Awesome Puppets

Tom Spina Designs performs expert restorations of movie props and costumes. They were asked to restore the fluffy monster puppet from George Romero and Stephen King’s Creepshow. This time-lapse shows how they freshened their faces and hands with help from VFX masters Greg Nicotero and Tom Savini and built it a wooden display crate.

Shadow Ace wowed the judges and audience on America’s Got Talent Season 18 but failed to make the finals. He made the cut on the show’s 2024 Fantasy League, and we think he deserves top price for his immense shadow puppetry talent, as demonstrated in this spirited performance of A$AP Ferg’s and Nikki Minaj’s Plain Jane.

There was lots to love about the 1980s, like Max Headroom, VHS tape boxes, and this McDonald’s training video, created to familiarize the crew with Chicken McNuggets and their sauces. What we got was a hilariously surreal short film with googly-eyed Big Macs and french fries welcoming their new friends to the menu. Brought to you by Tony Pepperoni.

Over a decade ago, we featured a service that let you make your own Muppet. Sadly, that’s no longer available, but Pubbets are here to make that dream a reality again. The Pubbets Lab lets you customize a full-body puppet’s color, outfit, hair, eyes, nose, glasses, and more. Each puppet has posable hands, internal finger grips, and detachable legs.

There’s much more to acting in a full-body puppet than just wearing a costume. During a visit to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, Adam Savage met with creative supervisor Peter Brooke and performer Morgana Ignis for a look at what’s involved in bringing one of these jumbo-sized characters to life.

There are different kinds of puppets, from a sock on the hand to complex marionettes controlled by strings. This street performer shows off his mastery of the latter by puppeteering a character to play the piano with a string attached to each finger. We know he’s not playing actual notes, but we’re still impressed.

Joe Brogie is a talented actor, magician, and comedian. In this video clip, Joe provides a week-by-week status update on his efforts to learn ventriloquism. His furry orange companion has a thing or two to say by the end of his training.

Lena from aboxfullofstuff shows off Azure, an intricate dragon puppet she created with beautiful blue scales, horns, and details like moving eyeballs and smoke that comes out of its nostrils. We love how her costume has a fake left arm to conceal that her real arm is inside of the puppet.

Puppeteer Barnaby Dixon is known for his hand puppets like MANU and Spiky. Barnaby was asked to oversee the puppetry for a staging of The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage. In this behind-the-scenes video, he shows of the larger mechanisms he’s developing for birds and quadrupeds. We can’t wait to see the finished animals.

One thing we love about Adam Savage is how he shares work from others, and not just his own creations. Here, he shows off a charming dragon puppet he commissioned from artist Katherine Winslade. Despite being assembled from simple foam, plastic, and paints, it has a tremendous amount of personality and expressiveness.

Every time we hear the song Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie, it gives us the feels. While Jim Henson set the bar high with his original performance, 13-year-old puppeteer Kai and his dad Kelbe Schrank did the song and its creators proud during an event at Aubrey, Texas’ Fortunata Winery.

Puppeteer Barnaby Dixon is an expert at creating simple characters with tremendous expressiveness. His latest creation is a tiny, glow-in-the-dark fish puppet that has a wonderfully fluid movement, despite being controlled by just two simple rods. It even can be operated underwater.

Nebula-75 brings back the style of classic puppet serials like Thunderbirds and Fireball XL-5. Working with a remote pre- and post- production crew, a team of three from Century 21 Films is shooting the series in their small London flat, since they were living together when the lockdown started. Catch Episode 2 here.

For Christmas 2019, Xfinity released a heartwarming commercial that featured the return of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It turns out that VFX artists had to build a whole new puppet, based on the original from 37 years earlier. Legacy Effects takes us behind the work that went into bringing the beloved character back to life.

The first full trailer for Netflix’s follow up to Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal is here, and it looks amazing. The story is set many years before the movie, as three Gelfling set out on an adventure to save their world after discovering the source of the evil Skeksis’ power is draining the life from their universe. Premieres 8/30/19.

Puppeteer Barnaby Dixon shows off his latest creation, a glow-in-the-dark, four-legged friend that charges up under black light. It requires both hands for operation, and has a tremendous amount of character, versatility, and expression.

Mario has a new get rich quick scheme – to grab up all the teeth he can and leave them for the tooth fairy. But like many puppets, he has no teeth of his own. So he sets about cooking up a scheme to put one over on the famed money-for-teeth operation.

Fans of Jim Henson’s and Frank Oz’s 1982 classic The Dark Crystal will be thrilled by the teaser for this 10-hour series, which is headed to Netflix this August. Like the original, it’s filled with fantastical creatures and settings, and uses puppetry and practical effects wherever possible.

WIRED takes us behind the scenes with the cast of Sesame Street for a look at how the performers operate each of their Muppets, along with a few other cool tidbits about the art of puppetry. Their arms must get so tired over their heads like that all the time.

Director Catherine Prowse’s music video for Tom Rosenthal’s simply wonderful tune Asleep on the Train tells a beautiful tale of self-discovery. Though the entire clip was animated using marionettes and miniatures, it’s as human a story as can be.

Puppeteer and performance artist Tim Davies shows off his latest creation – a gigantic inflatable octopus puppet with articulated tentacles. It measures more than 13 feet high and 22 feet wide, yet has soft and smooth movements despite its size. More here.

Puppeteer and artist Barnaby Dixon shows off his latest creation, a highly-expressive finger puppet that draws inspiration from aardvarks, armadillos, and porcupines, but in this case the adorable critter has sweet glow-in-the-dark spikes.

Writer, editor, and puppeteer David Bizzaro presents a charming and family-friendly live-action short film about an avocado who finds himself feeling empty, and heads out on a quest through New York City in search of his missing better half.