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Marionettes & the mythological world of Austrian puppeteer Richard Teschner
03.06.2018
09:47 am
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A strange puppet created by Austrian artist Richard Teschner, early 1900s.

Artist and puppeteer Richard Teschner was a pioneer as it pertains to his adaptation of “wayang”, an imaginative method of puppeteering that utilizes rods to manipulate puppets on stage. The art dates back to the 800s with wayang artifacts being traced to Indonesia and areas in and around Southeast Asia. In addition to his talents as a puppeteer, Teschner was also an adept painter, illustrator, composer, and sculptor. 

Teschner started the process of perfecting his puppeteering as a youth while studying art in both Prague and Vienna. By the time he was 27, he was already running his own puppet/marionette company in Prague. During this time Teschner was using more traditional forms of puppeteering, although a trip to the Netherlands in 1911 would lead to his discovery of the wayang style of puppeteering. Upon his return to Prague, he immediately incorporated the use of rod puppets into his shows.

Teschner’s puppets were curiously designed and often wore exquisite clothing generally reserved for nobility and upper-class of the time, making them even more spellbinding in appearance. By re-engineering this ancient form of entertainment, Teschner helped usher in a resurgence of interest in puppeteering across Europe. In the very early 1900’s in the U.S. puppet shows were popular, and once news of what was happening in Prague made it to America, puppet shows evolved into more elaborate stage productions covering a diverse range of topics.

You can see examples of Teschner’s puppets as well as other pieces of his visionary work below. I’ve also included footage of Teschner performing live with his marionettes in 1934.
 

 

Another imaginative marionette by Richard Teschner.
 

A puppet made by Teschner called “Bimini.”
 
More magical marionettes after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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03.06.2018
09:47 am
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Disturbingly large puppets of the Tall Man from ‘Phantasm’ & the evil sewer-dwelling clown Pennywise
05.01.2017
11:18 am
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An intriguing puppet of actor Angus Scrimm as ‘The Tall Man’ from the ‘Phantasm’ film series by The Scary Closet.
 
So two things: Yes, a 50-inch puppet of Angus Scrimm, the terrifying “Tall Man” from the Phantasm film series actually exists. Likewise, so does a four-foot version of Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King’s 1986 novel It and subsequent television miniseries starring Tim Curry as the clown who lived to lure kids below the street gutters. (In other good news that involves Pennywise, director Andrés Muschietti‘s highly anticipated film adaptation of It is scheduled to hit theaters on September 8, 2017.)

Made by a company out of Los Angeles called The Scary Closet, these puppets are not for the casual collector of horror-related oddities. For instance, Pennywise was created with the help of FX rock star Bart Mixon who was responsible for creating the original image for the It miniseries. Every last detail of Pennywise’s appearance was taken from Mixon’s original tangible design which the artist has kept as a part of his own personal collection. Adding another bit of horror nerd street credibility to the puppet is the work of sculptor Charles Chiodo, who created Pennywise’s head. Chiodo and his two brothers Stephen and Edward are long-time film artists and the talented trio are probably most well-known for flexing their FX muscles in their own film, the 1988 cult horror classic Killer Klowns from Outer Space. This version of Pennywise is known as the “Battery Acid Edition.” A clever nod to the original production when the evil clown gets burned with it the stuff thanks to the quick thinking of “Eddie Kaspbrak” played by actor Dennis Christopher. Only 25 were ever made and all of them have been signed by Tim Curry himself.

The puppet of Angus Scrimm (the transfixing “Tall Man” from the 1979 film Phantasm and all of its subsequent sequels) took over a year to finish. Ten of The Tall Man puppets—which were all hand painted by Charles Chiodo—were signed by Scrimm during a reunion of the cast of Phantasm in California in 2014. If after reading this post you’ve just decided to quit your day job and fulfill your dream of becoming a traveling ventriloquist, I hope you’ve saved your lunch money, because the Pennywise puppet will run you $2,495 and Mr. Scrimm (who is currently on sale) is $1,995. You can get more information over at The Scary Closet‘s Etsy page where they have several other high-end puppets up for sale (including a very scary “Slappy” puppet from author R. L. Stine’s book and television series Goosebumps). I’ve posted a few images of the puppets below. If you need me I’ll be under the bed.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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05.01.2017
11:18 am
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The indiscreet art of ass puppetry
09.02.2015
04:04 pm
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The title of this video doesn’t give the slightest inkling of what the viewer is in store for—and it’s also fairly hilarious. The title is: “This girl is going places. Not college, but places.”

