Handmade Portrait: Stacey Gordon

Etsy profiles puppeteer/builder Stacey Gordon in their latest "Handmade Portrait".

The latest video in Etsy's Handmade Portraits series profiles puppeteer Stacey Gordon (aka Staceyrebecca). Stacey's well-known in the online puppetry community and on Etsy where she sells some of the coolest finger puppets you'll ever see. As a puppeteer Stacey's performed extensively at the Great Arizona Puppet Theatre in Phoenix and is very active in the improv comedy world too as both an actress and puppeteer.

Special thanks to Tara at Etsy for sending this in!

Mary Robinette Kowal Nominated for a Hugo

I just wanted to send out special congratulations to author, puppeteer and frequent blogger Mary Robinette Kowal, whose short story Evil Robot Monkey was just nominated for a prestigious Hugo Award. She's nominated alongside the likes of Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctrow and Joss Whedon so this is a very, very big deal.

You can find a complete list of Hugo nominees here.

Way to go Mary!

Rest in Peace Hank Stohl

Hank Stohl was a star puppeteer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the early days of television.

I'm sad to report that we've lost another of the early pioneers of television puppetry. Henry "Hank" Stohl - a well-known as a puppeteer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1950s and `60s - passed away on Monday after a long illness. Hank was well-known in Pittsburgh (and later New York) for the dozen years he spent working on kids' shows beginning in 1952. Later in his career put away his puppets to become a successful actor, appearing in dozens of movies, TV series, soap operas and plays, Hank also worked steadily for many years doing commercial voice-overs. One of his well-known characters, Knish, can still be seen today on exhibit at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.

Big Bird: Caroll Spinney loves every feather

The Seattle Times profiled puppeteer Carroll Spinney earlier this year.

This was published back in June, but I only discovered it this week and I wanted to share - a nice profile of Big Bird/Oscar the Grouch puppeteer Caroll Spinney by the Seattle Times.

Oh, and in case you in missed it, here's the Sesame Street float from this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Mary Robinette Kowal Interview

It seems to be puppeteer interview week here on PuppetVision (check out previously blogged chats with Steve Whitmire and John Kennedy) so here's one more, this time it's Bibliophile Stalker chatting with the very talented Mary Robinette Kowal.

For more about Mary check out her website www.maryrobinettekowal.com.

A Hoggworks Wedding

Congratulations go out to Hoggworks' Brian Hogg and Madelyne Hilker, who got hitched over the weekend! As longtime PuppetVision readers know, Brian is the mad genius behind the dotBoom and Ask Palpatine puppet podcasts and Madelyne (officially credited on the dotBoom web site as "Executive Ass-Kicking Coordinamatron") is a puppet builder and costumer on most Hoggworks projects.

Best wishes to the happy couple; here's hoping they have a very long and happy life together.

John Kennedy Interview

Puppeteer John Kennedy recently had a chat about his work with parenting blog Parent Zing!

Hot on the heels of Tough Pigs' week with Steve Whitmire, here's an interview with John Kennedy. In it, John discusses his career and some of the current projects he's working on, like the The Sure Sheep.

Tough Pigs' Week With Steve Whitmire

Puppeteer Steve Whitmire and his alter-ego Kermit the Frog.

Toughpigs ran a fantastic interview with Steve Whitmire this past week (click for parts one, two, three, four and five). In it, Joe Hennes chats with Steve about a bunch of topics, including the recent Muppet viral videos, the upcoming Letters To Santa special, the touchy subject of Disney's attempt to recast the Muppets a few years ago, Disney's future plans for the Muppets and how Kermit the Frog and Rizzo the Rat fall into different levels of spiritual and psychological development.

Toronto Puppeteer Improvs on the Street

Alexander Winfield spent the past summer performing full-time on Toronto's trendy Queen Street.

One day this past summer I was walking along Queen West in Toronto and did a double take when I saw a puppet being performed from a burlap sack on sidewalk. I was in a rush so I couldn't stop long enough to talk to the puppeteer, but I've seen him singing songs and improving with passersby on Queen West several times since then. His name is Alexander Winfield and Toronto's CityNews recently ran a story about his experience performing puppetry on the street.


Via Puppeteers Unite.

Weekend Puppet Catch-Up

Sorry for the lack of updates this past week; I'm moving at the end of the month and having been busy looking for a new house/apartment. To make it up to you, here's a bunch of puppet stuff to take a glance at:

Hawk Attacks Puppetry Centre Employees - A red-tailed hawk was confused by a bird-shaped puppet that two people at the Centre for Puppetry Arts were photographing and swooped down to attack. Thankfully, no humans, hawks or puppets were harmed.

