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Former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora is on trial in Akron, Ohio, for corruption. Channel 19 is covering the trial, but are not allowed to take cameras into the federal courtroom. So they did the next best thing -or some would call a better thing- and recreated the court scenes using puppets! This video is day two. You can also see day one at WOIO. Link -via Fark
The Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa made this amazing life-size puppet. Three puppeteers control the beast in such a way that it looks, acts, and sounds just like a horse. It’s a wonder of both design and choreography.
-via The Presurfer | Troupe Website
I don’t know about you guys, but I have loved The Muppets since I was in diapers and I can’t wait to see the new Muppet movie that’s coming out today. But as long as we’re celebrating The Muppets’ return to the big screen, we may as well celebrate their original rise to the small screen. So for all the fans out there, here’s a little history and general trivia info on the greatest puppet team ever created.
We’ve talked about Jim Henson’s show Sam and Friends, where Kermit originated, before, but that wasn’t Jim Henson’s first experience working with puppets. It actually started all the way back in 1954 when Henson was still attending high school. He was quite ambitious because before he graduated, he already was creating puppets for a Saturday morning kid’s show called The Junior Morning Show featured on WTOP-TV.
Interestingly, Jim didn’t really intend to work on puppets for a career. He actually originally went to the University of Maryland, College Park, to become a commercial artist. But when he was only a freshman, he was asked to create a five-minute long puppet show for WRC-TV named Sam and Friends. The show ended up playing a huge role in the inspiration for The Muppets and featured a prototype version of Kermit the Frog.
Image Via zhurnaly [Flickr]
Well, Sam was a puppet that looked like a human and his friends were a variety of other human puppets, a few weird monstery creatures, a snake and a lizard that eventually morphed into the world’s most famous frog. The show started out just featuring the puppets lip-synching to popular songs, but as the show started gaining popularity, they started writing real sketches, many of which involved featured spoofs of popular TV shows.
One of the best-known sketches involved Kermit nibbling on something that looked like a worm, but eventually turned into the tongue or nose of the character Big V, a giant monster, who would eventually eat him. Near the end of the show’s run, Esskay Meats started showing ads at the end of the show, which would feature characters from Sam and Friends.
While the show was best known for introducing Kermit to the world, it also played a huge role in letting Henson perfect his puppetry techniques that would eventually change the way puppets were shown on television forever. One of his biggest innovations was setting up the camera shots so the people operating the puppets would not be seen on screen. He also made the puppets more flexible than puppets previously seen on television so they could express a wider array of emotions on screen.
Muppet creator (and the most renowned puppeteer ever) Jim Henson was born on September 24, 1936, which would make him 75 years old if he were with us today. In honor of the occasion, the Google Doodle features a group of Henson’s monsters -and you can act as the Muppeteer!
Link to Google.
Link to a memorial at the Google Blog.
Link to more from and about Jim Henson.
Link to more from the Muppets.
These mechanical marvels are examples of Karakuri, centuries old puppets from Japan that can perform simple tasks powered only by clockwork mechanisms. Their lifelike movements and beautiful look make them breathtaking to behold in action, especially considering they were made hundreds of years ago. A short video accompanies the article on Laughing Squid, showing one of the last remaining Karakuri builders in action. I’m off to build an army of puppet archers to defend my house!
Don’t worry, there isn’t going to be a giant puppet attack after all. It turns out this photo was taken at a performance by Royal de Luxe in the streets of Nantes, France. The troupe is known for their over the top, crane operated marionettes, which feature detailed clothing and horse hair wigs. The star of their most recent show is Little Giant, an 18 foot tall girl with a pretty dress on and the hair of 70 horses’ tails on her head. Follow the link to Laughing Squid where there are more photos and a short video showing these behemoths in action.
There’s a fuzzy new exhibit coming to a museum near you that showcases the works of puppet messiah Jim Henson. The Fantastic Voyage is sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute and showcases some of Henson’s most beloved and well known characters, like Bert and Ernie, Kermit, and Rowlf the piano playing dog, so you can see your Muppet pals up close and personal. Plus there’s lots of concept art, sketches and photographs spanning the entire career of the world’s most beloved puppeteer. Jim Henson fanatics unite and show the puppet master some love when the exhibit comes to your town!
Link image via Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service
In Over Time, a group of puppets find that their creator has passed away. This 2004 film by Oury Atlan, Thibaut Berland, and Damien Ferrie doesn’t explicitly say it is about Jim Henson, but you recognize it anyway. When I first saw this a few years ago, I couldn’t help but tear up. -via the Presurfer
Vaudeville ventriloquists are cool, but some of their dummies are beyond creepy -especially the really old-school ones. Go To Public School has a great collection of classic dummy pictures for your creepy enjoyment.
Well, there’s no Ricardo Montalbán here, but there are papercraft puppets. Sorry, Ricardo. You’ll never be replaced, and your Khan ‘do is teh sex, but I sorta-kinda love this to pieces.
I present Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, complete – in 60 seconds. With puppets.
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Emily Gobeille and Theo Watson hacked an Xbox Kinect and created a puppet show made of light! Get this -it was one day’s work. Engadget has a little more about the tech involved. Link -via The Daily What
“The Curse” is a new song from Josh Ritter about an archaeologist who falls in love with a mummy. The video was produced by Ritter’s drummer, Liam Hurley, who is also a puppeteer. See the video and read more about it at NPR’s All Things Considered. Link -via mental_floss
Bunchland Magazine, a digital magazine that features awesome and
creative families from all over the world, received this submission for
our food section, called Munchland. In this section, families send us
videos of themselves cooking or talking about food.
This video, entitled The Dessert of Frankenstein, came
from dad Eric Woolfe, a brilliant playwright/actor who creates
deliciously macabre horror-inspired puppet shows.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Factorbot.
TMZ has side-by-side photos of celebrities and the Sesame Street Muppets that they resemble. Queen Elizabeth II, Nick Nolte, Dustin Diamond, and Zach Braff are among the mocked.
Graduate students Patrick Bennett and Ryan Miyakawa at UC Berkeley made an entry for the "What is Nano" video competition, where people submit their explanations of what exactly nanotechnology means.
However, instead of a boring lecture with slides, they made an amazing Sesame Street-style musical, complete with homemade puppets! (The singer is Glory Liu)
Link to competition.
– via physorg
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by easf.
Worth 1000 contests always fascinate me, so Worth 1000 + Muppets (most of them are Muppets, anyway, but you’ll also find Wallace, Chucky and Alf) = pretty sweet. This particular contest asked Photoshoppers to stick puppets in unlikely situations. The one above is by taltieri is probably my favorite, but Animal in 300 and Bert and Ernie in 3:10 to Yuma are pretty awesome too. The Kermit and Miss Piggy entry is just… disturbing.
Link to the whole gallery
