There is a saying that goes “Put your oney where your mouth is.” and this leads me into the subject of The Devil’s Minstrels.  As someone myself who has put a good deal of my own money into personal puppet projects, I respect those who believe enough in their idea to do the same.

Dave Maynard (the creator) has a full-time job and has created this puppet concept along with four of his high school friends.  For them, the Project really took form when we hooked up with John Kennedy in 2007 who custom built their puppets.

I give them respect for the amount of time energy and effort that they have put into their project thus far.  I wish them all the best of luck.  Be sure to check out their stuff on Youtube.

I love wonderfully built puppets almost as much as amazing puppeteering.  I stumbled across the Puppets On Hand website and I was instantly impressed with the work of Tom Blasco.  Tom spent about eight years working as a special effects make up teacher and taught advanced classes in animatronics and cable controlled puppets.

I am a new fan of his work and I look forward to finding out more about the projects he is working on.  Be sure to check out his website.

I love behind the scenes footage.  Here are some I found on Youtube.  Enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

I want to start a series of posts that I find personally inspirational.  I mean things that inspire me to continue to be involved in puppetry.  This leads me to Pogo Puppet Productions.  This company is run by two young teenagers and reminds me of the inspiration that “desire to try” that youth can bring to puppetry. 

I hope these two continue to pursue their joy of puppetry.  Take a moment to check out their Youtube page.

Project Puppet’s third annual puppet contest has landed! This year’s contest is entitled – Puppet Contest 2008: A Space Odyssey.

Here’s a few details about the contest:

• All entries must be received by November 1, 2008.
• The Grand Prize Winner will receive a $200.00 USD cash prize from Project Puppet.
• The First Runner-Up will receive a $100.00 USD credit with Project Puppet.
• An awesome international panel of judges – Terry Angus, Jarrod Boutcher, Ed Christie, Phil Fletcher, and James Wojtal – to narrow down the entries to the Top Ten Finalists.
• And, of course, the contest wraps up with a public vote!

There is a brand new venue for the contest – PuppetContest.com! You can find out more about the contest there or visit Project Puppet to choose the Simple Series pattern right for your character.

I have known about this show for over a year now and it is finally on CBC.  The Mighty Jungle is a live action puppet series for pre-schoolers.

The show stars Frank Meschkuleit, Wendy Welch, Jamie Bradley, Cheryl Wagner and Mike Petersen, The Mighty Jungle is a new series, that uses the imagination and story ideas of kids, to guide the stories of each show.

The Mighty Jungle airs on CBC each weekday morning at 8:45am. Be sure to join the unofficial Facebook group and show your support.

Now I have a soft spot in my heart for ape puppets and seeing these videos have all the right elements to catch my attention and enteretain it.  Beverage Barn is a short episodic comedy series designed for television.

The show was created by Kevin B. Barron & Mauri Bernstein and stars such notable puppeteers as Greg Ballora and Kevin Carlson.  The puppets were built by puppet builder BJ Guyer and his puppet company Puppetown Productions Inc. 

The show follows Colin & Victor the ape brother-owners of Beverage Barn who adore
and irritate each other. Other characters include Beverly, an asthmatic chicken, who is the DJ, Bubbles, the pool shark, Sissy, the barfly, and Waldo, the deep thinking dog.

You can catch the videos on their website or on Youtube.  I really enjoyed it and I hope you do as well.

Here are 3 unique custom puppets we recently came up with at the FurryPuppet studio.


~Click on the image above to see the original post at the FurryPuppet studio’s blog~

Made for the Funginears

Different things catch my eye for different reasons.  I stumbled across videos for Irish basedNoel Lambert Touring Puppet Theatre on Youtube (please check out there site to find out more about them).  The thing that jumped out at me was the colourful set design.  I think that there is a balance that needs to be achieved between great visulas and great puppeteering to make a wonderful show appeal to a wide audience. 

Too often people forget that the background or set is a part of the visuals.  Not just the puppets.  THis company had some wonderful puppets. Just look at the grren guy to the left. Now that doesn’t mean that shows can not be wonderful with simple puppets or no set at all.  In fact I have seen some amazing shows with a simple puppet and no set (but it had amazing puppeteering).

What I am saying is that simply adding lush green fun fur for grass, made me stop and watch the videos.  Something to think about when making a set for your next show.  Ask yourself, “Is my set a strength or weakness for my show?”

Check out more videos here and notice how bright and wonderful the colours are visually.  Enjoy.

I am very interested in this show concept offered by Studio Bizarro.  The show is called Planet BIzarro and the clip I watched was very interesting.  I would say the show is definately not for small children (especially with a zombie sketch), but it was well done.  Super puppets, great puppeteering, check it out to find more videos online.