Jim Henson's Mother Goose Stories

Production

The show combined live child actors with intricate puppets built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The puppeteers Mike Quinn, Mak Wilson, and Karen Prell brought various characters to life, while Angie Passmore played the title role of Mother Goose. Fourteen of the episodes were taken from L. Frank Baum's 1897 book Mother Goose in Prose, and the rest were new stories created specifically for the series. The characters' overall look was inspired by the artwork of Maxfield Parrish, who illustrated Baum's book. The project was initially planned as a joint effort between the Jim Henson Company and Television South West for British television, and it first aired on Children's ITV in the UK in 1988. A pilot episode featuring "Humpty Dumpty" was made in 1987, along with other episodes. The series was considered for a network slot that same year but was not picked up. Its first release came in 1988 as a home video in Jim Henson's Play-Along Video line, which included three episodes—"Little Miss Muffet," "A Song of Sixpence," and "Boy Blue"—plus original linking footage. The series eventually became a broadcast show on The Disney Channel starting August 25, 1990, marking the first new Henson television series to debut after Jim Henson's death. It ran for three production seasons, totaling thirty-nine eight-minute episodes. For Disney Channel airings, these were grouped into thirteen half-hour episodes, each containing three stories with their own opening and closing credits. The show aired on Disney Channel until 1993. As of July 2025, it is available on the Yippee TV streaming service. Brian Henson directed the first and third seasons, one of his earliest directing jobs for the company, while Michael Kerrigan directed the second season. Together, Henson and Kerrigan won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Children's Program. A video version was also released in Australia by CEL Home Video, alongside other Jim Henson Company titles.