The Cube is Jim Henson’s little-known proto-Black Mirror masterpiece

The article revisits The Cube, a little-known 1969 Jim Henson teleplay made for NBC’s experimental anthology series Experiment in Television. Unlike Henson’s Muppet work, the 53-minute bottle film explores a man trapped in a mysterious cube through surreal, unsettling encounters.

The piece highlights how Henson’s reputation for family entertainment can obscure his more experimental and adult-leaning work. The Cube also shows that themes now associated with Black Mirror—media anxiety, confinement, and existential unease—were being explored on television decades earlier.