Rain Pryor and Brian Henson

THE CAST: Brian Henson, son of the Muppets' creator Jim Henson, who took on his father's legacy by becoming co-CEO of the Jim Henson Company, and Rain Pryor, the daughter of iconic comedian Richard Pryor, who followed her dad into showbiz as an actress, comedian and singer.

RAIN PRYOR: You know, I think my dad was in a Muppets movie...

BRIAN HENSON: He was. He was in the first Muppets movie, I was there. Richard was in the park fair scene.

RP: With the balloons.

BH: Richard is selling balloons and cons Gonzo into buying a whole bunch of them to impress his girlfriend. Then Gonzo grabs hold of the balloons and takes off.

RP: I do remember that.

BH: And the next five minutes of the movie is everyone chasing Gonzo! We were so impressed when Richard came on set, everybody was such a fan.

RP: I was raised on the Muppets, basically. Sesame Street too. My mom took me to the studio once and I met Big Bird; I flipped out, I've never been so excited in all my life. But I didn't understand because why he wasn't moving.

BH: He was hanging on a rack from the ceiling, right?

RP: I was like, "I don't get it!"

BH: I guess it was when The Muppet Show came on air that suddenly my dad became really famous, and it was weird.

RP: Because everyone knew you because of that?

BH: Yeah, and because my dad didn't realise he was a celebrity. I don't think he ever got it.

RP: Did people always ask you, "Is your house magical? Is your house filled with Muppets?"

BH: Yeah

RP: And was it?

BH: No! Dad was a workaholic, he would go to work, the Muppets weren't at the house.

RP: People used to ask me: "Does your dad do stand-up at home? What material does he do around the house?" And I'm like: "None, really". I mean, he was funny, but it wasn't like that.

BH: But your dad worked all the time, which was the same with mine. So a lot of my relationship with my dad was hanging out at studios. He used to let me make little background puppets, the ones that didn't really matter.

RP: Wow, really?

BH: He would say: "Hey, we've got this singing vegetable thing coming up," and the [work]shop would have made five or six good singing vegetables, but if we could make another bad potato, he'd throw that in.

RP: We auditioned for a couple of our dad's films, but we never got in. Except my sister once got a walk-on part.

BH: Your dad was a huge star when you were a kid, what was that like?

RP: It's funny because as a kid I really didn't realise he was famous. I liked riding in limousines and wearing fancy clothes and going to parties, but I didn't grab the concept that he was famous until I was in high school. One day we went out to eat and a guy walked up and said: "God, I love you, Mr Cosby! It just blew me away. We were cracking up, and my dad signed the autograph as Bill Cosby.

BH: I rebelled for a little while, I didn't want to do what my dad did. I guess like anybody in your teenage years you're struggling to find your own identity, and walking around as Jim Henson's son wasn't enough. But when I turned 17, 18, I realised that I really did love what he was doing.

RP: So did you go work for your dad?

BH: No, I worked for other people at first. My dad was careful not to give us any special privileges. If I worked on vacation, he made a point of not paying me. When we did The Great Muppet Caper, I did the marionette bicycle scene, we had to rehearse for weeks, we were puppeteering from cranes, and I got paid a dollar! But later it meant that I got to work a lot with him and we got really close, that was really important to me.

RP: For me, my dad wanted me to do stand-up, I was like: "Are you crazy? There's no possible way I could ever be good at that." My solo show is music and acting, with some comedy in it. But it was really difficult for me to break away from the association with who he is.

BH: Because people automatically assume that you're a comedian?

RP: Yeah. This is about me saying: "This is who Rain is." But I do get compared to him a lot. I'm all right with that now, I wasn't for a while.

BH: I think I was the same way, I used to be sensitised to it.

RP: Do you ever get compared?

BH: All the time. Look, I do puppets; I'm here with a puppet show. It's really an adult show, more adult than my dad would have gone, and I'm sure some people out there will get pissed off at me for it. I'm going as adult as your dad did! But it's as irreverent as my dad was in his time.

RP: I think you can't deny who you are, it's in you.

BH: I try not to do quite the same thing as he did. But I remember all his lessons - he gave us little lessons all the time.

RP: My dad didn't have lessons! Except maybe, "Don't sleep with a whore, you get crabs!"

BH: Having a very famous parent who is in basically the same field means the doors open for you, which is terrific, but the response tends to be more critical.

RP: Yes, definitely.

BH: You get more opportunities, but you'd better not f*** up!

RP: That is so true.

• Jim Henson's Puppet Improv Adults Only! and Jim Henson's Puppet Improv - For Kids! is at the Assembly @ Assembly Hall until 20 August. Rain Pryor performs in her own cabaret show at Gilded Balloon Teviot until 27 August, and stars as Ella Fitzgerald in Ella, Meet Marilyn, at the Pleasance Dome until 28 August