It’s tough not to love Jim Henson’s creations. The man behind the Muppets, Sesame Street and plenty of other colorful, scraggly puppet monsters has sewn himself in the cultural fabric of the last five decades, and now a group of 22 students from UW-Stout will get a chance to rub shoulders at the late Henson’s own workshop.

A new course from UW-Stout – “Digital Puppetry Workshop and Studio Experience in LA” – will send the students to California this January to be critiqued and workshopped on their own 3D characters, animation, digital environments and games they will create back here in snowy Wisconsin.

This is class represents a new endeavor for the Jim Henson Company as well as for UW-Stout. The course was spawned when Dave Beck – an assistant professor in the School of Art and Design – met the Henson Company’s Interactive Producer Anna Jordan-Douglass during the national E3 video game conference in June. Beck pitched the idea for taking a class to LA and the rest is movie magic.

Beyond working with The Jim Henson Company, students will get to take in the rest of LA, visiting other gaming and film studios in the mecca of all things media. The rest of LA might want to take notice too: UW-Stout’s Game Design and Development program has been on fire lately, including a big win as the collegiate co-champion at the E3 video game conference.

The class filled up quickly this winter, with students clamoring to get out of the Wisconsin cold and, er, probably learn something too.