Hanging out on the Street

Yesterday, I took the kids to the Experience Music Project/SciFi Museum in Seattle to see the traveling exhibit of Jim Henson's Fantastic World. If you are or were ever a Jim Henson/Sesame Street/Muppet fan, you will love it. I told my husband that there needs to be a bigger, permanent museum dedicated just to Jim Henson's works, and if there indeed were, I would make it some sort of pilgrimage and travel there.

Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, pictures were mostly not allowed (and out of respect for the man's creations, I did manage to restrain myself). There were some original Muppets displayed, behind glass of course...Ernie & Bert, Mahna Mahna and the Snowths, and of course, the one and only Kermit. I just wanted to go up and hug them so it's probably just as well there was glass inbetween :). A bunch of Jim's sketches were displayed, along with movies of some of his early commercial work, and some of his non-Muppet work, such as Time Piece.

However, pics were allowed in the "Mudgarden Experience" puppet area, where touching Muppets was highly encouraged. My daughter is operating the one on the left playing the piano:

Here's a photo of us on the Street with some of our favorite characters:

(I didn't notice until I uploaded the photos to my computer that Gonzo was watching us from above!)

If this comes to your town, it's well worth seeing. And Seattle locals take note: this museum and many others in Seattle have free admission on the first Thursday of every month. I knew I wasn't going to be able to take advantage of that in July or August, so I bit the bullet and paid, but you don't necessarily have to. I think this list is fairly accurate, but I'd double check it before you go.