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Noreen Isabel Young CM (born May 10, 1939) is a Canadian producer, puppeteer and puppet builder. She grew up in Old Ottawa South, Ontario, with her two younger brothers, John and Stephen Brathwaite, then studied drawing and painting at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto.
Reading whatever she could, she learned how to build her own puppets and she became known for puppets cast with liquid latex so she could sculpt them, and the faces could move and wiggle and the mouths could open and close.
Young began her lifelong career in television puppetry at CJOH/CTV and CBOT/CBC in Ottawa, notably with Hi Diddle Day (1967–1976) (a show about a female mayor named Gertrude Diddle, in a small town called Crabgrass) and Pencil Box (1977 - 1979). The former received an Ohio State Award and the latter received ACTRA's Best Children's Programme in 1978. She was known for building puppets for shows including Today's Special and Téléfrançais. She became an independent television producer with Noreen Young Productions Inc., which, with CBC and Telefilm Canada, produced Under the Umbrella Tree , a popular CBC Television children's series that ran from 1987 to 1993 on the CBC nationally and from 1990 to 1997 on the Disney Channel. It was also dubbed in French for Canal Famille and currently streams on the Canada Media Fund's Encore+ on YouTube in both languages. For that show, she was Executive Producer and performed the character "Gloria the Gopher".
Young was also the puppeteer for "Dodie", a character on Sesame Park , the Canadian version of Sesame Street . Her puppet characters appeared on many TVOntario productions including Readalong and Téléfrançais! and she was featured in the second Care Bears television special, 1984's The Care Bears Battle the Freeze Machine .
Young is known for her caricature puppets of public figures such as former Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson, CBC news anchor Peter Mansbridge and hockey commentator Don Cherry, plus many prominent personalities from her hometown of Almonte, Ontario.
In 2018, Young's puppets were featured in an exhibit "Noreen Young, a Puppet Retrospective", at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, in Almonte. The 150 puppets from her collection that were exhibited spanned her career from 1967 to 2018. They included Basil the Beagle from Hi Diddle Day (1967–1976) and 10 puppets which she created for an adult opera, "Sleeping Rough", written by composer Roddy Ellias and performed for the Ottawa music festival, "Music and Beyond" (2018). Many of her puppets now reside in the National Museum of History and at Library and Archives Canada.
In 1995 Noreen was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada for having "effectively used puppetry to educate children on such crucial issues as safety, nutrition, environmental awareness and addictions." [1]
Sesame Park is the Canadian version of Sesame Street co-produced by Sesame Workshop and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The Friendly Giant is a children's television program that aired on CBC Television from September 30, 1958, through to March 1985. It featured three main characters: a giant named Friendly, who lived in a huge castle, along with his puppet animal friends Rusty, and Jerome. The two principal puppets of the CBC version of the show were manipulated and voiced by Rod Coneybeare. Originally in Wisconsin, they were manipulated and voiced by Ken Ohst.
Kevin Jeffrey Clash is an American puppeteer, director and producer best known for puppeteering Elmo on Sesame Street from 1985 to 2012. He also performed puppets for Labyrinth, Dinosaurs, Oobi, and various Muppet productions.
Under the Umbrella Tree is a Canadian children's television series created by Noreen Young that originally aired on CBC from 1987 to 1993. It was produced by CBC and Noreen Young Productions, and later by The Disney Channel, which began airing it on May 7, 1990.
Almonte is a former mill town in Lanark County, in the eastern portion of Ontario, Canada. Formerly a separate municipality, Almonte is a ward of the town of Mississippi Mills, which was created on January 1, 1998, by the merging of Almonte with Ramsay and Pakenham townships. Almonte is 46 kilometres (29 mi) south-west of downtown Ottawa. Its population as recorded in the 2016 Canadian Census was 5,039.
William Britton "Bil" Baird was an American puppeteer of the mid- and late 20th century. He and his puppets performed for millions of adults and children. One of his better known creations was Charlemane the lion. He and his wife Cora Eisenberg Baird (1912–1967) produced and performed the famous puppetry sequence for "The Lonely Goatherd" in the film version of The Sound of Music. His son Peter Baird was also a puppeteer, and he continued his family's legacy until his own death in July 2004.
