How "Sam and Friends" Shaped the Muppet Universe

As the Jim Henson Company celebrates its 70th anniversary, the Walt Disney Family Museum continued its celebratory programming with a rare and intimate conversation between author Craig Shemin and legendary puppeteer Dave Goelz — the longtime performer behind Gonzo, Bunsen Honeydew, Boober Fraggle, and so many other Henson icons. But on this afternoon, the spotlight wasn’t on Muppet superstardom, it was on the five-minute late-night TV show that started it all: Sam and Friends.

Fans were treated to archival clips, rediscovered audio, lost scripts, and behind-the-scenes stories illuminating the earliest days of Jim Henson’s creative journey. What emerged was a portrait of a young artist experimenting restlessly, innovating constantly, and unknowingly laying the foundation for an entertainment legacy that would transform puppetry forever.

Shemin opened the presentation with a fact that still surprises many fans: Jim Henson was not a childhood puppeteer. Unlike many artists who spend their early years staging backyard puppet shows, Henson discovered puppetry by accident as a teenager. A local Washington, D.C. TV station was putting together a “Junior Morning Show” modeled after a CBS program and needed a young puppeteer. Jim checked out library books on puppet-making, built a few rough characters — including “Pierre the French Rat” — and landed the job.

The show only lasted a few weeks (thanks to a labor law misunderstanding), but it set Henson on a path that led him to WRC-TV in D.C. and onto his first regular puppetry work. In the late 1950s, Henson was a college student with no formal training, but as Goelz noted, what he lacked in experience he made up for with curiosity: “He was so curious. He just hung out backstage and learned all the technology… Everything he did was experimental.”

This spirit of experimentation would become the defining characteristic of Henson’s early career — and of Sam and Friends itself. Between 1955 and 1961, Sam and Friends aired live, sometimes twice a day — five minutes each — just before the local news and before The Tonight Show. It featured a cast lip-syncing to records, performing parodies, and delivering quick comedic sketches.

Working with his future wife Jane Nebel Henson, Jim built puppets, painted sets, choreographed lip-sync, worked cameras, coordinated music timing, and recorded dialogue on acetate discs. As Goelz emphasized, the workload was enormous for what amounted to a five-minute show: “When you have to write it, design it, build new characters, pre-record music, get the props together… It’s a lot of work.”

The earliest shows were pure lip-sync numbers using novelty records by Spike Jones and Stan Freberg Henson had not yet begun doing character voices — something he was initially timid about — and the comedic beats relied heavily on timing, editing, and clever performance.

One of the joys of the presentation was seeing just how inventive — and anarchic — the early Muppet style was. In addition to various lip-sync routines, we were treated to a Gunsmoke parody entitled “Punsmoke” and a hilarious news parody that featured real audio of NBC News anchors Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. Many of these clips featured some of the earliest versions of Kermit.

As Goelz remarked, Henson’s approach was “monumentally creative.” It was also subversive, unpredictable, and often downright weird — all hallmarks of the Muppet style that would eventually reach global audiences.

A pivotal moment came when Henson began creating the now-legendary Wilkins Coffee commercials. Ultra-short (eight seconds) and darkly funny, these spots paired two puppets — Wilkins and Wontkins — in what can only be described as cheerful, caffeinated violence.

The concept was revolutionary in an era of earnest, static advertising. And just as importantly, it marked the moment when Henson began performing character voices himself. As the commercials spread nationally, Jim realized he could adapt the same two puppets for other regional brands — a clever business model that allowed him to build his studio’s financial foundation long before the Muppets became household names.

The team screened several surviving spots, each met with roaring laughter — proof that the Muppet sense of humor has aged extraordinarily well.

One of the biggest surprises from Shemin’s research was the discovery of more than 400 reel-to-reel audio recordings of Sam and Friends episodes. Some samples of these recordings, combined with images of the script, brought even more Muppet history to life.

Many visual recordings do not survive; kinescopes were often reused, discarded, or mislabeled. But audio preservation allowed Shemin to reconstruct many sketches, some of which he played — including a delightfully chaotic take on The Three Little Pigs and a sketch inspired by the studio losing access to its set during the 1960 Kennedy–Nixon debate.

Fans also heard material from writer Jerry Juhl, who joined the Muppets just as Sam and Friends ended and later became one of the chief architects of Muppet humor. His early pieces, rediscovered in the archives, demonstrated a fully formed comedic rhythm that would shape The Muppet Show years later.

The audience was treated to the audio of the Sam and Friends finale — a funny, anarchic segment in which the characters literally destroy their own set. The video, however, is missing.

Shemin explained that it was likely lent out as reference footage during the 1960s and never returned — a practice common in the early days of TV, when much material wasn’t seen as historically significant. There is still hope it might resurface in mislabeled archival boxes someday.

As the conversation shifted, Shemin invited Dave Goelz to reflect on his own path — a journey that began with childhood puppet fascination, a cameo as a background dancer in Disney’s The Parent Trap, and eventually a job at Hewlett-Packard designing boxes.

Goelz fell in love with the Muppets after discovering Sesame Street in the early 1970s. His admiration led him to build his own Ernie puppet, visit the Muppet workshop, and — thanks to an unlikely chain of coincidences — receive a phone call that changed his life: “Hi, this is Jim Henson…”

Goelz’s story, told with characteristic warmth and humor, highlighted the welcoming, collaborative nature of Henson’s world — a world built on experimentation, joy, and a shared sense of creative play.

He even shared rare behind-the-scenes footage of one of his earliest performances with Jim, a reminder of how deeply interconnected the Henson legacy has become.

One of the most remarkable facts revealed during the session: 9% of all musical numbers performed on The Muppet Show originated in Sam and Friends.

The DNA of Henson’s earliest work continued to echo through the Muppet universe — in comedic setups, parody formats, character archetypes, and the timeless mixture of heart and absurdity.

Even Jim himself tended to downplay Sam and Friends as a small, primitive project. But as the archival material shows, it was nothing less than the birthplace of the Muppet sensibility.

In a surprise moment, Goelz discussed the newly taped Muppet Show reboot special, set to premiere next year. As the only original cast member from the 1970s still performing, Goelz described the new production as, “A very legitimate effort… a credible job… and I think people will like it.”

The special may pave the way for a new series, bringing the classic format to Disney+ — a fitting next chapter following this year-long celebration of Henson history.

Ultimately, the afternoon served as a powerful reminder of why the Muppets have endured for 70 years: not because they are puppets, but because they represent a creative philosophy rooted in curiosity, humor, and humanity.

And long before Kermit strummed a banjo under a rainbow, that philosophy began with a college kid in a small D.C. studio, experimenting with lip-sync puppets and discovering the limitless possibilities of imagination.