Kiss The Girl

College Humour channels The Muppet Show while spoofing a classic scene from The Little Mermaid.

College Humour sends up The Little Mermaid in Kiss The Girl, a hilarious musical parody that's mildly NSFW and entirely inappropriate children. The puppets in the video were designed and built by James Wojtal, who also performed in the video along with Frankie Cordero (see previous post) and Rei Radilla.

Update: Added the rest of the puppeteers (thanks James!).

ABBA Puppets

Four puppets have a "little" problem in this video originally created for the 2004 Eurovision contest

Abba: Our Last Video features "4 small puppets who look very much like the original `70s Swedish supergroup ABBA are try to get a recording contract in Stockholm, Sweden 1974," and with a description like that, honestly, what more do you need to know?

Via Puppeteers Unite.

Singing Piggies

Do a couple of singing pigs seem appropriate for the times?

Swine flu be darned, these lip syncing piggies from Noah Ginex are pretty cute, don't you think? Check out Noah's web site for more of his work.

Puppetables

Puppetables are a series of videos featuring puppets made by German puppet builder extraordinaire Norman Schneider. Due to the language barrier, I really don't know much else about these, but there are three videos in the series, Marie Luise Sparbier, Schildegart Kröt and my personal favourite, Wurmini.

Via Puppeteers Unite.

Jordan Stoltz's Dancing Puppet

Dance *^$&#H Dance is a short music video by Jordan Stoltz.

Dance *^$&#H Dance is a cool little video put together by Minneapolis-based Interactive and Motion Graphics Designer (and puppeteer) Jordan Stoltz. It's simple, but kinda funky. I like it.

"Sour" Hand Shadow Video

Yet another cool puppet video from the land of the rising sun.

I seem to be discovering a lot of Japanese stuff lately for no reason other than Japan is a really, really creative place. The latest is this video for a Japanese band called Sour. The music doesn't do much for me, but it's a very creative use of hand shadows.

Link via Engrish Brog.

Coldplay Puppets in Technicolor

Coldplay's video for Life in Technicolor ii features a puppet version of the band and a traditional Punch and Judy show.

Seems like you're not a decent musical act these days unless you've got yourself a puppet music video. Coldplay is the latest band to follow the trend with Life In Technicolor ii, which is really well done. Be sure to watch it all the way to the end so you don't miss all the cool little details like the puppet roadies.

Special thanks to Felix for the link!

The Whole World and Tally Hall

Tally Hall tapped puppeteer Frankie Cordero to bring to life their latest music video.

American rockers Tally Hall have a new music video, The Whole World and You, directed by puppeteer Frankie Cordero and featuring a large cast of puppeteers that included Alissa Hunnicutt, Ken Berman, Serra Hirsch and Eric Wright. The video has a splendid, handmade look to it and is a real visual treat. Be sure to take a look!

The Weepies

Puppets star in the latest video for folk-pop act The Weepies.

Is it just me, or are puppet music videos becoming all the rage lately? The latest I've seen is Can't Go Back Now by The Weepies.

Via Puppeteers Unite.

Sunday Night Puppet Omnibus

I didn't have time to blog much last week (sorry!). but be sure to check out all of these links, there's been some great stuff going on all over:

• Escape Pod Films - a team that includes Jeremy Westphal of Puppet Rapist (see previous post) - made a funny little short called Get on the Winning Team.
• Chances are you've already seen the video, but how awesome is that Cartoon Network used their Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends Float (populated by a bunch of puppet characters, natch) to stage the ultimate rickroll at last week's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
• Speaking of which, Kermit the Frog performed in the parade too and earlier this month the Muppets took over the Today Show.
• Ryopets is a new puppet podcast from Mexico en Espansol.
• Thin Edge Puppets (Gordon Darrall and Josh Lyon) contributed puppets and puppetry to Canadian "Nerdgrass" band The Gertrudes' new music video Blackbird and the Cedar.
• Finally, it's important to remember that not everybody likes puppets (via Puppet Buzz).

Retro Guitar Puppet Coolness

An anthropomorphic guitar puppet, as seen in a video of Alvino Rey playing a pedal steel guitar.

Here's some cool vintage video of "Alvino Rey playing his pedal steel guitar in an early talk-box-like situation, with an anthropomorphic guitar puppet and a guy in a really odd hat."