More Stars for Letters to Santa - Uma Thurman and Jesse L. Martin have joined the cast of the upcoming Muppet Christmas movie Letters to Santa.

Who's The Dummy Now? - Ventriloquism's $100 million man Terry Fator (see previous post) has a new book coming out. It's available to preorder from Amazon.

Imagination Movers - This kids' band has a new series on Disney Playhouse featuring a puppet called "The Warehouse Mouse" designed by Tim Lagasse and performed by Kevin Carlson.

Did Terry Fator "String Out" His Manager?

Newly-minted millionaire Ventriloquist Terry Fator is being sued by his former manager.

Terry Fator might be about to lose the nice guy image he cultivated on America's Got Talent last year. He's being sued by his ex-manager John Raymond, who alleges that Terry is trying to avoid paying him an (estimated) $20 million commission on his huge Las Vegas contract. Raymond had a 5 year deal with Terry that wasn't set to expire until 2010, but he claims Terry found him "too nice" and fired him because he needed a manager who was "a bastard." None of the allegations have been proven in court.

It's not unusual for entertainers to fire the managers who helped them get started once they finally reach "the big time" for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the huge commissions their managers earn (it's also not unusual for managers to sue once they've been kicked to the curb). Although though Terry has a $100 million contract to play Las Vegas, by the time income tax is deducted and the lawyers, agents and managers get paid (or not) he's probably only keeping about 25 cents of every dollar he earns. It's also worth noting that according to the lawsuit documents, Raymond was taking a 20% commission from Terry, which seems a little excessive (the industry norm is usually 10-15% and it's actually illegal for an agent to charge more than that in some jurisdictions).

I guess if nothing else, you really know you're a famous puppeteer when gossip sites like TMZ start giving you coverage.

A Sesame Street Wedding

Sesame Street's Annie Evans and Marty Robinson were married on the steps of 123 Sesame Street on August 9th.

Congratulations to Annie Evans and Marty Robinson, who got married about a week ago on the set of Sesame Street. Annie is a Sesame Street staff writer and Marty is the talented puppeteer who performs (among others) Telly Monster and Mr. Snuffleupagus on the show. If you scroll halfway down the page I linked to above you'll find a mediaplayer with a really nice little video that tells the story of how Marty and Annie met and eventually got engaged.

I had the chance to briefly meet both Annie and Marty last year and was just blown away by how incredibly nice, talented and passionate they both are about their work. In fact, the thing that struck me most about Marty - aside from being just an incredible puppeteer - was the way he lit up when he talked about Annie, so it's really cool and wonderful to hear such great, happy news.

Matt Vogel Talks To Tough Pigs

Sesame Street puppeteer Matt Vogel recently had a chat with the Tough Pigs.

Tough Pigs recently posted an interview with Sesame Street puppeteer Matt Vogel. In it, he discusses his work on the show performing Big Bird (Matt is the understudy of original Big Bird puppeteer Carol Spinney) and You Can't Rock Sittin' Down, the new album from Matt's band the Mighty Weaklings.

Karen Prell Live at Comicon

Karen Prell and her famous alter-ego Red Fraggle at Comicon `08 (photo by Flickr user Propologist).

One of the things that I missed while I wasn't posting was that the amazing Karen Prell was at the recent Comicon in San Diego where she entertained Fraggle Rock fans by performing Red Fraggle and leading the audience in a couple songs. Mike has posted some great pictures of the Fraggle Rock Comicon panel on Flickr and you can watch three fan-made videos of the event are available below:







Via Puppeteers Unite.

Bob Baker

Bob Baker operates the oldest puppet theatre in the United States.

I watched a short, but nice profile of Bob Baker on YouTube tonight. Bob operates the oldest puppet theatre in the United States (the Bob Baker Marionette Theatre in L.A.) and I've mentioned him on the blog before. The theatre is reportedly struggling to stay open, so if you're ever in or near L.A. be sure to go and check out a show.

Scott Land and his turkey on America's Got Talent

Puppeteer Scott Land is competing on America's Got Talent.

Scott Land - who's hilarious turkey puppet I've posted about before (see previous post) - is competing on America's Got Talent this year. You can watch a clip here. Scott's made it past the first round of the competition and he's off to Las Vegas. You can catch him in the second round of the competition either tomorrow night or Thursday, August 7th on ABC in the U.S. (check your local listings).

Rest in Peace Stan Winston

Special effects master Stan Winston died Sunday night after a long battle with cancer.

Wow, I just heard the awful news that Stan Winston passed away Sunday night at his home in Malibu after a long battle with cancer. He was 62 years old.

