FACTORALY - E107 PUPPETS

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Simon's arm goes live. Bruce gets his wires crossed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, Bruce. Hello, Simon. How are you today? I'm feeling rumbunctious, thank you very much. How are you? Rambunctious. Oh, we're starting it off as we mean to go on. I'm feeling, uh, all right.

right yeah all right good and hello to everyone listening i assume there are i assume there are people listening to us hello everyone um why are people listening to us who are we i don't know why they're listening to us okay fine that's an existential question but they should be listening to us because they like facts and they may be a little bit nerdy a bit like us yes that seems true and i think they should that they should be listening because they will walk away from this with more stuff in their head than they ever really wanted to have. Yes. And especially today.

Yes. Today's a big one, isn't it? Well, you see, we normally pick a subject that we think is going to be either small and interesting or big, but then we can make it smaller and still interesting. But our random subject choice this week came up with a subject, which we didn't realize was quite as big as it turns out to be. No, I thought we'd come along, have a quick chat about a popular TV show, and then nip off home for our tea.

Yes. No, it's bigger than that. It's way bigger. So what are we talking about on this week's episode of Factorily? Well, actually, we're talking about something that as voiceovers, which you and I are. Indeed. It's something that's sort of quite close to our hearts. Yes.

Because the performances come from inanimate objects that are animated. Yes. And we're talking about puppets. We are, aren't we? Puppets are a thing. They are definitely a thing. How do you feel about puppets? I know people who love puppets.

I know people who genuinely hate puppets. Is there a phobia of puppets? There must be. There probably is. I haven't looked that up. But I had quite a few sort of hand puppets when I was a kid. Each of which had their own voices, obviously. Yes.

Provided by yours truly. And I find it really difficult to walk past a shop that has hand puppets inside it without putting a few of them on and seeing what voices come up. And I'll do that. this with friends and families and, you know, it's absolutely fine. Some people who are with me find that equally amusing and will join in. Other people will just totally clam up and try to pretend they don't know me because they find it painful. Yeah, I can see both sides of that discussion. Well, there's another discussion, isn't there? Because we're talking about puppets. But are we talking about mostly puppets? Or are we talking about other things?

We're talking about marionettes, for example? Well, there is a grey area here. There are different types of puppets. Let's start, I'll tell you what, let's start with a rough definition of a puppet that I found, which helps to sort of incorporate lots of different sub-areas. Okay. So a definition of puppet, I found,

is a movable model of a person or animal that's typically moved either by strings controlled from above or by a hand from within. To me, that covers everything that I would ever think to be called a puppet. Apart from some of them control by sticks. Yes. Those exist as well. Yes.

So there are different types of puppets, lots of which, most of which, are named after the way they work. Yes. So I've found string puppet, stick puppet, hand puppet, glove puppet, sock puppet, rod puppet, human arm puppet, shadow puppet, finger puppet, and then marionettes. Right. Which are a type of string puppet. Well, I was going to say, because string puppets, I would have put string puppets in as marionettes

because marionettes are the ones that are suspended. It's like you suspend disbelief quite literally. Yes, you do. Because you're suspending characters from above. Absolutely, yeah. So they've been around for a long time. They were called string puppets before they were called marionettes. So a marionette is a string puppet.

And that's named after Little Mary. That's right, yeah. So in the 1600s, string puppets were often used specifically in France to tell stories from the Bible, as sort of a almost sort of like a nativity or a Sunday school thing. Yeah. And, yes, they became named Little Mary, which in French is Marion et. The etymology of the word puppet is quite interesting. It comes from, well, it was first written in English in the 1500s.

Originally comes from Poppet, you know, the sort of the cute affectionate name you would give to someone. Oh, hello, puppet. Exactly. It comes from that. Which in itself means a small doll. It comes from the French Poppet, meaning small doll, which in turn comes from Poppet, meaning doll which in turn comes from Latin pupus or pupa meaning boy or girl

so a puppet is a small doll in the shape of a boy or girl or a crocodile yes that's a variation so they've been around a while they have quite a while when do people first start using puppets then

well this is just as ambiguous as the definition we may have a puppet that's roughly 26,000 years old. 26,000? Yeah. So there's a, it's certainly a child's toy. There's argument as to whether you can call it a puppet or not. But there's this little figure in several pieces made out of mammoth ivory.

