Did Johnny Carson know what he was getting into when his producers asked Jim Henson to perform without Muppets on his show in February 1974?

By the time of the clip below, Henson and his Muppets Inc. crew were five years into what was becoming a hugely successful partnership with the Children’s Television Workshop on the show that would raise Generation X, Sesame Street.

What better time to do something like, say, adapt electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott’s highly trippy piece, “The Organized Mind” as a short live multimedia stage performance? (By the way, the film playing in the background is apparently Henson’s film adaptation of the same piece of music.)
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Cookie Monster helps train IBM sales staff (1967)
Jim Henson’s “Time Piece”
 
Bonus clip after the jump: “The Paperwork Explosion” another 1967 Henson/Scott collaborative film for IBM…
 

 
Before there were Muppets, there was Jim Henson, experimental film maker:

Time Piece is nine very weird, sort of beatnik minutes of fast-paced, scattered imagery and sounds all set to the beat of a hi-hat.  He makes music out of everyday sounds.  So you get tapping, tick-tocks, footsteps, drumbeats, car zooms, whistles, screeches, pogo sticks, high heels, typewriters, on/off switches, dings, buzzes, bowling balls, elevators, champagne pops, zippers, dogs panting, rocking chairs, beers opening, tea kettles, crackers, coughing, and a shot of Henson painting an elephant pink.  The only word used in the whole thing is ?