TORONTO — A 47-year-old screenplay by the late Muppets masters Jim Henson and Jerry Juhl is going to be turned into a TV special — and made in Canada, Global News has learned.
The Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow was written in the 1960s but never made it to the small screen. Last October, the story was adapted as a comic book by Roger Langridge.
According to sources, Turkey Hollow will be filmed for television in Nova Scotia this spring using human actors and puppets.
Set in 1968, the story takes place in the fictional New Hampshire town of Turkey Hollow, where a young boy is befriended by several aliens with musical abilities. Trouble ensues when the town’s turkeys go missing.
The show is being produced by the Jim Henson Co. in collaboration with Halifax-based Magic Rock Productions.
Henson, creator of the Muppets, worked on Sesame Street beginning in the 1970s and debuted The Muppet Show in 1976.
Henson also created the made-in-Toronto series Fraggle Rock, which ran from 1983 to 1987.
Juhl was head writer at The Muppet Show and worked as both producer and head writer of Fraggle Rock.
Henson died in 1990 at 53 and Juhl died in 2005 at 67.
Lisa Henson, CEO of the company that bears her father’s name, said the puppets Jim Henson created for Turkey Hollow were “more squirrelly and feral” than his other characters.
“You feel like they could actually skitter into the woods,” she told USA Today last June.
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