desirable time slots in television.
Initially, WRC execs had likely hoped that Jim’s 6:50 performance of
Sam and Friends
would lure in and keep viewers tuned to NBC for the next hour, gently persuading them to sit through
Superman
or
Nat King Cole
, until the 7:45 broadcast of a new fifteen-minute, national nightly news show NBC was working hard to promote:
The Huntley-Brinkley Report. The Huntley-Brinkley Report
had been inserted into the NBC lineup on October 29, 1956, to replace John Cameron Swayze’s flailing
Camel News Caravan
, which had sunk slowly beneath CBS in the ratings. For its new newscast, NBC had gambled on a unique two-man format, with Chet Huntley broadcasting from New York City and David Brinkley from the WRC studios at Wardman Park in Washington—but the wager was proving slow to pay off.
However, in September 1957—as part of the strategy that would eventually make
Huntley-Brinkley
the nation’s most respected and critically acclaimed news broadcast—NBC had decided to move
Huntley-Brinkley
out of its relatively late 7:45 P . M . slot and start the show an hour earlier, having it come on right after most local newscastsso viewers wouldn’t have to wait an hour between local and national news. WRC obligingly shortened its own 6:30 newscast to fifteen minutes, and gave Jim—and
Sam and Friends
—the final five minutes before WRC cut away to the national feed of
Huntley-Brinkley
at 6:45.
It was an unbelievable break, and nearly fifty years later, Jane was still shaking her head in amazement at their luck. “We got the
Huntley-Brinkley
audience,
and
the [
Tonight Show
] audience!” Jane laughed. “I mean, what could be better?… You’d have national news, international news, weather, sports … and Kermit!” As David Brinkley began his broadcasts each evening at 6:45 at Wardman Park, Jim and Jane were several doors down, packing up their Muppets and preparing to return to the studio in five hours for the 11:25 broadcast. WRC anchorman Bryson Rash, who had the opportunity to watch
Sam and Friends
in the studio as he wrapped up the evening news, never ceased to be amazed by Jim’s performance. Jim was “very shy, a retiring sort of person,” recalled Rash. “But he was vigorous and he had a great imagination, of course, and he did a wonderful show.”
Even as the Muppets grew in popularity, so, too, did their performers.
The Washington Post
, for example, was happy to let its readers know thatJane designed most of her own clothes, studied German three nights a week in an adult education course (“because it’s free,” she explained), and lived with a roommate in an apartment with no television. Jim appreciated such press, and teased Jane about the countless photographs that seemed to appear of her with the Muppets. “Why are you having
your
picture taken with all
my
puppets?” Jim would ask in mock annoyance. Likely it was because Jane was the more press-savvy of the two of them; when faced with an interviewer,Jim would usually slouch way down on a chair, his arms folded and long legs crossed in front of him, content to let Jane do the talking. Indeed, of the two of them, Jane was the more bohemian and worldly, the one who lived in an apartment in the District, making pottery, chatting with artists, and cooking for herself, very much grown up and on her own. Jim, meanwhile, still lived rent-free with his parents in the house on suburban Beechwood Road, still sleeping in the same bedroom he had shared with Paul.
Despite their obvious personal chemistry, Jim and Jane’s relationshipremained collegial and strictly professional, likely to the confusion of friends who wondered how two people could work together so intimately, arms often tangled together overhead as they worked from their knees, and yet remain merely co-workers. In fact, both Jim and Jane wereinvolved with other people, with Jane engaged to Bill Schmittmann, a student from American University she had been dating since
Initially, WRC execs had likely hoped that Jim’s 6:50 performance of
Sam and Friends
would lure in and keep viewers tuned to NBC for the next hour, gently persuading them to sit through
Superman
or
Nat King Cole
, until the 7:45 broadcast of a new fifteen-minute, national nightly news show NBC was working hard to promote:
The Huntley-Brinkley Report. The Huntley-Brinkley Report
had been inserted into the NBC lineup on October 29, 1956, to replace John Cameron Swayze’s flailing
Camel News Caravan
, which had sunk slowly beneath CBS in the ratings. For its new newscast, NBC had gambled on a unique two-man format, with Chet Huntley broadcasting from New York City and David Brinkley from the WRC studios at Wardman Park in Washington—but the wager was proving slow to pay off.
However, in September 1957—as part of the strategy that would eventually make
Huntley-Brinkley
the nation’s most respected and critically acclaimed news broadcast—NBC had decided to move
Huntley-Brinkley
out of its relatively late 7:45 P . M . slot and start the show an hour earlier, having it come on right after most local newscastsso viewers wouldn’t have to wait an hour between local and national news. WRC obligingly shortened its own 6:30 newscast to fifteen minutes, and gave Jim—and
Sam and Friends
—the final five minutes before WRC cut away to the national feed of
Huntley-Brinkley
at 6:45.
It was an unbelievable break, and nearly fifty years later, Jane was still shaking her head in amazement at their luck. “We got the
Huntley-Brinkley
audience,
and
the [
Tonight Show
] audience!” Jane laughed. “I mean, what could be better?… You’d have national news, international news, weather, sports … and Kermit!” As David Brinkley began his broadcasts each evening at 6:45 at Wardman Park, Jim and Jane were several doors down, packing up their Muppets and preparing to return to the studio in five hours for the 11:25 broadcast. WRC anchorman Bryson Rash, who had the opportunity to watch
Sam and Friends
in the studio as he wrapped up the evening news, never ceased to be amazed by Jim’s performance. Jim was “very shy, a retiring sort of person,” recalled Rash. “But he was vigorous and he had a great imagination, of course, and he did a wonderful show.”
Even as the Muppets grew in popularity, so, too, did their performers.
The Washington Post
, for example, was happy to let its readers know thatJane designed most of her own clothes, studied German three nights a week in an adult education course (“because it’s free,” she explained), and lived with a roommate in an apartment with no television. Jim appreciated such press, and teased Jane about the countless photographs that seemed to appear of her with the Muppets. “Why are you having
your
picture taken with all
my
puppets?” Jim would ask in mock annoyance. Likely it was because Jane was the more press-savvy of the two of them; when faced with an interviewer,Jim would usually slouch way down on a chair, his arms folded and long legs crossed in front of him, content to let Jane do the talking. Indeed, of the two of them, Jane was the more bohemian and worldly, the one who lived in an apartment in the District, making pottery, chatting with artists, and cooking for herself, very much grown up and on her own. Jim, meanwhile, still lived rent-free with his parents in the house on suburban Beechwood Road, still sleeping in the same bedroom he had shared with Paul.
Despite their obvious personal chemistry, Jim and Jane’s relationshipremained collegial and strictly professional, likely to the confusion of friends who wondered how two people could work together so intimately, arms often tangled together overhead as they worked from their knees, and yet remain merely co-workers. In fact, both Jim and Jane wereinvolved with other people, with Jane engaged to Bill Schmittmann, a student from American University she had been dating since
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