Sam and Friends

By Craig Shemin,

Book cover of Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson's First Television Show

Book description

Long before Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, college students Jim Henson and Jane Nebel created a long-running daily local Washington, D.C. television program called Sam and Friends, where Jim developed his unique approach to comedy and introduced the world to a puppet named Kermit.


In this book, President of…


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Why read it?

1 author picked Sam and Friends as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book looks like it’s only for die-hard fans, but it’s actually an extremely humanizing and thoughtful trip through the growth of genius.

Jim Henson has become so larger-than-life it’s too easy to “other” him. But this account of the first 28-ish years of his life really set the stage for his future success, and helped me understand how the dots were connected from a boy in Mississippi to a guest on The Tonight Show.

As a creative person, I “get” him now. And I also deeply understand his older self and how that man’s movements through life were based…

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