever visited.
