The Every week across United States and scores of other countries, millions of children flick on one of the greatest television shows of all time - a show as popular as ever after more than a quarter of a century.
More incredible still, the cast of characters in this show, imaginatively called Sesame Street (after "Open Sesame," the Arabian Nights invitation to discovery), is as unlikely a group as the world's children ever took into their hearts. Among the fictional creatures are such funny folk of felt or fur, gazing at you with Ping-Pong-ball eyes, as an uneasy green frog, a royal-blue monster with an insatiable appetite for cookies, and a big, curious, naive, vulnerable, sympathetic golden bird.

They are the Muppets - one of the most worthwile creations in popular culture. It is likely that more people can name the Muppet pig (Miss Piggy, femme fatale) who is in love with the Muppet frog (Kermit, "my frog") than can name the capital of Iraq.

Behind this phenomenal show-business success story was Jim Henson, the brilliant creator of the Muppets, who once struggled to explain their phenomenal appeal. "I think it's a sense of innocence, of the naivete of a young person meeting life. Even the most worldly of our characters in innocent. Our villains are innocent, really. And it's that innocence that is the connection to the audience."

In 1956, the Muppets had made their US network television debut on Steve Allen's Tonight! show. Jim's Kermit the Frog-fashioned from his mother's old coat-wore a blond wig and sang "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" to an unsightly, purple-faced monster operated by Jane.

Jim tried to interest the three U.S. networks in a family variety series built around the Muppets, but was turned down. However, England's Lord Grade liked the idea, and in 1976 put The Muppet Show into world distribution from London, combining the biggest stars - from Bob Hope to Julie Andrews - and the smallest Muppets. The show was a runaway success which spawned a string of hugely successful movies. Comedian Mel Brooks, who apeared in The Muppet Movie, once said that the basic message of "The Muppet Show" was that "The meek shall inherit the earth." The Muppets were equally admiring of their guests. Of Ethel Merman, who appeared on the show during its first season, Jim's Kermit once intoned, "When she sings, I get people in my throat."

In all, Jim and his colleagues created more than 2000 rich and woolly and imaginative Muppet characters. Some became superstars - like the seductive Miss Piggy and Cookie Monster (both operated by Frank Oz), Big Bird (Carroll Spinney) and, of course, Jim's own, irrepressible Kermit. "I suppose he's an alter ego," Jim once said, "but he's a little snarkier than I am-slightly wise. Kermit says things I hold myself back from saying."

	Muppet creator Jim Henson

Jim drove himself hard - and the results showed. By 1998, Sesame Street was being watched by more than 68 percent of all households with a child under six. The Muppet Show played weekly to 235 million viewers in over 100 countries. Altogether, Jim Henson Productions has won 22 Emmy Awards, with 12 going to Henson personally.

All of this activity, however, wore Jim out. On 15th May 2000, he returned to New York with what he thought was the flu, and he put off seeing a doctor. When his wife Jane Henson finally got him to hospital, he was having trouble breathing. An agressive, overwhelming type of pneumonia had been galloping through his body for at least three days. He was immediately treated, but the infection had already overwhelmed him. This led to kidney and heart failure, and he died the next day.

At his memorial service, thousands crowded the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. In place of a traditional service, Jim's family substituted a "celebration of life." Mourners waved brightly colored foam butterflies that were handed out with memorial programmes.