From Charter 77 to Jim Henson’s studio: Jitka Exler’s journey to Sesame Street and The Muppet Show
Jitka Exler has enjoyed great success in the US, designing and making puppet characters for TV hits The Muppet Show and Sesame Street and working for major toy manufacturers. Exler had been forced to leave her native Czechoslovakia after signing the Charter 77 human rights document at the age of 19. The artist currently has a joint exhibition at the Czech Center New York.
You’re originally from Karlovy Vary. What was your introduction to art as a child?
“I think I developed my love of art waiting for my mother when I was very small, around four years old, in front of the gallery in Karlovy Vary.”
“I was looking in the window and it was full of beautiful paintings, Adolf Born illustrations, ceramics by [Jan] Kutálek and lots of other stuff.”
“Later on I had a friend, Hanka, whose mom and aunt were painters.”
“Her mother enrolled her in an art programme at a school in Ostrov and I wanted to be in that school as well.”
“My parents didn’t know anything about it, so I enrolled myself. I went to that school for another nine years, getting a report card in, like, drawing, sculpting, tapestries, ceramics – all kinds of stuff.”
“And I loved it.”
After art school you worked at the famous animation studio Bratři v triku in Prague. What exactly were you doing there, and how was that experience?
“After school I started to work at a studio, just drawing outlines and colouring and all that stuff.”
“And one day Mr. [Eduard] Hofman, who invented Pan Vajíčko and Večerníček, came over. He said, I like your work, why don’t you come to Barrandov and be with us?”
“So I had to go through a three-day talent test. Then they hired me and I was doing animation.”
That’s incredible. That was one of the most important animation studios in the country in those days.
“I absolutely loved it. But the problem was that I signed Charter 77 and basically the government forced me to leave the country.”
“The government forced me to leave the country. I didn’t want to – I had the best job in the world.”
“I didn’t want to leave at all – I had the best job in the world.”
“But after a while I had to escape, and I escaped.”
You signed Charter 77 at the age of 19 or so. What motivated you to take that step at such a young age?
“Well, I was against communism as a young student.”
“My boyfriend signed it as soon as he turned 18. I signed it at 19, because I was afraid they were going to throw me out of the school, which happened anyway.”
“We had a circle of friends, dissidents we knew and people who were involved in Charter 77.”
“We met [leading dissident] Dana Němcová and other people in Ostrov, and in Prague. From Dana Němcová we would pick up new documents linked to Charter 77, and we were taking care of duplicating them.”
“We were pretty involved. We also used to pick up [unauthorised] Vokno magazine from František Stárek and we had a lot of friends who were involved in Charter 77.”
“We had meetings, incredible meetings, about the whole situation. There was the [underground] Festival of the Second Culture at Nová Víska, at František Stárek’s place.”
“We did a lot of things. But after we got our own StB [secret] police officer, who was following us all the time, it became kind of unbearable.”
You left in 1980. You escaped through Yugoslavia and then eventually spent time in a camp for refugees in Austria before moving to the States. What were your beginnings in America like?
“[Laughs] We got off the subway on 28th Street and Madison Avenue [in NYC] and I felt like I was in a movie.”
“The sky was a beautiful blue I’d only seen in movies, because in Czechoslovakia there were always clouds; there was almost never such a sky colour.”
“Of course you look up, at the skyscrapers. It was overwhelming to cross the street, because of the taxi drivers.”
“But also I had never seen a homeless person before and I did in New York, that same day.”
What about your first working experiences in New York?
“I spoke German, Russian and Czech. I hardly spoke any English.”
“There was a charitable organisation that was supposed to help us to get a job. They asked me what I was doing and said I had been at Bratři v triku and they said, You aren’t in California, you’re in New York – what else can you do?”
“I said that I could sew, when they asked me if I could. I was very handy, though I hadn’t really been sewing anything, and they found me a job.”
“At the same time, we were doing a black light theatre with some people from Austria.”
“We were working on a show and rehearsing at Sokol on 71st Street in New York City and I was also going to sew garments that were advertised in Vogue magazine, after never sewing in my life.”
“In jail I found a picture of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, and later when I was in New York I learned where the headquarters of The Muppet Show was.”
“They asked me if I could do it. I didn’t understand and just nodded and that was it [laughs].”
“I quit, I think, seven times, because we were going to play with the theatre but the lady was so impressed with me that she said she would always hire me back.”
“Back when I was in jail, I found in a German magazine a picture of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, and then later when I was in New York I learned where the headquarters of The Muppet Show was.”
“I found the number in the Yellow Pages and I called them, and they invited me for a talent test, which was for two weeks.”
I wanted to ask you about this, because I understand you went through something called the Muppet University.
“That’s what it was. That was the talent test.”
“We were supposed to draw a character and then make it.”
“Coming from cartoons, I was used to being able to do anything you wanted in drawings.”
“So I drew a character with a zigzag mouth and they told me it wasn’t possible to do that. But I said I thought I could do it without any problem.”
“So we went to see an art director of Sesame Street and she had actually been in Czechoslovakia in 1968, visiting Jiří Trnka’s studio.”
“She asked where I was from and when I said Czechoslovakia she said, Let her do it.”
“So I did, and they were pleased with the results.”