Oh, wow. So it's that old. And this was unearthed in Czechia, former Czechoslovakia. And it's a little figure of a person. It's got holes in the shoulders and the leg. and the head, which would imply it being held together by strings, and therefore it's movable and poseable.

Some say, yeah, that's a puppet. Others say, no, that's an action figure. But the first things we can actually definitely, definitely call puppets, these sort of moving figures controlled by strings and so on come from a couple of thousand years, BC,

ancient, go on, take a guess. China? Nope. Go again. Egypt? Yes, that one. It's always one and the other. I'll bet the Chinese had them before the Egyptians had them. I reckon they did as well. The Chinese certainly had shadow puppets before anyone else, but there are suggestions that the ancient Egyptians had things that were very much string-operated puppets. Some historians say that puppets are actually older than actors. Yes. The method of acting was often portrayed through a figure rather than by the human themselves.

That makes sense. So they're old. You know, Plato makes mention of shadow. shadow puppets, rough figures dancing around in front of a fire, casting a shadow on a wall. They were also a piece of, like, gauze between the performer and the audience, so that the light would be reflecting the shadow, if you like, of the puppet onto the gauze. Yeah, that's right. So that's what they've sort of become, these sort of silhouette shapes in thick paper. Originally in China and India, they were made of leather, thin slices of wood, even. and they cast a shadow onto a silk screen by the light behind.

When I was in Bali, I saw an Indonesian shadow puppet show, which was really good fun. They're very popular throughout Asia. Malaysia has a lot of shadow puppets, India, China. And they sort of range from that black silhouette to actually very, very colourful pieces of very thin, translucent paper so that the light shining from behind doesn't just cast a shadow, but actually casts a colourful illumination onto the silk screen. Wow. They can be incredibly decorative,

and they're often used to sort of portray historical events or mythological stories. They're sort of epic sagas, these Asian shadow puppets. They're quite impressive. Fantastic. I mean, when you think there's a line going all the way from that to, I don't know, War Horse and the Lion King, which will, I'm sure, come on to later.

Yeah, of course. That's quite something. It's quite a lineage, isn't it? Yeah. So what kind of puppets have you looked at, Bruce? There are so many different types. Where have you started? Well, I think my first exposure to puppets was probably Punch and Judy.

Yes. I don't remember having one as a toy when I was younger. But I definitely remember going to see Punch and Judy on the beach, which is probably so non-PC now, though. I can't believe there's actually any Punch and Judy people even existing anymore, because it's basically about death, destruction, assault, and being eaten by crocodile and sausages. Yeah, exactly that. Apparently they do still exist.

Do they? You can sort of hire them for children's parties and so on. They must have changed the material, though. They've got to have changed the material. I mean, killing the baby. Yeah, yeah. With a stick. Yeah, it's not PC.

But that's all based on comedy d'Alte, isn't it? That's right. I remember that we talked about that in our episode on trousers. Oh, yes. did, didn't we? Because we sort of went through to the clown. Pantaloon. It's a comedy del Arte person called Pantaloon who wore those sort of trousers. Big blue trousers, yeah.

So apart from that, most of my exposure to puppetry has been on television. I remember I was very young watching a thing called Four Feather Falls. Oh, not heard of that one. Which was one of the first Jerry Anderson productions, which will again get on to. Can I just point out that this subject is so full of rabbit holes that I went down? Yes. I mean, massively. If we, if we managed to get this episode into 30 minutes, I will be amazed. I mean, Simon is a fantastic editor, but realistically, there's going to be a lot of stuff I don't want to cut. So, yeah, so for the fall for the falls. I also remember things like Bill and Ben, the flower pot men. Lo, blah, lo, blah. Oh, you'd have gone through the muffin the mule era and all that sort of stuff, wouldn't you?

Yes. And what else was there on TV? There were so many puppets. for children on television. It was a golden age, if you like, for that sort of thing. Yeah. Then there's all those other BBC puppets in the cupboard. Oh my goodness, the broom cupboard puppets. Crikey. Who of those can you remember?

