Yes, the death of Jim Henson left a hole in the heart of the collective conscious that causes it to wheeze in the diastolic hush.
I remember that I was 12 when he died. It was the first time that I ever cried for somebody that I did not personally know. Granted, I was a kid much given to fits of melancholy. I remember being at an airport with my father some time later waiting for a plane and seeing on the news-stands the cover of the Time magazine which depicted the main Muppet characters and some Sesame Street characters standing all gloomy around an empty director's chair with Jim Henson's name written on it. I cried again.