Part of Jim Henson's World (2021)
Friday, August 27, 2021, 3:00 p.m.
Museum of the Moving Image - Redstone Theater

The Cube 
Dir. Jim Henson. 1969, 53 mins.

Program total running time: 85 mins.

The ongoing Jim Henson’s World screening series returns with a special screening of some of the most seldom-seen treasures in Henson’s body of work.

Written by Jim Henson and Jerry Juhl and originally presented on NBC’s series Experiment in Television, The Cube is the story of a man (Richard Schaal) who finds himself trapped in a white paneled void while various characters (including a monk played by puppeteer Jerry Nelson) come and go without offering much help in his plight. The critically acclaimed (and somewhat puzzling) existential story was one of Henson’s rare non-puppet projects and an unusual program to find on network television. A year earlier, Experiment in Television also presented Henson’s nonfiction collage Youth ’68.

In addition to The Cube, we will present a selection of Henson’s short films and commercials, recently scanned in high definition from prints and negatives in The Jim Henson Company Media Archives.

Note: The August 21 screening will be introduced by Jim Henson Legacy President Craig Shemin and The Jim Henson Company Archives Director Karen Falk, who will discuss some of the documents pertaining to The Cube that were recently added to The Jim Henson Exhibition on the Museum’s second floor.