Sadly, Eugene Lambert  died yesterday at the age of 82. Eugene was one of the worlds leading puppeteers whose creations on ‘Wanderly Wagon’ delighted generations of Irish children, and who performed for many celebrities including Michael Jackson.

‘Wanderly Wagon’ began in 1967, and all of the Lambert children worked on the show, which ran until 1982. The puppet characters in ‘Wanderly Wagon’ — Judge the dog, Mr Crow, Foxy Loxy, and the untrustworthy Ssneaky Ssnake are remembered with great fondness by generations.

A native of Sligo, Mr Lambert had a huge passion for puppetry and managed to turn that passion into a lifelong career.

He founded the Lambert Puppet Theatre in Monkstown, Co Dublin, in 1972, and was the force behind the International Puppet Festival of Ireland.

“From his work on RTE with ‘Wanderly Wagon’, to his ongoing commitment to puppet theatre, he inspired a generation of puppet theatre makers, and delighted and entertained generations of Irish children and their parents,” said the council’s head of theatre, David Parnell.

The theatre is home to the country’s largest collection of puppets and hosts family productions throughout the weekend. It holds up to 250 people.

Mr Lambert’s funeral Mass will take place on Friday at 10am at St Patrick’s church in Monkstown. He will be sadly missed.

Eugene Lambert is survived by his wife Mai (they would have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this summer), eight children, 15 grandchildren and five great-great children.

Master puppet builder Terry Angus has posted another amazing creation on Ebay! Check it out before it’s too late!

It’s Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” as you’ve never experienced it before! Philip Hatter (Thistledown Puppets) and Alex Lucas (Mad Flamingo Media) have cleverly created an ebook of the famous poem specifically designed for Amazon’s Kindle. The unique thing about this book is that all the illustrations, 40 of them in all, are actually photos of puppets.

You can purchase the book here for just 99 cents. And don’t worry, you don’t need a Kindle to enjoy the experience. Amazon offers a free download of the Kindle software for your PC,  iPhone, or Blackberry.

You can read more about the creative process and check out more photos on the Thistledown Puppets Blog.

As I’ve said before, I love seeing “how” people do things.  We have written about Matt Ficner’s Creepy Puppet Project before (Warning: This series has scenes with blood and gore).  Here is some great footage that let’s you see how Matt approaches the building of some of his zombie puppets with his amazing creativity.  If you don’t like zombies; then you may want to skip this one.

The team of Furry Puppet studio has recently created an awesome animatronic puppet for Cincinnati Bell phone company – just in time for the holidays.
In addition to five different mechanic movements, this mangy dog got to play with Nick Lachey between takes!

Click on the image below to watch the commercials and a special behind-the-scenes short!

I love behind the scenes of puppet television productions. Here is a great example of what can happen behind the scenes. Here is Kevin Clash playing Baby Sinclair and having fun with the people on set.

I just came across these fun stop motion videos from The Sylverados. It’s classic frame-by-frame stop motion utilizing simple wooden manikins. What I appreciate most about them is that they are extremely simple but very entertaining. It just goes to show that you don’t need a big production budget if you have a good idea. For more info, go over and check out The Sylverados website.

Check this hilarious T-shirt on shirt.woot.com. Yes, one of these is already in my closet.

Here is a short compilation of shots from the pilot episode of the forthcoming BBC3 tv series “We Are Mongrels”. The puppets have been created by Talk to the Hand (UK).

I also was able to find a blinking eye test for one of the main characters seen in the above picture.

“We Are Mongrels” is to be screened in the UK in early 2010. The show has been described as a feral version of  Top Cat, with humour drawing heavily from Family Guy and modern, fast paced docu-dramas – ‘more animation with puppets than a traditional sitcom’. Eight, thirty minutes episodes have been commissioned to be written by Jon Brown, with Daniel Peak. The series is directed by Adam Miller and produced by Stephen McCrumb for BBC3.

I love Wallace and Grommit. They have a unique and fantastic style.

This video is a great making of video of how they made their most recent short film “A Matter of Loaf and Death”

Lots of great stuff here.

Click on the link above to check it out.