A closer look
Jim Henson's Creature Shop revolutionized sci-fi television with Pilot and Rygel, but the magic of these expressive alien puppets hid immense human suffering. To operate Rygel—a three-foot-tall deposed alien monarch—one puppeteer handled the mouth and head, two others controlled the arms via rods, and a fourth sat off-screen remotely operating the animatronic eyes and eyebrows. The operators were often jammed under metal floor grates for hours in the stifling Australian studio heat, all to deliver lines about space politics and bodily functions.
