Episodes

The Jim Henson Hour pitch is a 12½ minute video hosted by Jim Henson from The NY Muppet Workshop. Surrounded by all sorts of Muppet and Creature Shop creatures from previous productions, Henson explains the early concept of The Jim Henson Hour. The original plan, as Henson explains it, was for the show to have a rotating schedule of four different kinds of episodes; one for each week of the month. The first week would feature a one-hour episode of Jim Henson's The Storyteller. The second week was for Lead Free TV, featuring the characters from the unaired Inner Tube pilot. Henson describes Lead Free TV as "the Muppet Show from the future," full of special effects, rock music, fast-paced comedy and human guest stars. The third week, a Picture Book Special would be featured, in the vein of Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas, The Christmas Toy and The Tale of the Bunny Picnic.

The show is similar in format to the MuppeTelevision segments of The Jim Henson Hour. Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy make brief appearances in the show, but the focus is on the new characters. According to writer David Misch, the pilot was not meant to resemble The Muppet Show; Kermit was merely given a role when it became hard for Henson to sell the series. In the Jim Henson Hour pitch, clips from Inner Tube are presented as "Lead Free TV." Jim Henson describes it as "the Muppet Show from the future," and explains that it is one of the four types of programs in The Jim Henson Hour's proposed rotating schedule. It was planned to have a weekly guest star (John Candy was originally planned to guest star in this pilot, but in the end no guest star appeared). Several scenes from this can be seen in the television special The World of Jim Henson.