“We were supposed to make one puppet and I made three, in those two weeks. And they still use them till today, which is very flattering for me.”
The Jim Henson Company famously created Sesame Street and The Muppets, shows that were part of the lives of many, many millions of children, including me. What specifically were you doing at the Jim Henson Company?
“In the beginning I was creating the puppets. And then they let me design some of them and make them as well.”
Did you work directly with Jim Henson himself?
“Yes indeed, very much so. I created these abstract puppets, which they called Muppet Primitives.”
“It was a special project that Jim Henson came up with, because he wanted something different. We could go to museums for inspiration, or anywhere we wanted, and then make these puppets.”
“They got very good publicity in the New York Times Magazine and Jim Henson really liked it then. He wanted to use my puppets; there were four people involved.”
What do you think was the secret of the massive success of the Jim Henson Company? As I say, they really touched the lives of so many millions of children.
“First of all, the success came from the idea that learning is fun. And it’s visual.”
“The second thing is they were coloured people – blue, green, yellow, pink, whatever – and it was basically for everyone.”
“Then the humour. Learning, education and humour, the fun of it.”
“Everyone who was working on the show loved it, and everyone did it with love and energy, to make the show good.”
“Jim Henson had created Kermit the Frog a long time before I came, and did movies like Labyrinth, which was not as successful but was really great in terms of the puppetry and the visuals; they got David Bowie.”
“The same went for The Dark Crystal.”
You must have felt extremely successful, working on these shows, having arrived in the States with basically nothing and then being at the heart of this amazing organisation?
“What was really interesting was working on the show with all the movie stars. There were a lot of guests on Sesame Street but I remember one of the best ones was Lou Diamond Phillips, from the movie La Bamba.”
“I spoke some English, not very much. But I worked in a puppet company, where you can actually hide behind the puppets.”
“Also there was Celia Cruz, whose energy filled up the whole studio – this woman was absolutely amazing.”
“I spoke some English, not very much. But I worked in a puppet company, where you can actually hide behind the puppets.”
You’ve worked with many other firms, including TV stations like Nickelodeon and Disney and toymakers like Mattel and Fisher-Price. What kind of projects were you mainly working on for those companies?
“I also worked for Saturday Night Live. I did commercials for AT&T and MCI, which was also fun.”
“For Nickelodeon I worked on Hocle and Stoty puppets. Then I did the Bear and the Big Blue House toy line.”
“I did all the Disney characters, all the Warner Bros. characters that exist, like Looney Tunes.”
“I did a lot of them. I think I have one of the biggest libraries of patterns of characters from Disney, Nickelodeon, the Muppets, Warner Bros. and other companies.”
Do you mind me asking, did this work make you wealthy?
“You know, in America work for hire is work for hire.”
“It paid well. Toy companies paid very well.”
“I had a family – I was a single mom for a long time – so I was lucky that I could actually stay home and, after all these experiences, be with my kids and do the work for all these people.”
“In the meantime, I was doing my own theatre and I always painted, throughout my entire life, and I was sculpting as well.”
“So when I finished with toys I started to sculpt for architectural firms, doing Art Nouveau ornaments and stuff.”
“I’ve always loved Alphonse Mucha and still today I have posters of his that I bought when I was still at school.”
“It was really an experience, meeting a lot of interesting people.”
“I was devastated when Jim Henson passed away in 1990. It was the best job I had in the United States.”
“I was friends with Jim Henson and his ex-wife, and even with their daughters and sons, and they took me to a lot of gala programmes, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or the Lincoln Center; special events, like the 40th birthday of Rudolf Nureyev.”
“Everything was fantastic and I was devastated when Jim Henson passed away in 1990. It was the best job I had in the United States.”
Currently you have an exhibition at the Czech Center New York, alongside the artist Jan Kabzan, called Parallel Arrivals. What work of yours is on display in that exhibition?
“Throughout my life, basically I don’t paint what I see, I paint what I feel.”
“Whether I see something or somebody interesting, or it’s my own emotions and feelings – that’s what I paint.”
What does it mean to you to have this exhibition at the Czech Center New York, to get this kind of attention?
“It’s an honour to be in the Czech Center. Because it’s Czech.”
“I lived for 13 years in Manhattan. I was very much involved in the arts in New York City.”
“I moved to Westchester and Connecticut and I continued to see people.”
“In Manhattan there was a fantastic group of artists and we saw each other every weekend. We went to all the galleries, but always the Czech people were… Stano Filko was Slovak – but that didn’t matter, it used to be Czechoslovakia – and he was a great artist and a very good friend of mine, as were others.”
Somebody told me that you’re planning to move back to Czechia after four and a half decades away. Is that the case?
“[Laughs] You know what, it’s true I wanted to move back to Prague, or Karlovy Vary.”
“But, to be honest, I left from a different country, when there was communism, in 1980.”
“And this is a like a whole new world to me. So I think I will take a step back and not make that decision yet.”
“I’m not saying I will never move, but definitely not now.”
“I can’t, because I still have to create and I’m working on several sculptures which I need to finish in the United States.”
“And I just don’t know where I would be, because a lot of people I knew are already all over the world – very few people I know are in the Czech Republic.”
Parallel Arrivals
Czech Center New York
Until March 4, 2026