Is it Phillips Schofield? Yes, that's right, yeah. Yeah, so in the broom cupboard we had Phillips Schofield with Gordon the Gopher. Yes. We had Ed the Duck. And as I named these things, I had one of each. You know, you could buy one. Of course he did.

The little squeaky mouth, Gordon the gopher. Oh, we went through, you had Basil Brush. You had Roland the Rat was one of my favorite TV shows as a kid. You had the Fragles. You had Zig and Zag from the Big Breakfast. You had all sorts. They were just everywhere. Yeah.

Pinky and Perky as well, of course. Oh, sure, yes, of course. The singing pigs. Yeah. Now, because there are so many different types of puppet, there's a little bit of ambiguity over. distinguishing between different types. The words hand puppet and glove puppet seem to be relatively interchangeable.

Ooh, arm puppets, arm puppet as well. Well, there's an arm puppet as well, right. So there is a distinction. So it seems that glove puppets are, as the name suggests, things that sort of take the shape of a glove. So think of Ed the Duck, sooty, punch and Judy. So you sort of put your hand inside this glove. You have your thumb and your opposing finger being the two arms.

Yeah. And you have your middle. finger or fingers being the head. That's a glove puppet. Right. A hand puppet is where you put your whole hand into a mouth and it opens and closes the mouth. So like a sock puppet? Which is made of a sock, which is a different type of hand puppet.

So hand puppets think, I don't know why I'm doing that with my hand. That's useless for a podcast, isn't it? Think Cromat the Frog. You know, all of those people with movable mouths, those are hand puppets. Then you get an arm puppet, which, you get an arm puppet, which. has a second puppeteer standing next to the puppet and they insert their whole arm into a sleeve which gives the hand puppet its own arm. So the puppeteer's got one arm in one place and one arm in the head or something like that. Yeah, so one for the body, one for the mouth and then there's

the second puppeteer doing an arm. So Zippy and George are prime examples of that. They just have one working arm next to them. A two-man puppet? Yes, exactly. Yeah. Okay. What about fingers? Finger puppets. Finger bobs. Oh, finger bobs. Yes, of course. That's another type. So many, so many puppets. So many types of puppets. Well, I'll tell you what, if you dare, and frankly, I would suggest that you didn't this week. It's massive.

You should go and have a look at our show notes on our blog at factorily.com. Factorily.com. That's our website. I mean, this is just like an open invitation to go and search the whole of the internet, isn't it really? Well, I've done that already, so you don't have to. but there is so much on puppets and we'll get onto some other bits and pieces about puppetry later and I've got so many links that are so interesting

that well look I find them interesting anyway and there's one especially about the use of voices in puppetry oh great yeah so for all of our friends who are voiceovers who listen to this and we know you do then please have a look in the blog this week and you'll find some really interesting stuff. So how far down the specific routes did you go? Because every time, you know, we're saying the words puppet and we're saying the word voices.

Yes. I'm instantly thinking of the Muppets. Yes. What are you instantly thinking of? Thunderbirds. Right. Okay. Where should we go first?

Well, technically the Muppets was before Thunderbirds. Yes, you're right. Okay, so the Muppets started earlier than I realized. 1995. Even earlier than that, because do you remember we're on our episode on coffee? We talked about Jim Henson doing some commercials for... You're right. Was it Hendricks Coffee?

I don't remember the brand, but yes, I can't remember that. And he actually did some commercials for them. That's right, yeah. But the first occurrence of things that, you could officially call a Muppet. Yes. 1995. It was a weekly slot on a sort of a TV variety show. This slot was called Sam and Friends. And the main character was a human puppet and he had lots of crazy little animal-y friends. One of them was Kermit the Frog. So Kermit's first outing? Yeah,

195. And it just escalated from there. So what is a Muppet? As far as I can tell, it doesn't have its own definition. It's just a branding thing. It's a puppet with an M in front. Okay. But the Muppets are a sort of a variety between hand puppets, obviously, because they all have moving mouths. Yes. Stick puppets.

