Why Every Muppets Fan Is Suddenly Booking a Trip to New York City

We have super exciting news for all the Muppet’s fans out there. Jim Henson’s iconic Creature Shop has been used for the creation of iconic puppets from The Muppets, Fraggle Rock, and Sesame Street.

©Disney

After bringing these characters to life for over 60 years, the Creature Shop is open for public tours for the first time!

Jim Henson opened the Creature Shop back in the 1960s in New York City, and even though he passed away in 1990, his legacy has lived on through the incredible work of the Creature Shop. And fans can now pull back the curtain and experience the magic for themselves.

©The Jim Henson Company

On Saturdays, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop now opens for tours that cost $150 per person. On the tour, guests can meet one of the puppet builders, see a puppetry demonstration, and take photos and videos with lots of iconic characters.

©Jim’s Creature Shop

Jason Weber, the shop’s creative supervisor, said, “There is a level of expertise here that we’re sharing. It’s not just going to a pop-up store or something like that…Things are made one-of-a-kind, made by hand with artisans who have been trained for years and decades.”

©Jim Henson

The tour is 80 minutes long, and visitors start in a room created specifically for the tour that is filled with real props and puppets. This is where guests can take those fun photos, as the rest of the tour is actually filled with projects still being created! In this room, some of the standouts are Oscar the Grouch surrounded by trash, a large black throne from The Dark Crystal film, and a full-sized working puppet of Junior Gorg, a giant from the movie Fraggle Rock.

©Jim Henson

This is a truly incredible experience where you get to see firsthand how these iconic puppets come to life and see how some fan-favorite Henson films were created.