The Untold Truth Of The Dark Crystal

In 1982, Jim Henson proved he was more than just "the Muppet guy" with an epic fantasy about the struggle for power and survival in a fantastical land. Decades later, the story is continuing with a Netflix miniseries, so there's no better time to delve into the untold truth of The Dark Crystal.

Perhaps the least popular sketch in Saturday Night Live history is the Season 1 recurring bit "The Land of Gorch." It featured fantastical and grotesque monster creations with names like Scred and Ploobis. Although it stemmed from the minds of Jim Henson and company, it lacked that signature Muppet magic. After one year, all parties involved decided it would be best to end "The Land of Gorch."

While "Gorch" wound up a bizarre footnote in SNL lore, it directly inspired one of Henson's most triumphant works. In the seventies, Henson developed a deep appreciation for the work of fantasy illustrator Brian Froud, an English artist with an affinity for bringing exquisitely detailed fantasy beings to the page. Around the time that Henson got into Froud's work, Froud was thinking about turning his creatures into a puppet-based film, so he happily accepted a 1977 invite from Henson to visit his workshop in England. Once Froud saw the highly detailed "Land of Gorch" puppets, he knew Henson was the man to bring his illustrations to life, and the two creators agreed to make a fantasy film together.

The Dark Crystal is one of the first live-action narrative films with no visible humans in the cast. It's also one of the few in which characters speak languages invented by linguists specifically for the project. Children's fantasy author Alan Garner provided some helpful suggestions for The Dark Crystal team based on some ancient languages. For example, a language created for the Skeksis was based on an offshoot of ancient Egyptian. The one used by the Pod People is a take on Serbo-Croatian, spoken in parts of the former Yugoslavia. Keep watching the video to see the untold truth of The Dark Crystal!

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The Land of Gorch | 0:19
The Dark Crystal's languages | 1:26
Adding some English | 2:35
The sequel that never was | 3:29
At long last, back to Thra | 4:39