Jim Henson Hour: Monster Maker (LD to DVD)

Monster Maker is a 45-minute television special, adapted by Matthew Jacobs from the
novel of the same name by Nicholas Fisk. From Jim Henson's London-based Henson
Associates, it was produced by Duncan Kenworthy and directed by Giles Foster.

Teenager Matt Banting (Kieran O'Brien)'s greatest dream is to work with a famous
but eccentric special effects and creature creator named Chancey Bellows (Harry
Dean Stanton). Matt gets more than he bargained for when one of the creatures, the
giant dragon-like Ultragorgon (Michael Gambon), takes Matt under his wing. Matt is
forced to confront his inner monsters while working out his issues with his father.

Brian Henson makes a cameo performing the slerks.

This is a transfer of the rare Japanese laserdisc of Monster Maker, with the
original English audio added back from several sources, and one shot (of a credit
card) restored from the English version.

Notably, this is the "Jim Henson Hour" version of Monster Maker, with an
introduction and outro by Jim Henson and his friends, as aired on NBC in 1989.

Behind the scenes footage is also included, including a shortened (4-minute) edit
of a 1991 ITV Docurama special, "Hands up for More."

Arguably, The Jim Henson Hour showed the Muppet team at their creative peak, with
remarkable live-action fantasy like The Storyteller sharing space with Kermit and
the Muppet gang. However, the series failed in the ratings and was quickly
cancelled. Although certain Jim Henson projects from this era have made it to DVD
or VHS [The Storyteller, Song of the Cloud Forest, Monster Maker, Miss Piggy's
Hollywood], no complete and uncut Jim Henson Hour episode has ever been released on
DVD or any other format - with two known exceptions.

KSS Films in Japan released a very rare laserdisc of Jim Henson's Dog City, which
was dubbed in Japanese but otherwise contained the full Jim Henson Hour episode,
including ten minutes with Kermit and company.

KSS Films also released the Jim Henson Hour version of Monster Maker, and with only
one shot substituted, that's what you see here.

Monster Maker (minus Jim Henson's introductions) is available in better quality on
Netflix. However, we were unable to capture this version with a satisfactory or
sensible frame rate. There were all sorts of playback issues and vertical frame
tearing. We decided to preserve this laserdisc instead.

The laserdisc, and perhaps the Netflix version, could be improved in quality by
someone who is very good with filtering in AviSynth, VirtualDub and so on. But this
will do for now.

So here we are then. The Jim Henson Hour: Monster Maker.

Harry Dean Stanton as Chancey Bellow
Kieran O'Brien as Matt Banting
George Costigan as Father
Amanda Dickinson as Mother
Alison Steadman as Perriwinkle
Grant Bardsley as Ben
Bill Moody as Reg
Matthew Scurfield as Vaughn
Jonathan Coy as Teacher
Michael Gambon as Ultragorgon (voice)

Ultragorgon operated by Martin Anthony, Tony Ashton, Michael Bayliss, Marcus
Clarke, Sue Dacre, David Greenaway, Brian Henson, and Christopher Leith