Even if you don't know Stan's name, chances are you know his work. His talented team of artists and puppeteers have created some of the most iconic movie creatures of all time; Transformers, the robots in Terminator, the Alien Queen in Aliens, the giant T-Rex in Jurassic Park and so much more. Stan won several Oscars for his work in visual effects (Aliens, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park) and make-up (Batman Returns). One of his very last jobs was devising the suits for this summer's blockbuster Iron Man and you'll see more of his work in upcoming movies like Avatar, Jurassic Park IV, and Terminator 4.

In time when CGI is used for almost everything on screen, people are often surprised to learn that many of the effects in movies like Jurassic Park and Transformers that they assume are computer generated are in fact done live on the set by puppeteers from the Winston studio. Iron Man director Jon Favreau called him "the king of integrating practical effects with CGI," and Stan once summed up his work philosophy as "I don't do special effects. I create characters and I use the tools of special effects necessary to do it."

There is a great video tribute to Stan and his work over at JoBlo.com.

Rest in peace Stan Winston. You'll be missed.

Thunderbirds' Dancing Brains

Brains - from the classic British series Thunderbirds - is featured in a new viral ad for Drench bottled water in the UK.

One of the latest viral sensations on YouTube is an ad for Drench Bottled Water in the UK featuring Brains (one of the characters from Gerry Anderson's classic Thunderbirds TV series) dancing to SNAP's `90s hit Rhythm is a Dancer. The old Thunderbirds "Supermarionation" techniques were updated to produce the ad, which was created using a mixture of motion capture, computer animation and good old fashioned string puppetry.

The team of puppeteers who worked on the video was led by Ronnie LeDrew, who's no stranger to these sorts of viral marketing campaigns; he was the puppeteer responsible for the Levis "Giant Marionette" videos a couple years ago. You can watch the video below:



...as well as take a short look behind the scenes:



Special thanks to Ron for writing in with this!

Achmed the Dead Terrorist: Really Racist or Really Funny?

A video of Jeff Dunham performing Achmed the Dead Terrorist has received over 47 million views on YouTube.

Achmed the Dead Terrorist is huge on YouTube. Seriously.

Occasionally (like once every few months) I do a quick search on YouTube to see what the most popular puppet video is. I checked yesterday and was surprised to discover that it's a clip of Achmed the Dead Terrorist. Achmed is a bearded skeleton with a turban that seems to be have become of one of veteran Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham's most popular characters. In the last year or so the crazy little guy has racked up well over 50 million views on YouTube.

I first saw clips of Jeff performing Achmed late last year and to be perfectly honest I didn't post them here because while I admit I laughed really hard at some of it, I thought it was an act that skirts line the line between humour and racism (and occasionally crosses it). But while I found some of the act a little distasteful, Lindsay Campbell seems really offended by it, calling it "a fear mongering depiction of Muslim culture," and has been devoting time to the issue on the popular video podcast MOBlogic:



So is Achmed really racist, really funny or a little bit of both?

Audiences like to be able to laugh at something that scares them and terrorism - to borrow a phrase from Achmed - scares the crap out of most Americans. At the risk of over-analyzing, I think that by embodying terrorism in the form of a funny little wisecracking skeleton Jeff gives his audience permission to laugh at their fears and make light of serious subjects like Muslim extremism and the war in Iraq. It also helps that Jeff Dunham is one of (if not the) most talented Ventriloquists in the world today and the act is, you know, pretty funny.

The mistake that Jeff makes with Achmed - or at least what leaves him vulnerable to criticism of being racist - is that some of the humour is about (and reinforces) racial stereotypes instead of the character. Achmed's a funny puppet with some great catch phrases ("Silence! I kill you!", "Holy crap!", "You racist bastard!", etc.) and the war of terror is a prime target for satire so there's no need for Jeff to resort to lame Arabic/flem jokes to get his act over with a crowd. Those are cheap laughs and Jeff Dunham too talented a performer to have to resort to them, especially when he's got a concept like Achmed that's so loaded with potential.

You can learn what other people have to say about this in the video responses to Lindsay's MOBlogic video (seen above) on YouTube.

Basil Twist Video

"Stickman"; a marionette created by acclaimed American puppeteer Basil Twist.

There is a great video about Basil Twist available from United States Artists (a grant-making organization dedicated to supporting American artists in a variety of different fields). If you're not familiar with Basil's work, he's an acclaimed third-generation puppeteer based in New York who produces truly beautiful, innovative and original puppet theatre. In the video Basil discusses his recent production Dogugaeshi and his views on why puppetry is so appealing to so many people.

9/4/09 Update: The link to the video has been updated.