As the world this weekend marked what would have been his 80th birthday, locals record how Jim Henson’s “rainbow connection” with Bermuda began before a single Sesame Street episode had even aired.

In the late Sixties the menagerie of hand-operated characters Mr Henson called Muppets — a name he coined by combining the words “marionettes” and “puppets” — were only known from occasional appearances on TV variety programmes, talk shows and commercials.

One day in 1969 Bermudian Michael Frith, then employed at New York publishing house Random House as, among other things, editor of Dr Seuss’ children’s books, returned to his Brooklyn home from the office and asked six-year-old daughter Callee how her day had gone.

She solemnly informed him she had spent it on an imaginary Manhattan thoroughfare in the company of a seven-foot yellow bird and a permanently grumpy green curmudgeon who lived in a garbage can. Mr Frith was intrigued. ”Well,” he later recalled, “THAT was the beginning of the end.”

It turned out the father of young Callee Frith’s best friend was a television director.

He had taken the girls along to a TV studio that day to watch as he worked the pilot for an experimental educational children’s programme called Sesame Street, a show featuring an entire supporting cast of the Muppets Mr Henson had first started to develop in the 1950s. In fact Kermit The Frog, the flagship Muppet character voiced by Mr Henson who was propelled to international fame by Sesame Street, had actually made his debut in 1955 in a five-minute afternoon puppet sketch show which aired on NBC’s local affiliate in Washington DC.

Mr Frith decided there was a marked degree of crossover between the new PBS TV production and Random House’s own educational initiatives for preschoolers. So a collaboration ensued.

And not long after his daughter had first encountered the felt-and-foam rubber characters and their soft-spoken, Mississippi-born, Maryland-raised creator, her father found himself working with puppeteer, songwriter, filmmaker, artist and general purpose visionary Jim Henson on a joint line of Random House and Sesame Street educational publications.

“More and more of those projects followed, and the calls from Jim began,” recalled Mr Frith. “Would I mind doing some character sketches for a ‘special’ he was doing? Sure. Would I help him with the redesign of a new Sesame Street character, Mr Snuffleupagus? Sure. Would I come and work at Muppets?”

Initially Mr Frith was reluctant to give up his job at Random House where he had been employed since graduating from Harvard University in 1963.

“But Jim was relentless,” he said.

In December 1975 Mr Frith joined Jim Henson’s New York-based operation as art director, a role which encompassed everything from creating new Muppet characters to presiding over a whole range of licensed products ranging from toys to calendars to posters.

He was named executive vice-president of Henson Associates! (HA!) in 1978, and executive vice-president and director of creative services in 1985, a position he retained until 1995 when he left the company to pursue other ventures.

Mr Frith has spoken movingly of the years he spent at Henson Associates!, now owned by Walt Disney, and “of the extraordinary people with whom I got to work …

“What amazing opportunities. What an amazing group of people. Everything was new, everything was being invented as we went: it was a time that could not be — nor ever will be — replicated.”

Mr Frith was instrumental in helping to create a host of new characters, including The Great Gonzo (who he has described as “the product of an illicit liaison between a nearsighted turkey and a pencil sharpener”) and imperishable porcine diva Miss Piggy, for the 1976-81 Muppet Show TV series produced by a Henson team operating in the UK. But Mr Frith may be best remembered as one of the co-creators of the later Henson show Fraggle Rock, which was heavily coloured by his own Bermudian childhood.

“Jim Henson gave us this blank cheque almost to come up with this television series that brings about peace in our time, save the world and a few things like that,” Mr Frith has only half-jokingly said of that 1983-87 programme, which touched on themes of prejudice, social conflict, the ecology and the interrelatedness and interdependence of all living things. The show was loosely inspired by the discovery of Bermuda’s crystal caves in 1907 and the realisation a fantastical subterranean realm existed just out of eyeshot of mundane day-to-day reality.

Many of the fable-like show’s settings, environmental tropes and even some of characterisations were also drawn from Mr Frith’s memories of growing up in 1940s and Fifties Bermuda.

In fact in 1980, just after the last Muppet Show episode had wrapped and shortly before Fraggle Rock went into production, Mr Henson brought his entire US and British teams to Bermuda for a companywide retreat to discuss the company’s new ventures.

“There was a lot to reflect on and a lot to look forward to,” says the Henson Associates! official history. “Along with an overview of what had come before, each division would report on their current projects and breakout production groups would look ahead to The Great Muppet Caper and The Dark Crystal movies, both in pre-production.

“Once everyone arrived in Bermuda, Jim showed highlights from The Muppet Show and test footage from the upcoming feature films. He presented a historical overview and then everyone broke into small groups to discuss expectations and then move into ‘focus seminars’ to discuss things like: ‘What is the contribution/mission of Muppets in the world today?’ and ‘Creativity — what it means to me, how best to achieve it?’ …

“The whole thing was capped by a gala dinner with dancing to the Bermuda All Stars steel drum band. A final session titled ‘A Look Toward The Future’ was led by Jim before departure. While Jim hosted subsequent companywide meetings … the Bermuda meeting was long remembered as an incredibly special coming together of the Henson team.”

Jim Henson died suddenly of complications from pneumonia on May 16, 1990. He was just 53 years old. The whole world mourned.

Speaking at Mr Henson’s memorial service held at New York’s St John’s Cathedral in New York on May 21, 1990 Mr Frith said: of his long-time friend and creative partner: “The length of strength of his own talents is so astonishing: writer, artist, designer, director and producer with an absolutely staggering list of credits.

“… We shall not look upon your like again, Jim. Like every great artist you’ll always be with us in the work: work so filled with joy and optimism, work so filled with the belief in the eventual triumph of the creative spirit over all else, that like all great art it reminds us that we each have our own capacity for triumph that brings us all a little closer to the angels.

“For this, Jim, we love you.”