So Kermit will have a couple of sticks attached to his arms to make his hands move around. And human arm puppets, like Fossey, has an arm that he can use to cover his face and all that sort of thing. And they're just phenomenal. You know, we could do a whole episode about just. the Muppets, couldn't we really. Yeah, we could. We could do a whole episode about every single thing that we're mentioning. Like the Muppets, the Thunderbirds.

Absolutely. They could all have their own individual episode, yeah. Ridiculous. But Jim Henson performed the poet, you know, the puppet and the voice of Kermit the Frog all the way from 1955 till his death in 1990. So 35 years of Kermit the Frog was just Jim Henson. Yes. And then someone else took over, someone else took over, et cetera.

Well, then there's Mr. F. Oz. Yes, indeed. Frank Oz. Oh, Foz. Is that why we have Fossey Bear? It's why we have Fossey Bear. No. Mind blown.

But all of those great characters, you know, Miss Piggy, Gonso, Bunsen and Beaker, all of these, you know. Swedish chef. The Swedish chef. There were 120 episodes of The Muppet Show. I didn't realize this. They were all created in England. Yes, they were. In Elstree Studios, just outside London.

And they flew over. American artists and actors to Elstree. Because it was cheaper to produce over here than over there. And the creatures were created at warehouse, literally 200 yards from my house.

Oh, really? It was called the Creature Workshop. Oh, yes. And then, as with everything else in London, it was bought up by a property company. Of course. But it's now called the Henson. Oh, is it?

Yes. And you can buy a flat in the Henson. Oh, I want to go there. I'll take you next time you come up to town Okay, thanks And then of course The Muppets eventually led into Sesame Street Yep

Which was an absolute staple of my childhood Started in 1969 Still going now The Count I used to be scared of the count I remember being scared of him When I was ago Over 4,730 episodes

Of Sesame Street to date And all of Again, all of those iconic characters Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Elmo, Snuffle Off against the Count, just glorious, whimsical characters that totally defined so many people's childhood, you know, mine including. And a lot of those would have been human arm puppets, I guess, as well. Yeah, so they had, I think Oscar was a human arm. Elmo was a hand puppet slash stick puppet.

Big Bird was just a guy in a suit. Yeah. Do we call that a puppet because it's a guy in a suit? If he's operating the eyes and the beak I think it's still okay But then is a ventriloquist's dummy a puppet I suppose it is in a way It's a poseable moving

It is but I'm scared of those So we're not going to talk about them No, okay We'll skip past ventriloquist altogether Did you see that? I did that without even moving my mouth That's very good apart from Nina Conti Who is brilliant She's cool, yeah, okay

So an awful lot of Jim Henson's imagination ended up on screen, including, of course, in a film. Just the one? Well, Labyrinth. Oh, okay. I thought we were going to be talking about the Muppets' various movies. Yes, well, we could talk about the movies. Including one of the greatest Christmas films of all time.

Ever, yes, which you and I have been to. We have. We've sung along. Wow. Yes, go on, in Labyrinth. So Labyrinth, I think, it's one of those films that when you see it, you kind of go, okay what drugs were they on yeah because it is

absolutely insane it is bonkers and the characters in it is so interesting they're just they're just lovely you've got things like hoggle hoggle is a really complicated puppet

and there is somebody inside the suit a small person inside the suit but then there's also other people operating the eyes and the head and all sorts of it's just amazing but there are loads and loads of other characters in labyrinth and everybody has their favourites there are i had um that children's theatre i went to as a kid

i ended up working there as an usher and one of the people i worked with was a puppeteer who was in labyrinth and uh you can see his hand in you know one of those hands that sort of stick out of the wall yes in labyrinth um and a very bizarre fact uh this particular fellow played the honey monster no in the sugar puffs adverts back in the day tell them about that Honey, Mummy. There were several honey monsters, but he was one of them. And at one point, he was dating the fellow who played Mr. Mussel in the TV Ivers. Isn't that a strange pairing?

Oh, yeah. One of the things you'll notice, if you go to the show notes and have a look at some of the videos in there, is you'll see how they did the Muppets, which was they had to have a lot of studio height because everybody was underneath the stage, if you were. So the Muppets were like in the air above a platform and the puppeteers are all underneath the platform. Yes. So it was very unusual to do.