A hand puppet is a type of puppet that is controlled by the hands that occupies the interior of the puppet. A glove puppet is a variation of hand puppets. Rod puppets require one of the puppeteer's hands inside the puppet glove holding a rod which controls the head, and the puppet's body then hangs over most or all of the forearm of the puppeteer, and possibly extends further. Other parts of the puppet may be controlled by different means, e.g., by rods operated by the puppeteer's free hand, or strings or levers pulled the head or body. A smaller variety, simple hand puppets often have no significant manipulable parts at all. Finger puppets are not hand puppets as they are used only on a finger.
Jennifer Barnhart is an American actress and puppeteer, with a portfolio of television and theatre performances.
Dan Redican is a Canadian comedy writer and performer and puppeteer, best known for his work with the comedy troupe the Frantics. As a founding member of the troupe he has worked since 1979 on numerous stage shows, the Frantic Times radio show, Four on the Floor TV show. They also have written and performed many albums which are still available on the website Frantics.com.
The CBC Museum was dedicated to the preserving the physical heritage and archival materials relating to the history of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). It was located in the Canadian Broadcasting Centre at 250 Front Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum collection began by at least 1960, the current display space opened in 1994, and closed on December 22, 2017.
Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real-time by computers. It is most commonly used in filmmaking and television production but has also been used in interactive theme park attractions and live theatre.
The International Festival of Animated Objects is an annual festival which promotes the arts of puppetry, mask, and animated objects in downtown Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The FAO was produced by Xstine Cook as a project of the non-profit group Calgary Animated Objects Society from 2002-2016. It was formed as its own non-profit society, the International Festival of Animated Objects Society in 2015 by Xstine Cook, Bob Davis, and Peter Balkwill. It was originally produced biennially by Xstine Cook from 2002-2016, then by Gwen Murray in 2017 and 2019, and Amelia Newbert in 2021. Newbert transitioned the FAO to an annual event during the pandemic era in 2022. Cosmo Christoffersen took the helm in 2023, and is the current Managing Producer.
Nina Keogh is a Canadian puppet builder, voice actress and puppeteer. She is a former member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, Canadian Actors' Equity Association, UDA, and is an ACTRA member since 1968. She was on the board of directors for ACTRA and the Children's Broadcast Institute. She has worked for TVO and CBC Television. She is best-known for playing the role of Muffy the Mouse in TVO's 1981-87 TV series Today's Special, which was shown worldwide including on Nickelodeon in the United States. Her father, John Keogh, played Howard the Turtle in Razzle Dazzle. Keogh retired from the television business in 1999 to become a professional painter.
Noel MacNeal, sometimes credited as Edward Noel MacNeal, is an American puppeteer, actor, director, and writer best known as the performer of Bear on Bear in the Big Blue House. He also starred as Kako on Oobi, Leon MacNeal on The Puzzle Place and as Magellan on Eureeka's Castle. Since 2014, MacNeal has served as resident puppeteer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, portraying puppet characters such as Mr. Nutterbutter.
Alice Dinnean is an American puppeteer, voice actress and creative writer who works at The Jim Henson Company. Dinnean has performed on many children's television shows such as The Puzzle Place, Sesame Street, Big Bag, Bear in the Big Blue House, Cousin Skeeter, Jim Henson's Pajanimals, Sid the Science Kid and Jack's Big Music Show. She also did work on various non-Muppet productions such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in Ancient Greece.
Hi Diddle Day is a Canadian children's television series which aired on CBC Television from 1969 to 1976.
Cheryl Wagner, is a Canadian puppeteer, producer, director and writer, who is the creator of the TV series The Big Comfy Couch, is a Gemini Award and Emmy award- winning Canadian children's television writer, showrunner and producer who began her career as a performer in both theatre and on the screen. Her Halifax-based touring Merrytime Clown and Puppet Company in which Wagner worked as a clown and puppeteer from 1977 to 1980 provided a fertile ground for her later work as a producer and writer in children's entertainment.
Daniel McCarthy was a Canadian radio and television producer and the former head of children's programming at CBC Television (CBC). He worked at the CBC for thirty-three years, including a twelve-year tenure as the head of the CBC's children's programming department. McCarthy created, developed and produced such well known Canadian children's television shows as The Friendly Giant, Mr. Dressup, and Sesame Park.
Ryan Dillon is an American puppeteer who has worked as an ensemble muppeteer for the Jim Henson Company since 2005. He also played Cooper and Paul Ball for the interactive series Sesame Street TV for Xbox Kinect, and appeared on all four seasons of the new CBeebies and co-productions of Sesame Street, The Furchester Hotel, and The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo as Elmo. In March 2017, Dillon was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming.