I’m sure we’re all familiar with this dark crystalSo we know Jim Henson can be weird and tackle a little more mature subject matter. But there’s nothing in his oeuvre that’s as mind-bending as Muppetless cube. This 1969 teleplay was produced for the NBC anthology series experiments in televisionWhich included, appropriately enough, various experimental films, dramas and documentaries. One episode featured Marshall McLuhan explaining his oft-quoted theory that “the medium is the message.”
However, even amidst all these odds, Jim Henson’s cube To stand out. It’s a 53-minute bottle film – which takes place almost entirely in a single room. A man wakes up in a white cube, unsure where he is or how he got there. There are no windows, no door. Just white paneled walls.
It doesn’t take long for someone to open up a section of the wall and bring out a stool for our unnamed man in the cube. But when he closes the “door” behind him, our hero can’t open it back up. And thus begins the parade of people, dozens of whom take turns going in and out of the various invisible doors of the Titanic Cube.
The conversation starts off quite awkwardly – why is there strawberry jam on the stool? Who is this woman who claims to be the hero’s wife, even though he doesn’t recognize her? But they move forward rapidly, questioning the nature of reality, our hero’s sanity, and raising questions about what the Cube really is. Jim Henson himself also makes an uncredited cameo as the voice of the gorilla in a tutu.
The room around him inexplicably changes as people come and go, deliver goods to the man, tease him, or even try to seduce him. Beds, sofas, cabinets full of wine and other furniture mysteriously appear. A full band arrives and sing a song with the line “You won’t be able to get out until you’re dead”, before it is revealed that it is a recording as the record pauses over the word “dead” repeatedly.
cube Offers many questions but no answers. Is man living in imitation? Is he on TV? Are the people around him actors? Is any of this real? Does matter exist?
Also in a post-Twilight Zone World, cube Feels distinctly bizarre, similar to a modern dystopian anthology series. black Mirror than anything else. Although it is not truly lost media, it remains relatively obscure. It only aired twice, has a sold-out DVD listing on Amazon, and rarely appears on streaming services in any official capacity.
Your best bet at this point is a pair of YouTube uploads, both embedded above. One of these is a very high quality transfer of the black-and-white kinescope film with remastered audio. Unfortunately, it also removes most of the songs due to copyright. The second upload is in full color and retains the song, but is generally of lower quality with poor image and audio. Whichever you choose, it’s a wild and thoroughly enjoyable ride that shows just how twisted Jim Henson’s mind can get.
<a href