It must be exhausting. I mean, I remember watching the making of the Muppets Christmas Carol. And, you know, you've got Michael Cain sort of walking down the Victorian cobbled street and you watch the making of it and the street is elevated. You know, the street is a platform five feet in the air with all of these puppeteers standing directly beneath it. with these puppets stretched over their heads.

You know, they have their arms fully extended above their heads with their heads ducked down out of shot. Must be exhausting. And also you're in very, very close proximity. Especially when you're a three-man puppet. Yes, of course. There's three of you all in really close proximity just to do that. That's crazy.

Yeah. They must have all got on very well. So Muppets and puppets seem to be something that kids really enjoy. And as I said, you know, sort of like Muffin the Mule and Souty and all of those creatures that I remember from my childhood that were all puppets. Yes. But then puppetry sort of went in a much bigger dimension with the advent of a guy with an amazing imagination called Jerry Anderson. Ah, yes. So Jerry Anderson, who had a stylist called Sylvia, can't remember her last name, who he married.

Oh, I see. They met on set. So, yes, Jerry and Sylvia Anderson, formed a company that made kids' puppet TV shows. But one of the things that Jerry invented was really clever, which is that you believe a puppet more if its mouth is moving in time to what you're hearing. Yes, that makes sense, yeah, lip-sinking. A lot of puppetry is basically done live. So the person who's manipulating the puppet is talking.

Yes, that's right, yes. Whether it's a marionette on strings or whether it's a human arm puppet or whatever, those people are actually talking at the same time as they're manipulating the creatures. What Jerry Anderson did is he pre-recorded all of the scripts. And then what he would do is he would play out the scripts through a machine that took the electronic signals of the voice and translated it into electrical signals. which then triggered solenoids inside the puppets. Isn't it amazing? And so when they would play back the soundtrack of people talking, their lips would move in correct proportion to the words.

I never knew this before. I only found this out whilst researching this. They coined the term supermarionette. Super marionation. Super marionation. Isn't that a great word? Yeah. So Jerry patented this idea.

of super marionation. Wow. And it was first used in Four Feather Falls, which was about a cowboy who had been given four magic feathers by an Indian chief as a grateful thank you, which allowed him to shoot his guns without him touching them and talk to his horse and his dogs. Like you do. That you do. Except they would talk back.

But then there were a whole list of shows that Jerry and Sylvia Anderson started to produce. So, you know, went from that to Supercar, Fireball XL-5, Stingray, and then eventually into things like Thunderbirds and Thunderbirds, and we can talk about all the others, of course, and I will in the blog. But today, I think, just concentrate on Thunderbirds, Thunderbirds was amazing. And the quality of the vocal talent that Jerry Anderson was able to get, he had really well-known people like Nicholas Parsons would be in. and he'd have sort of

if you actually look at who's played parts in Jerry and Sylvia Anderson's their company was called AP Films or APF Yes And they did a deal with Lou Grade To produce stuff for ITV And they were all produced in a really

salubrious location Slough Trading Estate Well yes they were And in fact what would happen is that They do all the animation during the week and on Sundays they do all the voice recording because on a Sunday on a trading start it's really quiet

Oh I see, yeah, okay So they had like a corner of the studio that they would record all the voices in on a Sunday And yeah So one of the voices was a chap called David Graham Who is worth talking about Yes

David Graham played many of the voices Most famously the voices that he played were Parker and Brains in Thunderbirds. Yes. Parker was interesting because Jerry Anderson took David Graham to a pub in Cookham because he had heard this voice of a wine waiter named Arthur who worked at the King's Arms in the High Street.

Oh, right. And he would come over and say, Would you like the wine list? I can't do the voice. Can you do the Parker voice? Would you like to see the wine list, me lady? Yes, exactly like that. And so he basically said to David, right, that's the voice of Parker.

That's great. So that's the one you've got to do. And then in that pub there is now a plaque celebrating. Oh, is that? Yes. And then there was brains. He also did Gordon Tracy and loads and loads and loads of other voices. He actually, I only discovered this in researching this episode.