The video is a collection of perhaps 20 Vine-ish gags involving a face made when a pair of googly eyes are placed on a woman’s body ... south of the border. The soundtrack includes the Star-Spangled Banner, Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love,” Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” and Tom Jones’ “What’s New, Pussycat?” 

A pair of googly eyes and suddenly you’re the Señor Wences of ass puppetry…

If anyone in your workplace would object to even mildly risqué material, you’d be completely crazy to play this there. You have been warned!
 

 
via Death and Taxes

Posted by Martin Schneider
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09.02.2015
04:04 pm
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Pee-wee’s Death Haus: 1970’s kiddie host horror, ‘The Psychopath’
03.05.2015
11:00 am
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Poster Art for The Psychopath aka Eye for an Eye
 
It could be the 1670’s, the 1970’s or in this present day, it is hard to be remain childlike in this world. This is the lesson beloved local TV children’s show host, Tom aka Mr. Rabbey (Tom Basham) learns in 1973’s massively overlooked horror film, The Psychopath aka Eye for an Eye. This grim and strange little gem opens up with one of Tom’s “Rabbey’s Rangers,” little Bobby, playing baseball with the neighborhood kids. His mother, who is straight out of central casting’s “abusive hag” division, immediately starts yelling and yanking him out of the game. His big infraction apparently is playing with other kids, who all seem fairly wholesome and nice. The ole chestnut of “Wait till your Father gets home” is growled at the little towheaded boy. Daddy does get home and is henpecked into unleashing some corporal sadism at the little boy, while one of the neighborhood kids watches in secret.

The next morning, an anonymous call is made to the police and little Bobby is “missing,” as his horrible parents look nervously at each other at the breakfast table. Bobby’s age? Five years old.
 
Guilty Parents in vomitous 70's pastiche
 
The film then cuts to “The Mr. Rabbey Show,” which centers around the eccentrically boyish host and his strangely gruesome puppet show. His choice in marionettes are something straight off of an old Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker album. (See, Oops, There Comes a Smile and get a nightmarish taste.) Despite the off putting puppets and plot lines involving cellars, Rabbey’s got a knack with the kids. A trait his handler Carolyn (Gretchen Kanne) recognizes, helping her come to his defense when the stage director hits the roof over Rabbey missing his marks for the umpteenth time.

Rabbey then goes to the park and plays with the local kids, almost like the pied piper of small town sunny suburbia. All is fun until one little girl’s horrible mother comes along and slaps the crap out of her when she tells her mom that she wants to stay with the other children and Mr. Rabbey. Before threatening her kid with “I’ll give you a reason to cry about!,” all but accuses Rabbey of having an untowards interest in the kids and warns him that she will go to the authorities. (Which apparently do not include DHS in her sphere of existence.) Rabbey looks irritated and confused, since his own sphere of existence seems to literally be stunted at a child-like level.

Meanwhile, the local police force are investigating Bobby’s disappearance. One of them notes that his medical records show a history of “accidents,” which are further looked into when the detective goes to the hospital and talks to the main nurse (Margaret Avery, who went on to be in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple). There’s no hard evidence of abuse, but she gives him a lecture on how you can tell when a kid is abused and introduces him to one little boy, who is bruised and afraid to speak. She shows the officer an experiment where she has the poor kid hold his arm up until she says to stop and asks the same of a little girl who was not abused. The latter immediately tires out and puts her arm down, while the little boy just leaves it up. The officer asks her how long Bobby left his arm up the last time he was in the hospital. She says “Fifteen Minutes.” While this is going on, Mr. Rabbey is in the room, visiting the sick kids to cheer them up with toys and a puppet show involving an executioner. Foreshadowing? You better believe it!
 

 
As the officer gets ready to leave, he is greeted and promptly scared by a puppet asking him questions through the driver’s side window. Rabbey pops up and doesn’t seem to make the officer feel any less weirded out, but does ask about Bobby and if they are going to arrest his parents. Of course, nothing concrete is given out information-wise, leaving Rabbey to think about justice that is needed. Another abused kid, a little girl named Rosemary, has one of the doctors knowingly tell her that if she needs anything, to call him. As she is being released, her harridan mother shows up and immediately starts quizzing her daughter if she told them “anything.” It’s a sick, sad world.

