Thank you so much for sharing this! I particularly loved Ludo, he’s a great cuddly lug of a character. It kinda bums me out that you had to suffer in order for us to have him.
Random fan question: was the soundstage as sparkly as it looks in the film?
But are those people Xers or Millennials? Inquiring minds must know!
(Obviously they’re Xers, because we were the target market and watched it in the cinema)
Eh. You had Barbie going into a fantasy world in Sandman’s “A Game of You.” The conflict in the fantasy world reflected an internal conflict in Barbie and the Cookoo ( antagonist ) was a manifestation of childhood fantasies which kept her from froming an adult identity. It’s not identical but thematically it seems close.
The argument could be made he’s not deliberately writing the same kind of story ( I don’t think he is ) but that these common elements are all fairytale tropes, which Gaiman constantly futzes with.
Sorry, was referring to the The NeverEnding Story, not Labyrinth.
Oh yeah! Very true, there was a lot. I guess as a kid I was distracted by Baston’s dad drinking a glassful of raw eggs and didn’t notice all the brand names.
Yeah - I didn’t get to work on Dark Crystal (I started with Henson on Fraggle, which came after DC) but Mike shared how hard those characters were. With Ludo we were able to stand upright (almost) but the whole thing weighed over 120 pounds.
Fraggle, by comparison, was a lot easier. Hard work (always) but lots of fun. Junior Gorg didn’t weigh as much as Ludo but the head was about 12 pounds - imagine strapping a sack of potatoes to your skull and then dancing & falling down. Can’t complain though - just prior to Fraggle I was a starving mime, so many thanks to Jim for saving me from a life of white faced squalor.
Yes it was - and more so. They were constantly spritzing a light adhesive on everything and then blowing fistfuls of glitter on it all. That stuff got on everything. One of the set decorators had previously worked on Ridley Scott’s Legend and had similar experience making all things sparkly and he remarked: “If I never see glitter ever again it will be too soon.”
I wouldn’t know. I’m just a beat up old puppeteer. : )
Holy carp - dude / sir, I’m sorry for the way you got banged up but thank you for helping put together one of my all time favorite movies. Watching that movie made me desperately want to work for Lucasfilm or Henson doing puppetry and set design. ( to give an idea of my age, I first read about Labyrinth in Bantha Tracks ) You folks made a place and a setting which sank into my mind like lead into jello.
Hearing you say you’ve walked around the Goblin City and Escher sets strikes a chord not unlike hearing someone say they walked on the moon. I know it’s been done but you never expect to actually get to hear from someone who’s been there.
Anyway. Thanks.
In my version of The Hobbit, Bowie would have been the elf king.
I guess I’m an Xer (I turn 44 next month) and I adored this movie back in the day. Although, I just finished rewatching it (I have the Collectors Edition DVD) and it’s different watching it at 44 instead of 14. I can still appreciate the sheer artistry of the world and its denizens, but it’s a lot harder to identify with the heroine. (Guess that means Yes, I am Old… but I still find it an amazing movie, so maybe not.)
And @Robbo, I am sincerely sorry you had to go through such hardship and pain in its making. But, thank you so very much, you did an amazing job and you helped create something wonderful and beautiful. I am grateful you did it and I wish you all the best!
My daughter’s theory is that all us Gen-Xers made our kids watch it. And thus a Millennial obsession is also born. (I was born in 1973, she was born in 1997 which may be just out of the “millennial” range, depending on who you ask)
Agreed. If I’d had kids, I would have raised them on a steady diet of Jim Henson projects, just as I was. 
Geez - now I’m feeling like I’m such a whiny bitch. : ) Wouldn’t have changed thing for the whole world. Jim was ntorious for always saying: “If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.” - to which I once responded: “Yeah, and if it was any harder, nobody would be doing it.” The work IS hard - but oh so worth it. Glad you and so many others find joy in it.
As replied to @bigtrendy - the effort was well worth it. The ached and pains are nothing compared to the resultant joy. Thanks for your thanks. : )
I just pulled my bluray copy out with the notion of making my 6.5 year old watch it. 
And I am most firmly an X-er, just one who waited probably too long to have a kid.
NO that is WAY TOO EVIL.
Love Labyrinth to pieces. I’m 30 and have no idea what generation I belong to.
