Punch and Judy is a traditional puppet show featuring Mr. Punch and his wife Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically Mr. Punch and one other character who usually falls victim to Punch's slapstick. The Daily Telegraph called Punch and Judy "a staple of the British seaside scene". The various episodes of Punch comedy—often provoking shocked laughter—are dominated by the clowning of Mr. Punch.
Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is a performance act of stagecraft in which a person creates the illusion that their voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered prop known as a "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is ventriloquizing, and the ability to do so is commonly called in English the ability to "throw" one's voice.
Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performance is also known as a puppet production. The script for a puppet production is called a puppet play. Puppeteers use movements from hands and arms to control devices such as rods or strings to move the body, head, limbs, and in some cases the mouth and eyes of the puppet. The puppeteer sometimes speaks in the voice of the character of the puppet, while at other times they perform to a recorded soundtrack.
Lili is a 1953 American film released by MGM. It stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, and was also entered in the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. It was later adapted for the stage under the title Carnival! (1961).
Louise Gold is an English puppeteer, actress and singer whose career has spanned more than four decades. She is best known for her work as a puppeteer on television and for roles in musical theatre in the West End.
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms of theatres or entertainment venues. They have also been used in films and on television. The attachment of the strings varies according to its character or purpose.
Bunraku is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theatre, founded in Osaka in the beginning of the 17th century, which is still performed in the modern day. Three kinds of performers take part in a bunraku performance: the Ningyōtsukai or Ningyōzukai (puppeteers), the tayū (chanters), and shamisen musicians. Occasionally other instruments such as taiko drums will be used.
Paul William Gallico was an American novelist and short story and sports writer. Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures. He is perhaps best remembered for The Snow Goose, his most critically successful book, for the novel The Poseidon Adventure, primarily through the 1972 film adaptation, and for four novels about the beloved character of Mrs. Harris.
William Britton "Bil" Baird was an American puppeteer of the mid- and late 20th century. In a career that spanned over 60 years, 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.
Oobi is an American children's television series produced by Little Airplane Productions for the Noggin channel. The show's concept is based on a training method used by puppeteers, in which they use their hands and a pair of glass eyes instead of a full puppet. The main character is a bare hand puppet named Oobi. The first season was a series of two-minute shorts. For its second and third seasons, it became a long-form series, with episodes lasting 13 minutes each. The show originally ran from 2000 to February 11, 2005, with reruns continuing until March 18, 2013.
Terri Hardin Jackson is an American puppeteer, artist, and former Disney imagineer.
Torchy the Battery Boy is a British television series, the second produced by AP Films and Gerry Anderson, running from 1959 to 1961. Directed by Anderson, it was a collaboration with author Roberta Leigh, with music scored by Barry Gray, art direction from Reg Hill and special effects by Derek Meddings.
Slappy the Dummy is a fictional character and antagonist in the Goosebumps children's series by R. L. Stine. He is one of the series' most popular villains, the main antagonist of the Night of the Living Dummy saga and the mascot of the franchise. He is also the main antagonist of the Goosebumps movie and its sequel, where Stine describes him as a "ventriloquist's dummy with a serious Napoleonic complex". He comes alive by these words: "Karru Marri Odonna Loma Molanu Karrano", and they can be found on a sheet of paper in Slappy's jacket pocket. After coming to life, Slappy will try to make the person who brought him to life serve him as a slave, to the point that he will frame that person for bad things that he does.
Ted Milton is an English poet and musician, best known for leading Blurt, an experimental art rock group.
Marcus Clarke is a British puppeteer and voice actor from Nottinghamshire. He is best known as the puppeteer and voice actor behind the BAFTA-winning CITV series Bookaboo and the principal puppeteer of Audrey II in the 1986 version of Little Shop of Horrors. Clarke has worked as a puppeteer in over 60 television series and has created a similar number of puppets. He was also a puppeteer and voice actor in two Muppet feature films and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Blue's Room is an American puppet television series spin-off from Blue's Clues. It was created by Traci Paige Johnson and Angela Santomero. The show aired on Nickelodeon as part of the Nick Jr. block, and it started out as short segments on Blue's Clues episodes in Season 6.
Warrick Brownlow-Pike is a British puppeteer. He is best known for performing the character "Gonger" on Sesame Street and its spinoff series The Furchester Hotel and Dodge the Dog on the CBeebies Channel.
Sooty is a British children's television media franchise created by Harry Corbett incorporating primarily television and stage shows. The franchise originated with his fictional glove puppet character introduced to television in 1955, with the franchises focused around the adventures of the character – a mute yellow bear with black ears and nose, who is kind-hearted but also cheeky, performs magic tricks and practical jokes, and infamously squirts his handler and other people with his iconic water pistol, including on other television programmes he guest stars on. The franchise itself also includes several other puppet characters who were created for television, some of whom became the backbone to performances, and features additional elements including an animated series, two spin-off series for the direct-to-video market, and a selection of toy merchandising.
A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. The puppeteer uses movements of their hands, arms, or control devices such as rods or strings to move the body, head, limbs, and in some cases the mouth and eyes of the puppet. The puppeteer often speaks in the voice of the character of the puppet, and then synchronizes the movements of the puppet's mouth with this spoken part. The actions, gestures and spoken parts acted out by the puppeteer with the puppet are typically used in storytelling. Puppetry is a very ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in Ancient Greece. There are many different varieties of puppets, and they are made from a wide range of materials, depending on their form and intended use. They range from very simple in construction and operation to very complex.
Mongrels is a British puppet-based musical situation comedy series first broadcast on BBC Three between 22 June and 10 August 2010, with a making-of documentary entitled "Mongrels Uncovered" broadcast on 11 August 2010. A second and final series of Mongrels began airing on 7 November 2011.