Bobby’s parents head home after searching for their kid with the police. They talk in hushed tones about when the authorities will find the body, all the while Rabbey is outside, listening. Soon, he breaks in and has one of his puppet friends peek around the corner, whispering, “Where’s the baby?” Creepsville turns into bloody justice land as the town’s boyish TV host offs both parents. While Bobby’s death has been avenged, you cannot spill blood without being changed and Rabbey heads back to the now empty studio, upset and playing the piano. Carolyn notices that he is acting more moody, especially during dinner, where he lightens up only when he starts exclaiming, “I wish I had all the chocolate cake in the world!” But he quickly comes down and says to her, “I don’t want to talk about it and you can’t make me. Leave me alone!” Things start to spiral more and more, with death, intrigue and one of the best and yet strangely, bleaker twist endings I have seen in a long time.
 
Tom Basham is mixed up in The Psychopath
 
The Psychopath is an amazing and amazingly bent horror film that could have only emerged out of the 1970’s, arguably one of the grittiest periods for horror and crime films. It was the era that also gave us the even darker and brilliant The Candy Snatchers (1973), Hitchhike to Hell (1977) and more famously, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974.) Out of all of these titles, The Psychopath is infinitely more obscure, as evidenced by its lack of any legal DVD/Blu-ray release, something that all of the above have had. Which is a shame because there is truly nothing quite like it.

It’s commitment to not reward you with any feel-good comeuppance and present a fairly stark worldview is equaled by the strong performance by Mr. Rabbey himself, Tom Basham. A character actor who had appeared on TV shows like Adam-12 and Night Gallery, as well as the pro-gay cult biker film, The Pink Angels, Basham’s performance here is nothing short of unforgettable. He physically inhabits the role of this murderous man-child, acting every bit like a kid who gets irrationally upset, acts out and gets neglected, save initially for Carolyn and the kids themselves. Having the harsh realities of a world born ugly rear up in the imaginary life he’s created is a pill that Rabbey cannot swallow. After all, puppet violence is way easier to deal with than the real thing, so when these two worlds clash, none of this goes well. Having passed away back in 2010 from small cell cancer of the lungs, it’s truly a shame that Basham did not become a bigger name since what can be seen of his work is quite good, with his turn as Rabbey being the biggest stand-out.
 
Welcome to my Nightmare-One of Rabbey's many puppets
 
The film itself is not perfect, with parts of the soundtrack being reminiscent more of a TV Movie of the Week than a dark horror film about mental instability and child abuse. It is also really strange that all but one of the many abusive parents featured here are mothers. The dads are mentioned but other than Bobby’s drunken henpecked sadist of a father, they are more in the background. This certainly would be far from the first (or last) film to deal with some violent mommy issues.

The Psychopath has remained in semi-obscurity for years. A remake was planned in the 1980s with Combat Shock director Buddy Giovinazzo at the helm and starring the interstellar Joe Spinell as “Mr. Robbie.” In a weird move, it was to be titled Maniac 2: Mr Robbie, though it had nothing whatsoever to do with William Lustig’s Maniac. Some footage was shot but the film itself was never completed due to the untimely death of Spinell. (Though you can see some of the footage in the X-rated version of Skinny Puppy’s “Worlock” video.)

The Psychopath can be found both on way out-of-print VHS copies and somewhat easily via the gray market DVD circuit (and YouTube in several parts), but with so many equally obscure films finding their way to legit DVD/Blu-ray releases, one hopes that this bizarre horror gem will get the treatment it so desperately deserves.
 

 

Posted by Heather Drain
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03.05.2015
11:00 am
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Teach your kids how to use the phone with terrifying puppets
10.15.2014
01:59 pm
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Anyone who’s ever observed the rate at which a four-year-old figures out an iPhone is well aware of how quickly kids pick up on new technology. It’s a curious phenomenon (especially when it’s taken years to teach my grandmother how to text), but I suspect that it has something to do with openness—kids don’t have to “unlearn” old tech that may be counterintuitive to a new gadget, nor are they as easily intimidated by learning, since the whole world is new to them anyway.

However, not everyone trusts the potential of our youth! Take Adventure In Telezonia, a 1949 instructional video from the Bell Telephone System (now AT&T)—this is a generation of people who believe children are morons best taught by terrifying puppets. Our protagonist Bobby is whisked away (basically kidnapped) to the land of Telezonia by Handy (the murderous marionette), who teaches him phone etiquette and… how to dial. The only real benefit I see to the film is to remind kids that machines are expensive and breakable—something they never really seem to grasp until they drop something and destroy it.

Got that, kids? If you abuse your iPhone, Handy will come for you.
 

 
Via Network Awesome

Posted by Amber Frost
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10.15.2014
01:59 pm
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Meet the six-foot-tall George Harrison Marionette
04.18.2014
02:42 pm
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This is a guest post written by Tabitha Vidaurri.