So you know that commercial for Apple and, computer in 1984? Vaguely. The one where the guy runs and throws a hammer at a screen. Oh, it's sort of, it's rather 1984 based, isn't it? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So the voice of Big Brother

who's like in the background that you hear is David Graham. When you know that and you watch the commercial and you know that it's the voice of Brains and Parker doing that. You can sort of hear it. You can hear it. You can actually hear it. It's fabulous. That's great. But I mean,

And the other big thing that they did on all of Jerry and Sylvia Anderson's stuff was really good music. They had a guy called Barry Gray, who's not really very well celebrated, but he should be. Because he was the one who invented like the Stingray theme, the Thunderbirds theme, all of that stuff. And he had his own orchestra. There's also, they did a film called Thunderbirds A Go. Yes, they did. which was a really, I mean, it is so 60s. Yes.

Put it this way, it is so 60s that it has Cliffridge and the shadows in it as puppets. And at the end, they have the marching band of the Marines. Yes. Doing the Thunderbirds theme. They have that at the end of the film. It is mad. Such a big thing, wasn't it? Huge.

I mean, I don't know how popular it was at the time, but it is purely, you know, it's absolute cult icon now, isn't it? Well, it was so popular when I was watching it that they repeated the whole thing. And people, younger people got to watch it all again. Yes, yes. And older people who kind of went, I remember this, would be watching it with them. Yeah. It's just so good.

So you mentioned earlier Punch and Judy. Yes. What was it? You said they had their origin in? Comedia del Arte. That's the one. Thank you for pronouncing that so well. There was originally an Italian character called Pulcinella. Pulcinello, yeah. Who in English, yeah, gets translated as Punchinello.

And this was a character portrayed by people, you know, in a sort of a slightly clown-esque... Oh, real person? Yeah, sort of Harlequin. Portrayed on stage. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And this character looked like Punch, you know, slightly hunched back, hooked nose, big silly hat, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah. And this was a very popular character in sort of the late 15, early 1600s in Italy. And then that character eventually made his way into puppets, you know, portrayed in various marionette shows. Samuel Pepys in 1660 in his diary makes mention of going to Covent Garden to watch a marionette show featuring this fellow Ponconello. before he got shortened to Punch. Okay.

Punch and Judy were created in 1662. Judy was originally called Joan. I didn't realize this. It was Punch and Joan. And the reason she got changed to Judy was because of the device that the puppeteer had in his mouth to make Punch's voice.

Do you know about this thing? A swizzle. Close. It's a swazel. Swazel. Which is my new favorite word. So picture the voice of punch. I'm not going to try. and do it because I can't, but that...

But that is the way to do it. That is the way to do it, indeed. So this little thing, it's kind of like holding part of a kazoo in your mouth. It's a little oval shape made of two metal plates with a bit of tape in between, sort of acting like a membrane of a kazoo. And the puppeteer holds this thing in his mouth or her mouth the whole time, balancing it on their tongue. And when they engage punches voice, they just sort of move their tongue.

in a particular way to speak through this kazoo-like implement, and that creates Punch's voice. And then they just move their tongue slightly so that they're not talking through the swazel to do the other character's voices, so they're switching back and forth, which I've seen videos. It's a phenomenal-looking skill.

Have you used a swazle? I've used a swazle. I was given someone. I was a kid. Have you got any left? I want one. I was a kid a long time again. Yeah, but you keep stuff.

But you can still buy swazels on Amazon, I'm sure. I'm sure you can, yes. I kind of want one just for the fun of it. But these things became particularly popular in England in the early 1660s. So after a handful of years of Cromwell and his parliamentarians, you know, sort of putting the kibosh on things like Christmas and theatres and fun, when Charles II came back to the throne in 1660, he overturned a lot of that.

And suddenly puppet shows became very, very popular in England. And Punch was sort of born. of that revival. Okay. And apparently the person who operates a punch and duty show is historically called a professor. Yes. The professor used to have, not so much now, but they used to have a sidekick called the bottler. And the bottler used to roam around in the audience with a bottle or a jug to sort of take money.

Take money, yeah. Like going around with the hat. And jeer up the crowd and sort of, you know, lead the cheers and the call and response stuff. Wow. And you sort of think back to a sort of Victorian or Edwardian seaside scene. There's always a Punch and Judy show there. And this has historically been a part of puppetry that they were travelling showmen. You know, they went from place to place to place, putting on these shows, earning a bit of cash, moving on to the next place.

