Due to the short lead time, there will be no auditions, instead please send your resume and/or links to your reels to Artie Esposito at artie@swazzle.com.

(via Swazzle’s Puppet 101 Blog)

Puppet Heap has released “Exit Row”, a new comedy web series that joins two air sickness bags, Ralph and Chuck, as they grapple with everything from love, betrayal, friendship, identity, in-flight etiquette, and life ad nauseum from the perspective of a seat back pocket.

Puppeteers James Godwin (Chapelle’s Show, The Muppets, Henson’s Stuffed and Unstrung) and Tim Lagasse (Chapelle’s Show, The Muppets, Sesame Street) lend their inimitable talents to the characters of Ralph and Chuck. Exit Row will premiere on Puppet Heap’s YouTube channel starting NOW, with new installments added each week. (Puppet Heap’s YouTube channel can be found by following the link HERE.)

“Exit Row” is a great example of just how simple AND great a “puppety” idea can be. Long live paper sack (bag) puppets!

Goodnight Harvey is the latest short film produced by IFYW, a collaboration of Josh Self, Orlando Rivera II, and Derek Iaea, and soon to be on the film festival circuit this summer. The film follows “Sam, a puppet skinner’s apprentice, who must confront the realities of his profession when a puppet named Harvey wakes up on the cutting table. With a customer anxious to get Harvey’s hide, Sam must choose whether to set him free, or finish the skinning that has already been started.”

Check out the trailer…

The May 1st premiere of the film at The Dark Room Theater in San Francisco was preceded by…can you guess…a live puppet show! You can check out pictures of the performance here.

For more information on IFYW or Goodnight Harvey, click on over to the IFYW blog or check them out on Vimeo.

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.

Sesame Street celebrates its 40th anniversary today! So take out a little time and remember some of your favorite Sesame Street moments…there’s plenty from which to choose. Here’s one of my all-time favorites. What’s yours?

If Google is not your preferred search engine, it should be…at least for the next week.

I’ve recently been in contact with Ian Greeb, artist and fantastic sculptor of soft foam, and just had to share some of his work with everyone here on Puppet Buzz. Ian’s creations are entirely sculpted from blocks of soft foam and yet, as you can see, incredibly detailed. I’ve always been a fan of an exposed foam finish for puppets; Ian’s creations illustrate just how beautiful foam can be. Truly inspiring!

To the left is a sculpted foam fish puppet fabricated (from the client’s design) for a PSA. Notice the spider character in the background. Yet another fanciful foam creation from the mind of Ian Greeb.

If you’d like to see what else is creeping through Mr. Greeb’s imagination, check out his illustrations at www.candycartoon.com

Personally, I’m a “hand puppet guy”, but I never get tired of watching great marionette tricks. I don’t know very much about the Grangers (the puppeteers in the video), but I do know that to get a marionette figure to actually walk, one foot in front of the other, takes a genius “behind the strings”. Of course, the other fabulous things these characters are able to do are likewise a testament to a brilliant mind and impeccable skill.

If anyone knows more about the Martin Granger Marionettes, please share it with us in the comments!

One week left to vote! Head on over to PuppetContest.com to vote for your favorite space character in Puppet Contest 2008: A Space Odyssey. The voting will only be open through December 7, 2008!