Disney’s Jim Henson Documentary Features His Hilarious Original ‘Muppet Show’ Pitch: “Buy This Show”

If you love joy, silliness, and creativity, then you don’t want to miss the new documentary on Jim Henson, aka Jim Henson: Idea Man, which began streaming on Disney+ today.

Director Ron Howard walks viewers through Henson’s prolific career, beginning as a young puppeteer on local television, to creating the smash-success of the Sesame Street puppets, to The Muppet Show, and beyond. Henson’s legacy and success is undeniable—but, as Howard shows us, it wasn’t always easy for him to get executives to listen to his ideas.

Howard fills his film with interviews old and new, including archived interviews with Henson himself, and new interviews with his longtime creative partner Frank Oz, and his now-grown children who still run The Jim Henson Company to this day. But perhaps the most delightful part of Jim Henson: Idea Man is an archived clip of the tongue-and-cheek pitch video Henson put together for what would eventually become The Muppet Show.

The short film, titled “Buy This Show,” was presented to CBS in 1975. It features a human-like puppet—possibly meant to be Henson himself—in a suit and tie. The puppet is, of course, voiced by Henson himself, and shamelessly begs the CBS executives to, well, buy this show.

“We’re not pulling any punches here. I mean, there’s nothing subtle about this pitch!” Henson-as-the-puppet exclaims. “So buy this show, and put it on the air, and we’ll all be famous! The Muppets will be famous! And CBS will be famous, because we’ll have a hit show on our hands! And we’ll all get temperamental and hard to work with, but you won’t care! Because we’ll all make a lot of money! And Schlatter and Henson will be happy, and you’ll be happy, and Kermit’s mother will be happy!”

As the Muppet fails around during his monologue, the background image shows things like an American flag, and trade headlines declaring “Muppet Show Boffo!” and “Muppets / Schlatter Smash!” (The latter headline is in reference to then-CBS executive George Schlatter.)

Then Henson delivers the grand finale. Over an angelic choir and an edited version of Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam,” his Muppet declares, “And God will look down on us and smile on us, and he will say, ‘Let them have a 40 share!’”

It’s clear Henson, though he very much wanted someone to buy his show, had conflicting feelings about playing the money game with the networks. Or maybe he just hoped the network executives would be able to laugh at themselves and their infamously greedy ways. Unfortunately, his bet did not pay off. As we hear Henson’s agent, Bernie Brillstein, say in the documentary, “I couldn’t sell it.”

But Henson got the last laugh. After the American networks all passed on his pitch, he took his pilot across the pond to London, to the British station ATV. The Emmy-winning series became one of the most successful, most recognizable variety shows of all time. The Muppets franchise includes eight feature films, nearly a dozen spin-off series, and countless television specials. CBS could have had that 40 share!

Jim Henson: Idea Man is now streaming on Disney+.