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Thursday, October 04, 2007

Muppet Show: slinkies dancing "Java"

I've noticed that much of the genius of the muppets are the myriad little ways the puppeteers make the puppets come alive. One example I just noticed was that when one muppet accidentally came too close to another one in an otherwise dialogue-driven scene, the other muppet flinched. It did not add anything to the plot or the comedy, but it did help the character seem alive. A puppeteer has to be really invested in a character to make stuff like that happen in real time.*

Another example is how the slinky dancers in the clip below look down just by the puppeteer turning the tubes a little.




*One more example of good improvising was when Kermit plunked a pie in the face of Fozzy Bear, and a big blob of the pie landed on the sleeve of the female guest star. And Fozzy, without a milisecond's thought, started berating Kermit: "Look what you did to the guest star, look, look!"
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5 comments:

  1. Pascal [P-04referent]5 Oct 2007, 00:57:00

    When I was still a kid and didn't even understand English, I was struck by the quality of the animation, and how NATURAL these puppets felt.

    Jim Henson, their creator, eventually founded a cinema studio specialized in creature SFX. Hugely successful, of course. Even today, his work might come better or cheaper than digital effects, because it's the talent of the animating artist that makes the difference.

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  2. Anonymous5 Oct 2007, 21:58:00

    a grown man into children's puppets? you must have never grown up? no offense mean't stobblehouse, but this is so childish.

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  3. Eolake Stobblehouse5 Oct 2007, 22:02:00

    You should learn to distinguish between children's entertainment and all-age entertainment.

    And it's also good to distinguish between hack entertainment and brilliant entertainment.

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  4. Pascal [P-04referent]6 Oct 2007, 01:16:00

    Naah. Anon is right. Walt Disney wasted his whole life doing children's entertainment. And what, may I ask, did it bring him? Satisfaction? Popularity? Wealth? Anything at all?

    Same for J.K. Rowling, I might add. Or Jim Henson. Or videogame makers. Or that criminal against Mankind who invented the slinky! Or MM. Fischer & Price.

    Interestingly, I've learnt in History at school that in the Ottoman Empire, the testimony of a school teacher wasn't recognized by a court of law. Because, allegedly, schoolteachers necessarily had a childish mind, and therefore weren't responsible adults. No fib!
    No woman was deemed a valid witness either. How UNsurprising...
    ):-P

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  5. Anonymous7 Oct 2007, 10:01:00

    anonymous said: "a grown man into children's puppets? you must have never grown up? no offense mean't ..."

    Funny, I would take that as a compliment.

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