There exist a series of music videos of a life-sized, hand-made marionette of George Harrison. He sings songs like “Pisces Fish” and “Someplace Else” while strumming the guitar, banjo and ukulele. As a teen, I constructed a puppet of a blue cat wearing sunglasses and taped it singing “Land Down Under” by Men At Work, so when I laid eyes on this lovingly obsessive tribute to the Dark Horse himself, I immediately felt a kinship with whomever was responsible for its creation.

While I was not able to get in touch with the puppeteer, I did some digging and found that her name is Jenn, she has over 35 years of experience as a puppet builder and performer, and it took her six months to complete the George Harrison Marionette.

Jenn has also written about her project extensively on the Muppet and Steve Hoffman Music forums

Originally, ‘George’ was going to be much smaller…more the size of a traditional marionette (2 to 3 feet tall). Because of the complicated animations I had to build for the unique eyes, eyelids, and mouth, the size of ‘George’s’ head ended up being life size.


The puppet is is fully clothed in a store-bought two-piece suit, though Jenn notes she had some trouble finding non-leather, vegetarian-friendly men’s dress shoes. You Harrison fans will notice that the electric guitar used isn’t accurate, which is due to the fact that this was such a low-budget production. At $80, the tiny Dark Horse Records lapel pin on ‘George’s’ jacket was the single most expensive item used in the project.

A lot of love and nitpicky detailing went into this project to give ‘George’ a realistic appearance both in looks and movement.  His hands are completely pose-able thanks to an eternal ‘skeleton’ of stiff wires in his fingers. This enables him to mimic any playing position. His hands are also rich in detail, with knuckles, veins, and palm lines sculpted into them. The LP record cover of ‘Living in the Material World’ was used to insure his hands were correct to size.  I was adamant about having him be portrayed as himself, as a solo artist, instead of the far more common representation one sees of ‘Beatle George.’

The puppet is modeled off of late ‘80s/early ‘90s Harrison, a period when he was absent of facial hair and prone to wearing blazers. This era was chosen so ‘George’ would have the option to sing selections from the Traveling Wilburys catalog.

I admire Jenn’s devotion and peaceful attitude. She acknowledges that a 6-foot tall puppet—or puppets in general—may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but if it does happen to be your mug of Earl Grey, then this is just the tip of the iceberg:

‘George’ is wonderful company…a bit quiet though, and seems perpetually content. He is definitely a ‘presence’ in the room, which some might find disturbing (in a spooky sense) while others may find it charming. The few people who have been able to see him in person have noted this.


To learn more, visit the George Harrison Marionette Facebook Page.

The video for “My Sweet Lord” features a behind-the-scenes look at how the marionette works; ‘George’ is operated Thunderbirds-style, meaning there are no electronic elements used, and a total of fifteen strings control his movements:
 

 
Jenn also filmed a music video for “Life Itself” as a bigger production with multiple camera angles, even creating storyboards. The final product has candles and moody lighting, very much in the style of the early days of VH1:
 

 
This is a guest post written by Tabitha Vidaurri.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.18.2014
02:42 pm
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Horny marionette mimics Jamaican ‘daggering’ dance craze
08.29.2011
01:27 pm
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Well, at least I think this is ‘daggering.’ Things get pretty hot and heavy between the host of the TV show and the marionette around the 1:30 mark. Enjoy!
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
The dance craze that can break your dick

(via BuzzFeed)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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08.29.2011
01:27 pm
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Satan makes cameo appearance on Christian puppet show
11.12.2010
04:37 pm
Topics:
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Not much else to say about it, really.

Via Everything is Terrible

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.12.2010
04:37 pm
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Jim Henson blows Middle America’s mind on Carson in 1974

image
 
Did Johnny Carson know what he was getting into when his producers asked Jim Henson to perform without Muppets on his show in February 1974?

By the time of the clip below, Henson and his Muppets Inc. crew were five years into what was becoming a hugely successful partnership with the Children’s Television Workshop on the show that would raise Generation X, Sesame Street.

What better time to do something like, say, adapt electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott’s highly trippy piece, “The Organized Mind” as a short live multimedia stage performance? (By the way, the film playing in the background is apparently Henson’s film adaptation of the same piece of music.)
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Cookie Monster helps train IBM sales staff (1967)
Jim Henson’s “Time Piece”

 
Bonus clip after the jump: “The Paperwork Explosion” another 1967 Henson/Scott collaborative film for IBM…
 

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Posted by Ron Nachmann
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09.14.2010
07:02 pm
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