It was almost like the circus being in town, you know. The two were sort of quite synonymous. Back in medieval Italy, you used to have people roaming around with a donkey and cart. and they would paint the side of the cart in these beautiful scenery and sort of dangle their marionettes over the side of the cart and that was sort of their travelling puppet show. There are a lot of films with puppets in them. There are.

And some of which are now being replaced by CGI sadly. Yes. But, you know, things like Star Wars. Oh, yes, okay. the original Star Wars had huge amounts. I mean, you know, Yoda is a puppet. No, he isn't. He's a real-life Jedi master.

How dare you? Yes, Frank Oz again. Yeah. Yes, Jabba the hut. Well, Jabba's very... Jabba is the most expensive puppet ever made. It's half a million pounds. No way, really.

Yeah, dollars or pounds? I can't remember. I think it was pounds because it was made over here. Yes, it was. And had so many... It had like three people inside it to operate it. And like one person would operate an arm and the eyes and one would operate the head.

It's just crazy. Jabba the Hut had a, I'm going to get all nerdy now, Star Wars. Jabba the Hut had a little sidekick called Salacious Crum, who was this creepy little creature with big ears and a sort of a beak who was always there on the sidelines. Another puppet? Another puppet. Yeah, yeah.

There were a lot of puppets. Star Wars. And then we sort of go on to the is it a puppet isn't it a puppet area. I was a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when I was younger. Oh were you? And collected all the action figures, watched the cartoons

and everything. And there was a live action movie of that in the early 90s. And the turtles were these big animatronic costumes. So they sort of had a person inside the suit moving around and doing the turtally stuff. So there's

There's a body actor. There's a body actor. Yeah. But then there was someone off set with a, what looked like a remote control car controller. Yes. Operating the mouth and the eyes and all that sort of stuff. By, yes, exactly, by remote control. So again, you know, humanoid character being operated by a person, kind of falls within the description of a puppet.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think puppets on TV are probably gone. I think CGI has taken the place of puppetry on television, which is sad. Because I think there's a human element to puppetry, which we're starting to lose, except in live events. Oh, right. Yes, OK. So I think that live events are one of the things where puppetry is really useful, in the theatre, especially. Yes. I mean, they call anything that moves that shouldn't move in a theatre is, is.

So like if you get a, if you're watching a play and a picture falls off a wall deliberately, that's called puppetry because it's actually a human influencing and not an object to do something. Is that right? I didn't know that. However, you take that to whole other levels with things like the Lion King. Have you seen the Lion King? Of course. Do you know what? I haven't actually. I've never got round to it. You have missed out. It is the most amazing puppetry ever because it combines people.

and animals and models and masks and costumes to a degree where you kind of forget that there are people who operate. Even though you can see the people plain as anything, it's a bit like Avenue Q. I've seen that. Okay. So Avenue Q, you kind of, you don't see the people after a while.

You just see the puppets. Yes, that's right, yeah. And the Lion King is just when the elephants and the giraffes rafts go down the aisle in the middle of the theatre and walk straight past you you kind of go wow I'd imagine it is just quite something the other thing that they did on stage was a was war horse did you ever see war horse again no the horse you just believe it's a horse yes it's a puppet it's operated by three people there's there's a guy at the front the guy at the back and a guy holding the head and you stopped

seeing them you just see the horse after a while and these puppeteers are just masters of puppetry they are so clever and again i'm not being paid by anybody but if you want to go and see the lion king or wars i strongly recommend that you do just by having a look at the puppetry and it is sensational the other thing is there's a thing called black light theater i don't know if you've seen this or black light puppetry so what you do is you wear black yeah and then you wear fluorescent bits so that when you shine a black light on the stage you don't see the people wearing the black you only see the fluorescent things okay right so there are people playing like table tennis oh I know what you mean yes I've seen this on YouTube yeah yes so and the table

tennis ball seems to do things in the air that it shouldn't be able to do yes that's right yes and that's because there's a man in black and the table tennis ball is is fluorescent I hadn't really associated that as being a form of puppetry but yes of course it is isn't it is Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you'll see what looks like a puppet, and then suddenly the arms and the legs all go in different direction. Yes, yes. Yes, I've seen that.

