Donald Flat

This is officially approved.

Heartaches Pilot 14 : Puppet Trauma Theater

Shan comes over with her own hand-made puppet collection. She puts on a funny show to try to cheer Roxy up and make her forget about her great loss. Shan waves Fuzzy Bunny's whiskers on Roxy's nose. Roxy resists happiness.
The trauma begins. Instantly the cute puppets attack each other's most personal weaknesses.
"Oh yeah? Well I hate you, Gooney-Thing! You're nasty and ugly!" yells Fuzzy Bunny. "Let's settle this with extreme violence!!" Shan bashes the adorable puppet faces together. Bash Bash Bash Bash! Their interior cardboard structures collapse.
Roxy is a bit shocked but intrigued by the subtle multi-layered drama.
Shan brings up her foot-puppet- a rational authority figure man character: Mr. Probation. He calms the fight down with reason and soft pseudo-psychological buzz words. Now Roxy thinks that's funny and starts to cheer up.Shan presents the topper to the skit - her butt puppet: Poopy the Poodle Tard who talks with a fart whistle!

The curly tard reminds Roxy of her lost poodle toy and she explodes into tears.She turns around and buries her face in her pillow.
Shan is very worried now. When even butt-puppets fail to cheer up a kid, you know there is a serious problem.

Puppet Glory

BEAUTIFUL MEL CRAWFORD ROOTIE KAZOOTIE GOLDEN BOOKS

Puppet Fun

Smokey the Foetus says "Don't grow up and be a corporate puppet who destroys all fun."I love this puppet design concept. A nice sculpted full color 3 dimensional head coupled with a drawing of the body printed in 3 colors on a cloth rag.The head is made by a different artist than whoever drew the body. These Terrytoons bodies look like they were drawn in Hong Kong while the heads are sculpted on the homefront. It's a great contrast and really makes the characters come to lifeMan. do I wish I had a Farmer Alfalfa puppet! The greatest cartoon character in history!Rocky and Bullwinkle made for great toys. Rocky has been eating well lately. Bullwinkle looks a little shakey. And flesh-colored!

HANNA BARBERA PUPPETS

For some reason Hanna Barbera sold more toys than any characters in history.
These bodies look like Ed Benedict's actual model sheet drawings. That's kind of cheating because they actually look well designed on purpose. The heads are on-model too, which is also against classic toy design laws.

MushMouse's proportions here are a natural wonder.
They go well with Betty's below.

"Archie, take me!!"

LESS FUN BUT STILL AMUSING

I was never too much into "realistic" characters as toys, but when they do weird things to them like this they're still kinda fun.

The giant heads make them more fun than the cartoons themselves.
Encasing them claustrophobic body bags helps.

PUPPET DEVOLUTION

Like everything else, puppets suffered the devasting mass devolution of the 1970s. Climate change caused all fun design to go extinct.

NOT A PUPPET BUT MODERN TOY NO FUN ANYMOREThis isn't a puppet but it's a good example of what happened to toy design after the 70s. Everything became bland, lumpy and wrinkly.

MORE FUN PUPPETS IN ACTION: SANDY BECKER'S CHRISTMAS CAROL

When Puppets Ruled

More Puppet Thrills Here:

http://flexitoon.blogspot.com/2009/07/potpouree-of-powerful-puppets.html

What makes Funny Puppets

I love vintage puppets. They are totally different than post-muppet puppets. The muppets were great, but they ruined puppetry by making everyone else think that they had to copy them. Sort of like how Peanuts ruined comics, even though it was wonderful itself.

Here are the traits that I think make puppets the most fun.

You can't have too many strings.

Off-balance poses add precarious excitement.



The Jaw has to be obviously separate from the face.




If there is a human host, it's good if she never makes eye contact with the puppets and even better if she looks positively creeped out the whole time.


Having wall-eyes is a great puppet attribute.


Here's Howdy Doody's gay twin brother.



A seam down the middle of the face adds realism and believability.





If a puppet is gonna wear clothes, it is essential that they be lumpy and bunched up at the crotch. This contrasts nicely if the face is totally smooth shiny and wooden.

Here are some fun puppets.



The burn-victim effect can be mesmerizing to children.


Here are some severely happy looking prosceniums.

The whole atmosphere of puppets should be so evilly happy that it hurts.

These puppets are crappy, but I like the proscenium.