`Nuff said.

Via Boing Boing.

We Being Us

We Being Us is a new series of quirky videos on YouTube.

I'm kind of digging We Being Us, a relatively new series of videos on YouTube. They're very simple and have a quirky charm. So far the musical ones are my favourites, especially the descriptively titled Skiddyzoo Makes His Singing Debut.

Go watch a couple and see for yourself.

Honey Honey From Feist and The Old Trouts

The new Feist video Honey Honey was created in collaboration with the Old Trout Puppet Workshop.

Feist's much anticipated video for Honey Honey was released last week. The video features puppetry by The Old Trout Puppet Workshop, one of Canada's most acclaimed puppetry companies.

For more on the Old Trouts visit their web site www.theoldtrouts.org.

Bringing Everyday Objects To Life

Unconventional puppets like this guitar playing coat rack can be brought to life by puppeteers.

Often in film and television puppeteers are called upon to create effects that you might not immediately think of as puppetry. A great example of this is Meaghan Smith's If You Asked Me, which features a team of puppeteers led by Sam Hale (see previous post) bringing everyday objects like a coat rack, a mop and a pair of drumsticks to life on screen.

Rob Saunders Strikes Desert Gold

Desert Gold is the music video directing debut of puppeteer Rob Saunders.

Rob Saunders (see previous post) has directed his first music video, Desert Gold, for the Norwegian band Maika. I love the rod puppetry in it; the puppets look very simple, but they've been staged and shot with some real cinematic flare that's difficult to achieve.

A talented crew of L.A.-based puppeteers worked on this, including puppeteers Greg Ballora (lead puppeteer), B.J. Guyer, Greg Manion, Trey Strokes, and Carol Binion. Sam Hale and Christine Papalexis also worked on it.

19/10/08 Update: I made some minor corrections to the credits.

John McCain Puppet Video Spoof

John McCain sings soulfully in 100 Years To Win.

There is about a month to go until the U.S. election and Peter Orr (better known online by his online nickname "Scary" Larry Wolf) built himself a John McCain puppet and put together a pitch-perfect music video/political spoof about McCain called 100 Years To Win.

14/10/08 Update: In my original post I mistakenly linked to the wrong MySpace page (who knew there were two Scary Larrys?). I've updated the link to point to Peter's profile on imdb.

Ridin' The Rails to Reno

Ridin' the Rails To Reno is a music video for Country Cricket by California's Flexitoon Puppets.

Flexitoon (see previous post) just finished a new music video for a country swing band called Country Cricket. It was designed and directed by Craig Marin and features puppetry by Olga Felgemacher. You can watch Ridin' The Rails To Reno on YouTube.

Special thanks to Craig for sending this in!

Roll Play Rolls in to Season Two

The Canadian series Roll Play aims to get kids up off their couches.

Roll Play (see previous post) is rolling in to its second season on Treehouse TV in Canada. The preschool series features a cast of irrepressible kids and black light puppet characters acting out movement from a mixture of stories and songs. The puppetry on the show is provided by Famous PEOPLE Players with character voices by Canadian puppeteer Marty Stelnick. You can see a music video from the show here.

Roll Plays airs in Canada on Treehouse TV weekdays at 8:25 a.m. and 3:25 p.m., and Sundays at 10:25 a.m.

Morningwood's Sugarbaby

A puppet stars in New York alternative rock band Morningwood's latest music video.

The video for Sugarbaby - the latest single from NY-based alternative rock band Morningwood - features another puppet by James Wojtal (see previous post). I've linked to the "clean" version of the video, but there's a more explicit one floating around on YouTube and elsewhere on the net if naughty puppets is your kind of thing.

The Unauthorized History Of Puppets In Hip Hop

Hip Hoppers love to use puppets in their music videos (photo: A puppet of DJ IV from Keepin' It Real With Universal Soul).

As I've mentioned many times here before, there is an artistic connection between hip hop and puppetry that I can't quite explain but I certainly do appreciate. Complex Blog has put together an "Unauthorized History Of Puppets In Hip Hop" that includes Kanye West's recent video Champion as well as a couple of older ones like Eminem's Ass Like That. It's a good list, but doesn't include some of my favourites like Hot In Herre and How To Make A Beat.

Via Inside Hoggworks.