Walking into “The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited” at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, I gasped at a celebrity sighting in the first gallery. There — in all his green, polyfoam glory — was Kermit the Frog.

The character is as identified with its creator as Mickey Mouse is to Walt Disney. Since his first television appearance in 1955, Kermit has become a symbol for both Henson’s artistry and his ability to give his creations life beyond any one medium. With his hand raised in a wave, I almost expected the puppet to greet me with a cheery “Hi-ho” in the voice Henson originated.

“Imagination Unlimited” is filled with moments like that for fans, like me, who grew up immersed in Henson’s universe. The exhibitions includes 25 original puppets from projects including “Sesame Street,” “Fraggle Rock,” “The Dark Crystal,” “Labyrinth” and, of course, “The Muppet Show.” Yes, that means Count Von Count, Grover, Rowlf, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker as well as Miss Piggy and Fozzie (in Muppet babies form) — the gang’s all here.

But it wasn’t just my inner child that got to “meet the Muppets” with glee. With sequel-streaming series to “The Dark Crystal” (Netflix) and “Fraggle Rock” (Apple TV+) released in recent years, as well as most of the Muppet film and television catalog now streaming on Disney+, Henson’s work remains as relevant to childrenandadults as ever. On a recent visit, one such child (an actual child, not my inner one) was apoplectic as he stood in front of “Sesame Street” puppets Bert and Ernie. But don’t worry, even while sobbing, it was clear his tears came from a place of joy at getting to be up close and personal with the 53-year-old TV characters.

That childhood connection was true for CJM staff as well.

“This show, in terms of the personal for me, is incredibly exciting and nostalgic,” said Heidi Rabben, CJM’s senior curator. “But it’s also such an incredible opportunity to learn about Jim Henson as an adult, having grown up with all of the things he produced and having had such a close relationship to all of it as a major Henson consumer as a child.”

Although Henson was not Jewish, Rabben said that the CJM saw his work as a fit for the museum because many of his projects reflect the values oftikkun olam(Hebrew for “repair”), a concept seen in Reform Judaism as a desire to improve the world through personal action. Henson also had several significant Jewish collaborators, most notably puppeteer and director — and voice of Miss Piggy — Frank Oz, and “The Muppet Show” producer Lord Lew Grade.

“Inclusivity, embracing difference and kindness — all of those things are in line with my dad’s primary motivations and many of his collaborators,” Cheryl Henson, daughter of Henson and Jane Nebel and president of the Jim Henson Foundation, told me by phone from New York. “Whether it’s ‘Sesame Street’ or ‘The Muppet Show,’ the cast of characters are wildly different. They can argue, Miss Piggy can karate-chop Kermit, or Ernie and Bert can be such different personalities, but they really care about each other and look after each other.”

Henson is one of those rare cultural phenomena whose influence reaches you when young and can continue well past the age when you put aside childhood interests. Viewings of “The Muppet Show” or the three cinematic Muppet films Henson worked on before his death in 1990, at age 53 from complications from pneumonia, show sophisticated wit, irony and breaking of the fourth wall that make them worth revisiting as an adult. In all his puppet creations, Henson and his team physically crafted and scripted such fully developed characters that, even when inserted into the parameters of another story (like the Muppet take on Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” or Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”), they still retained their core essence.

But the exhibition is more than just Henson’s greatest hits. The show, originally presented at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, delves deeply into his creative process and highlights how ahead of the culture he was in some respects. From his early work in advertising in the 1950s and ’60s to fantasy films like “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth” in the ’80s, you see the evolution of both the forms of the puppets themselves and how Henson used puppetry in storytelling.

你甚至瞥见亨森的一些团体nature characters took on media lives of their own. For example, like many celebrities, Miss Piggy “wrote” her own autobiography, “Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life,” in the ’80s. A copy of the book is featured in the exhibition, leading me to wonder if, in some ways, Piggy might have been a kind of precursor to influencers with her penchant for self-promotion and aggrandizement.

Beyond the puppets, visitors also get a look at other projects, including early concepts like Henson’s unrealized nightclub Cyclia. The venue would have projected original film footage onto faceted walls and the ceiling with an original soundtrack and live dancers.

“He’s doing this in the late ’60s, and this is exactly the kind of stuff that’s being produced right now with teamLab and ‘Immersive Van Gogh’ that have become such a huge thing in the last decade,” said Rabben, referring to the “immersive art” experiences at the Asian Art Museum and SVN West, the latter of which is still on view.

Another avant-garde project, Henson’s 1965 Oscar-nominated short film, “Time Piece,” is also on view, which features Henson running from surreal images of clocks meant to symbolize the passage of time.

但在谢丽尔·亨森的个人喜爱的物品in the exhibition are a trio of puppets made in the image of her father, Oz and Jerry Nelson that appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“They were the lead puppeteers at the time,” she said. “There’s only one of each puppet in existence, and they’re so fragile they might not travel on future tours.”

One of the exhibition’s final rooms features materials related to “The Dark Crystal” and “Labyrinth,” films that initially struggled to find audiences because of their darker themes and are radically different from the more wholesome tone of theMuppets. In addition to puppets of Jen, Kira and Aughra from “The Dark Crystal” and toy props of Firey, Ludo, Lancelot and Jareth from “Labyrinth” are costumes worn by David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly in the latter film’s masquerade ballroom scene. Appropriately, the two outfits enchantingly seem to dance in their rotating case.

“It’s kind of miraculous,” said Cheryl Henson, who created puppets for both films now considered cult classics. “When they first came out, they were not successful and both movies felt very, very personal to me, and they were extremely personal to my dad. It is extraordinary that they have found their audience.”

In spite of Henson’s fame during his lifetime and many of his characters’ continuing status as pop culture icons, there is a quality of rediscovery to “Imagination Unlimited.” Henson’s puppets were so memorable that they may have overshadowed their creator, but at the CJM we have an opportunity to go beyond the felt-and-fleece characters to the flesh-and-blood artist.

While being up close with the Muppets and other characters was thrilling to me long after childhood, as an adult I was able to appreciate a larger swath of Jim Henson’s body of work. Any artist who can get an adult to gasp at the mere sight of a puppet must have created something powerful.

“The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination”:11 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. Through Aug. 14. $16. Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission St., S.F. 415-655-7888.www.thecjm.org