Since February of the year 2000, The Jim Henson Company has owned and operated out of its historic lot on La Brea Avenue in Hollywood, California, which was built in 1917 as Charlie Chaplin Studios. Now, according to a story by our friend Drew Taylor in The Wrap, the company is planning to sell the lot.
Image via The Henson Soundstage
What’s happening:
- The Jim Henson Company is selling the Hollywood studio lot it has operated out of for nearly 25 years. The lot was famously used as the location for the abandoned Muppet studio in Disney’s 2011 theatrical film The Muppets. The Henson Company no longer owns the Muppets franchise, but it has collaborated with Disney on a number of projects.
- Atop the current entrance stands a giant figure of Kermit the Frog dressed as Charlie Chaplin’s beloved bowler-hat-sporting character the Tramp, because the historic lot was built as Charlie Chaplin Studios in 1917, and Chaplin used it himself until 1953. In the 1950s and early 1960s the lot became Skelton Studios and then a studio for the CBS network. From the mid-1960s through 1999 it was also used as the headquarters for A&M Records.
- The Henson Soundstage and Henson Recording Studios are currently located on the lot, and the former has been used recently to host live performances of Brian Henson’s Puppet Up! Shows. Other productions on the lot in recent years have been Earth to Ned for Disney+, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance for Netflix, and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.
Image via The Henson Soundstage
What they’re saying:
- The Jim Henson Company (via The Wrap): “The sale is “part of a much longer-term strategy to have The Jim Henson Company and our renowned Burbank-based Jim Henson’s Creature Shop under one roof, which is not feasible in Hollywood due to the space the Shop requires.”
Image via The Henson Soundstage
The Jim Henson Company lot is located at 1416 North La Brea Avenue in Hollywood, California.