A new Disney/Jetix series called Team Smithereen is currently in production with the Dan Clark Company. Team Smithereen is the latest project from the Dan Clark Company (see previous post), who describe the show as a "weird and wonderful comedy sporting bone-crushing stunts and the worst "extreme action" team in TV history." Not too many other details aside from the promotional shot above are available yet, but Sean Johnson recently blogged that he and his brother Patrick are puppeteers and... Read Full Story
John McCain sings soulfully in 100 Years To Win. There is about a month to go until the U.S. election and Peter (better known online by his online nickname "Scary" Larry Wolf) built himself a John McCain puppet and put together a pitch-perfect music video/political spoof about McCain called 100 Years To Win. Read Full Story
Leslie Caron with puppets Renaldo the Fox and Carrot Top in the 1953 MGM musical Lili. The inaugural Santa Monica Puppetry Festival kicked off today in Santa Monica, California and runs through Sunday. The festival is paying tribute to actress Leslie Caron and 1953 MGM puppet-themed musical Lili (better known as Carnival - the title of the film's stage adaptation) with a special screening of the movie followed by a discussion with Ms. Caron moderated by film historian Leonard Maltin... Read Full Story
"...one phrase Betsy used frequently in her puppet courses, was "anyone can be a puppeteer". My brain would say to itself, "anyone can be a brain surgeon too, but I would be careful which one I picked." - Alan Cook Read Full Story
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... Read Full Story
The Fist of Oblivion is a new online series featuring "kung fu-fighting puppets" scheduled to debut next month. Ordinarily I'd probably wait until this was out or there was at least a video preview available to mention it here, but I'm intrigued by the fact that the show was created by Roman Coppola. Roman is probably most famous for the family he belongs to (see the Coppola family tree for more); he's the son of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and an accomplished filmmaker in his... Read Full Story
Ridin' the Rails To Reno is a music video for Country Cricket by California's Flexitoon Puppets. Flexitoon (see previous post) just finished a new music video for a country swing band called Country Cricket. It was designed and directed by Craig Marin and features puppetry by Olga Felgemacher. You can watch Ridin' The Rails To Reno on YouTube. Special thanks to Craig for sending this in! Read Full Story
This new YouTube video for Wario Land: Shake It isn't exactly what it appears to be. This new ad for Wario Land: Shake It is one of the best viral ads I've seen online in a long time (for extra fun play the video a second time without refreshing the page). Via CrunchGear. Read Full Story
The new digital puppetry series Sid the Science Kid (see previous post) is now on the air and TV Guide recently went behind the scenes to see how the Jim Henson Company creates it. The Wall Street Journal has also been covering the show's unique production process. Speaking of which, Brian Henson was in Silver Spring, MD at the AFI Silver Theatre yesterday and gave a presentation about the history of puppetry and how the Henson Co. has evolved over the years from Muppets to animatronics to... Read Full Story
It's been sort of a Muppet theme week on PuppetVision so in keeping with that here's a bunch more Muppet stories that have been in the news over the past few days: Jim Henson and the Muppets are featured in the latest Amex ad campaign for their "Members Project". It's not new footage (obviously), but clips from a classic Amex ad Jim did in the early 1980s. Smithsonian.com recently chatted with legendary Muppet designer Bonnie Erickson.FAO Schwartz is opening a Muppet Whatnot Shop in New York... Read Full Story