I know what you mean. Brilliant. So black light puppetry is very interesting. Okay, so Simon, can we do a top ten movie puppets? Oh, go on, man. Yes. Can you do the da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d. In number 10, it's E.T, the extraterrestrial in 1982.

Oh, wow, yes. And in number nine, humongous from Labyrinth in 1986. Naturally. Just a ridiculous, crazy. And number eight, it's the library ghost from Ghostbusters. Oh, well, yes. Yeah. Ruth Oliver is the ghost.

And number seven, it's spiderhead in The Thing. It was a John Carpenter thing with a spider with a man's head. Sounds charming. Which is great. Number six, in 1955. the giant squid in 20,000 leagues under the sea. Number five in 1986, the alien queen in aliens. Oh, yes.

A great puppet. Yeah. And number four, the T-Rex in Jurassic Park in 1993. That was a massive puppet, and there were three people operating the tail. I've seen part of it. It went on tour. It went on sort of a display. You saw the head and the front foot, and just that was intimidating enough.

Yes. And at number three, we've mentioned him already Yoda in 1980. The Empire Strikes Back. Mm, at number three, he is. And number two, it's Audrey. Audrey, too, in The Little Shop of Horrors, 1986. And at number one, it's everything in the Dark Crystal in 1982. Wow. That's a good list. Normally at this point in the show, we would talk about records. Yes, we would. I guess there must be a biggest puppet,

the longest piece of string that somebody's operated a puppet off. All that sort of thing. There are quite a few, actually, yeah. We've got the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people wearing hand puppets. I would love to have gone to this. This was in 2017. I'm not going to try and pronounce it, but it was an organisation in Spain. They created a coordinated performance of hand puppets.

they had 3,011 people. So is that 6,022 hand puppets, or is that just... I think it didn't stipulate how many they had each. That's interesting, yeah. The number of puppets might have been higher than the number of people. Yes. But they all gathered together, and they had their hand puppets performing along to the song Despacito.

Just for fun. Just for fun. And for the acclamation of a record. The largest collection of finger puppets 2,978 owned by Sunny Molina in Illinois in the USA Wow That record was achieved just this year, June 2025

But the best one This was a little rabbit hole I went down So I'll put a link in the show notes The Guinness World Record for the largest mechanical puppet This thing is 14 metres tall What is it? It's a minotaur And this is in France

This is a French company called La Machines And it's a giant mechanical minotaur That sort of sits on a wheeled trolley And you know the whole thing moves Its arms, its legs, its head, its mouth It snorts steam out of its nostrils And it's absolutely massive 14 metres tall

It weighs 47 tonnes It's operated by five puppeteers It's made from a mixture of wood, steel, leather And it's just absolutely phenomenal There's a wonderful video about the making of it And the use of it sort of roaming the streets of Toulouse Just ambling along being a Minotaur Amazing

Is this the one with the giant spider as well Right, so that was in 2018 A few years later The Minotaur was joined by a giant scorpion who's almost as big as the monitor, sort of half woman, half scorpion. And these two things just roam the streets of France, being big and impressive and scary and... Yes. Yeah, they're fantastic creatures.

Amazing. So yes, those are my records. I am out of puppety facts. Yes, I'm strung out. Oh, very good. It's been amazing to have the opportunity to learn about this stuff. in order to present it to you people out there was a privilege.

We are better off. It was a sensational week of research. Yes, absolutely. I do urge you to go to the website and have a look at the blog because there's stuff about making war horse work. There's stuff all about the background of all the Star Wars puppets.

There's things about how to become a puppeteer, how to make a puppet look real. It's just unreal. Now, if you have, any particularly nerdy friends and or fans of puppetry, please tell them about this so that they can listen and joining the fun. Do. And if you don't want to miss another episode, which obviously after this week you might have overloaded, but you never know. Do please subscribe and enjoy the beauty of having one arrive in your podcast player every Thursday morning. Indeed. And then having

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Yes, thank you, everyone. So thank you all so much for coming along and listening to us talking about puppets. Please come again next time for another fun-filled factual episode of, Factorally. Goodbye. Avoy.