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Organized by Craig Shemin, President of The Jim Henson Legacy The imaginative, playful, creative, and prolific film and television work of Jim Henson is celebrated in this monthly screening series, often featuring special guest appearances. Presented in conjuction with The Jim Henson Exhibition, which opened July 22, 2017.
Organized by Craig Shemin, President of The Jim Henson Legacy A series of holiday-themed Henson programs ranging from classic adaptations, TV specials, and more. It includes 25th anniversary screenings of The Muppet Christmas Carol and a 40th anniversary screening of Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas with Marilyn Sokol (Ma Otter) in person to present outtakes from the special.
Apr 9, 2014 · Craig Shemin has been writing for Muppets for decades, on such wide-ranging projects as the Muppets Inside CD-ROM, the Muppets Kitchen with Cat Cora web series, and The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss. He’s also the president of the Jim Henson Legacy, and he’s hosted countless screenings of Henson material at various venues.
- Overview
- Writing credits
- Notes
- Sources
- External Links
Craig Shemin (b. September 19, 1966) is a former Jim Henson Company staff writer, and currently serves as the President of The Jim Henson Legacy. Shemin began his career with Henson as a college intern during the summer of 1987. After he graduated, he was hired in the Public Relations Department, during which time he also worked with the Jim Henson Archives. By 1996, however, he had transitioned to writing, contributing to a wide array of programming, merchandising, and appearances.
In TV, Shemin served as writer and consultant (and sometimes lyricist) for the first season of The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss and received a Writer's Guild of America Award nomination for his work on the show. For the Hallmark Channel, Craig co-wrote all 26 episodes of Telling Stories with Tomie dePaola, and contributed to two seasons of Donna's Day. Shemin also co-wrote a single episode of Dog City ("Comedy of Horrors").
In the multi-media realm, Shemin scripted two 1996 video games, Muppets Inside and Muppet Treasure Island, as well as MuppetWorld.com's MuppeToon series. In the publishing realm, he helped Miss Piggy with her 1996 cookbook, In the Kitchen with Miss Piggy, coined the title for One Frog Can Make a Difference, contributed humorous text and character quotes to The Muppets Big Book of Crafts, and has written other fiction and non-fiction books outside of the Muppets. He also wrote material for an unnumbered amount of Muppet press interviews and appearances, and text for licensed products such as the Palisades action figures and many others.
In 2001, Shemin hosted the second day of MuppetFest, and with Jim Lewis, co-wrote The Muppet Show Live. He also scripted the concerts Jim Henson's Musical World in 2012 and The Jim Henson Retrospectacle Live in Concert in 2018. Shemin has hosted numerous Henson-related screenings, panels, and events, as well as preparing video content for said events. He currently serves as a "guest curator" for the Museum of the Moving Image's "Jim Henson's World" screening series.
For supplemental materials, Shemin researched and wrote the liner notes for Music, Mayhem and More!, co-wrote the "Muppet Morsels" feature on The Muppet Show Season 1 DVD, and produced the extras on the 2005 Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas DVD, including directing and editing the behind-the-scenes featurette. He also directed a documentary on Muppet photographer John Barrett for The Muppets Say Cheese, a 2005/06 exhibition of Barrett's work at New York's Museum of Television and Radio. He also hosted a feature for the Dinosaurs DVD set. In 2014, Shemin wrote and compiled The Muppets Character Encyclopedia, a 200-page guide to The Muppets characters released by DK Publishing. Shemin later penned Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson's First Television Show, published in 2022.
Shemin's non-Henson writing includes seven installments of the Cartoon Network series Courage the Cowardly Dog, two episodes of Rory's Place (co-written with wife Stephanie D'Abruzzo) as well as an episode of the Nickelodeon series Gullah Gullah Island. He collaborated with D'Abruzzo again on special material written for Empty-Handed, a 2004 showcase by Avenue Q performers Jennifer Barnhart, John Tartaglia and D'Abruzzo directed by Alan Muraoka. He is also is the co-author, with Dep Capone, of the award-winning book Families Are Forever, about a Chinese girl adopted by an American family.
Television
•Good Morning America Muppet Moments
•The Muppet Games
•Spring Training
••Episode 303: Comedy of Horrors
•Muppet Time
•The first piece of material written by Craig Shemin and actually performed by the Muppets was a video featuring Kermit the Frog to be used at a Disney shareholder meeting around the time of the Henson-Disney deal. During the shoot, Craig recited, off-screen, the lines that would be said by Michael Eisner, who would appear live at the event.
•In the final scenes of The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson, an all-hands-on-deck crowd scene, Shemin, who once contemplated becoming a Muppeteer himself, puppeteered Waldorf.
•On day one of MuppetFest, emcee Kirk Thatcher brought his Muppets Tonight Emmy onstage. Not to be outdone, day two emcee Craig Shemin, a non-Emmy winner, proudly showed off an old bowling trophy.
•Shemin was one of several writers originally involved in the script of Avenue Q, in its first incarnation as an unproduced TV pilot.
1.A Bit of a Chat with Ken Plume March 27, 2018 episode with Craig Shemin (01:13:36)
- 21 min
Apr 15, 2014 · An Interview with Craig Shemin, Part 3: Aimed at a Muppet Audience. Continuing our Q&A with Muppet writer, Jim Henson Legacy president, and Muppets Character Encyclopedia author Craig Shemin. Don’t forget to read Part 1 and Part 2! TP: So, you and Stephanie D’Abruzzo are like the Muppet power couple. How did you guys meet, and how do you ...
Dec 17, 2021 · Ongoing. Organized by Craig Shemin, President of The Jim Henson Legacy. The imaginative, playful, creative, and prolific film and television work of Jim Henson is celebrated in this recurring screening series, often featuring special guest appearances and featuring classic and contemporary works by or related to Henson. Films in this series ...
Author Craig Shemin has also presented virtual Zoom webinars to the Connecticut Puppetry Guild, The Society of American Archivists, and a Jim Henson academic symposium at England’s University of Bristol. If you would like to arrange for a presentation or signing by the author, contact us at samandfriendsbook@gmail.com.
