I was fortunate enough to do some background puppeteering for Big and Small.  The show is another of The Grogs great productions.  Amazing puppets, some very cool green screen bunraku puppetry and one of the best crews I have ever worked with.  It makes me wish that I had more free time as a teacher to work on more of these types of shows.  Check out the show on Treehouse in Canada or on CBeebies in the UK.

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.

I just received and email from some amazingly talented performers in Toronto.  Rob and Soli Joy are truly exceptional and I was very happy to see that they have launched their new website (which looks great by the way).  My family was also invited to their CD launch party for their newest CD called “Happy Birthday, Alistair Ant!” .  We will be there, and being that it is almost my son’s birthday I am sure it will be all the more special for him.

 Date and Time:  Sunday, November 11th, 2007 @ 11:00 am and 3:00 pm (This Sunday!!!)

Location:  The Berkeley Heritage Event Venue (315 Queen Street East)

 Cost:  $18 in advance and $19 at the door

If you are in Toronto this Sunday, I highly encourage you to drop by to see their show.  If you have young children then it is not to be missed.  For more information visit their website here.

This little nugget of puppety goodness, though its been in circulation on the web for a while, recently resurfaced over at PuppetBuilding.com. The article was originally published in a 1969 issue of Women’s Day Magazine and includes a play, The Purple-Necked, Black Bearded Blatch, written by Jerry Juhl, and patterns and instructions for four puppets, the characters in the play. You can’t get much more “vintage Muppet” than this!

Here’s the article – Script, Pattern & Instructions

And, for your convenience, here’s the pattern pieces, full-size and ready to be printed – Full Size Pattern Print

Judging from the size of the pattern, it appears the puppets are just the right size for kids. Have fun!

Cross-posted from the Project Puppet Blog.

Want to see a puppet show with great music amazing puppetry and all around quality family entertainment?  Look no further than “Happy Birthday Alistair Ant!” by Alistair Ant Productions here in Toronto, Ontario, CANADA.  This show is performed by husband and wife team Rob and Soli Joy. 

Their shows are amazing. Children 2 – 6 (dare I even say 7?) years old can’t get enough of them. And truth be told, I’ve gone with my wife and my mom without any children and we all had an amazingly fun time.
The special “March Break” show is running from the 11th – 17th at 11 am and 2 pm (at the Solar Stage Childrens Theatre in North York).  For more information or to order tickets you can go here.  Do something fun this March Break, go see the show.

I was fortunate enough to run across this very cool puppet project that proposes to teach kids a variety of educational concepts using puppets and rap music called The Kids Block.  Now I have seen many show ideas that have tried to use this approach and have failed.  One of the biggest strikes against other show concepts is that the rap music has clearly been a secondary consideration and is often written and produced by artists that are trying to use a very unappealing style of rap (let’s call it “bubblegum rap“) to appeal to children.  Now the truth as I see it is that children who like rap know the difference between good rap and poor rap.  Up until now it has been the latter.  The Kids Block has made sure that the rap music is well produced and appealing by having the songs created by Poke and Tone of Track Masters.  If you don’t know who they are you probably know one of the amazing artists they have helped make successful.

I think that the potential of this project is quite high and the production quality of the pilot (specifically the 3D graphics) are nothing short of awesome:  the website is fantastic too.  I do have my personal opinions on some of the things that I hope they focus on in the future.  One thing is that a unique property like The Kids Block should have unique puppets.  They have opted to go with cookie cutter puppets from Puppet Productions called Innova puppets.  Don’t get me wrong the puppets are basically fine (and I am sure they chose to do this based on costs, seeing as how each puppet costs under $200) but I hope that if/when the show gets picked up that they decided to make each character more original.  With a wealth of puppet building talent in New York (in North America even) there are tons of builders to choose from.

My second observation is on the puppeteering (you can see the promo video on You Tube here).  I don’t have anything bad to say about it, but there are a few things that I would like to see addressed.  The first is the puppet’s eyelines are usually off and this makes the characters less believeable in my opinion.  The second is the lifting of the puppet’s heads when they are talking.  This is a basic puppeteering no-no and I would like to see that be corrected to add to the believeablity of the puppets.  And finally, I wanted to address the use/over use of the puppet’s arms when they talk and sing.  I am sure that it might seem more animated and lively to move the puppet’s arms around to a wonderful lively rap song, but the impression I am left with is that this character is not as beliveable as it could be. I feel that one of the reasons that Sesame Street (among other shows) were so successful, was that the puppets were beliveable as characters.  They were not pieces of fabric that were shaken at the screen, but rather seemingly real people.  With some minor tweeking, in my opinion this property has a very good chance of making it to television screens.

You can read more about the project here and here.

Look for the DVD to come out in February of 2007 and the plan is to get it on television from there.

Great job to all involved!

I actually knew about this show when it was being filmed last summer, but I only had a chance to see a few episodes last weekend.  Wilbur is the newest puppet show that has been added to the CBC lineup.

The series is intended to teach 2- to 4- year-olds about reading and uses a combination of puppetry, 3D backgrounds and 2D animation.  The show actually uses “Shadowmation” the same technique that is used for “It’s A Big Big World“.

The puppets are really cool Bunraku style puppets that are performed by three puppeteers (per puppet) in blue outfits in front of blue screens.  The blue is later erased and a 3D environment is put in during post production.

I really liked the animation for this show.  Each episode has at least one story that is read and children have an opportunity to retell the story in their own words.  If you would like to see the show check out CBC’s current show schedule.

 

I was in a secondhand bookstore the other day and came across a couple of DVDs of the Thunderbirds. Thunderbird DVDs and other merchandise isn’t rare. A quick search on Amazon.com will confirm that. I must say I’ve been very pleased with the purchase and find the episodes very inspiring.

The Thunderbirds had a relatively short run. It originally aired in 1965, but was set around the year 2026. That part is interesting in itself, but there were a couple of things I thought were noteworthy especially for puppeteers and puppet builders today.

First, the attention span of a kid in the 60s must have been 10 or more times longer than the attention span of a kid in the twenty-first century. It’s really a sad reality. Puppeteers have a tough time these days keeping the attention of their young audiences. After all, how can one compete with a television flashing 29.97 frames per second (on American T.V.) bombarding the human eye with more information than it can process. The resulting backward head tilt, mouth hanging open, and a glazed look in the eyes, is so familiar to many parents who watch their children watching T.V. Read a book! For puppetry’s sake!

Second, the detail of the puppets and sets of the Thunderbirds are truly inspiring and, dare I say, magical. With all the green screens and 3-D modeled, computer-generated sets and backdrops used today, the “magic” has a most difficult, many times impossible, time shining through. What is “magic”? That’s a subject for another post.

If you’ve never seen an episode of the Thunderbirds, check it out –
Thunderbirds episode – Trapped In The Sky

Well the truth is that it is soon my son’s birthday and I have been looking for cool gifts for a little boy…that have to do with puppetry if possible. Now that may sound totally selfish, and if he wasn’t crazy about puppets it would be. But the truth is that my son loves puppets.

During my search I came across a very cool company called “Juno Baby“. After reading a bit about the company and seeing some of the people involved I am convinced that the Juno Baby DVDs are a cool addition to anyone’s puppet DVD collection.

Oh, yes I collect puppetry DVDs and I am ready to order this one for myself and my son. After reading that some some Fraggle Rock alumnae were involved I am left wondering who? I think I will do a little digging to find out. If you know anything about the company or their DVDs please let me know.

The puppets are simple and very cute. They were created by a compnay called “Images In Motion” based in the US, who were also responsible for the sets.

The show combines puppets shot against a green screen with colourful computer animations. The look is very appealing to me and I can see my son loving it as well. You can see one of the seveal clips from the show on their site here.

So be sure to check out their site and if you collect puppetry DVDs like me, write this one down on your “to get” list.