Puppet Shows

S and I both love puppets. I have fond memories of our dating days (more than 15 years ago now!) when we'd browse the local shops on Main Street in Newark, Delaware and end up at Grass Roots playing with the puppets in the toy section of the store. Good times.



So it's not really surprising that we have inflicted a ridiculous number of puppets on our children. I haven't actually counted them all, but there must be well over 30. And those are merely the plush hand puppets -- I'm not counting the various finger puppets we have. (Nor am I including the rather bizzare punching nun and punching rabbi puppets that S owns. I think he has some other punching puppets as well.... but they are not in the kids' stash.)




Up until this weekend, these toys were little more than stuffed animals who flopped a bit more than their normal counterparts (because their puppet forms caused them to be a bit lacking in the stuffing department). But on Sunday, the kids treated us to our first puppet shows. It was BJ's idea. Inspired, I'm sure, by the puppeteer at this year's holiday party for his preschool, he decided that our living room hutch would make a perfect stage. The first show could have been titled New Friends, as the plot (such as it was) was little more than putting one puppet on one hand, a different one on the other, and popping them up for us see. The dialogue consisted of variations on the statement: "Hi! I'm a lizard! The seal is my new friend!"

Given the technical difficulties that he was having in getting the puppets on his hands, by himself -- much less one on each hand! -- I was suitably impressed. Naturally, when he had finished, BB decided it was her turn to put on a show for us. Hers was very quick and might as well have been a sequel to her brother's. New Friends: The Return.

When BB had finished, BJ was ready for another turn behind the stage. By this time, I'd managed to get the camera. Here's BB in the audience, along with a bunch of stuffed animals and various puppet friends who have been given roles as audience members.

For his second show, BJ was much more ambitious. Working largely outside the limitations of the puppet genre, by including a stuffed turtle and various cut out wooden fish from one of our puzzles, he narrated a countdown story in which ten fish are supposed follow their teacher, a turtle.
Various mishaps occur, one by one, until no fish remain. Here is one unfortunate fish being consumed by a hermit crab puppet.

Clearly BJ has been influenced by the happy endings of most of the children's books we read: after being eaten, each fish was burped/sneezed/coughed back into existence. This involved a careful accounting on BJ's part in order to keep straight where he was in the countdown sequence (a process that wasn't always accurate) but by the end of the show, all ten fish were back with teacher turtle again. (This was a source of great relief to BB especially.)

The entire show probably took more than 10 minutes -- felt much longer, mostly because I was also wrangling BB and dealing with her impatience. Most of the video clips I got were much too big to upload, but here's a brief clip about halfway through. "Five fish! What could happen to one of them?" Well, here's what happened:

When it was BB's turn again, she kept things traditional, popping up various pairs of puppets for our viewing pleasure. Sometimes she'd tell us where they lived or what they were. ("Hi! I'm a pig! I live in a barn!") The other friend is a pelican puppet that she has cast in the role of a seagull. Because why not?

Here's a clip from her show:

All told, it was enormously gratifying to see the two of them having such fun. And the entertainment factor for us in the audience was pretty high, too! I just wish I'd gotten out the camera sooner. (But then again, it was nice to just sit back and enjoy the moment and not worry about recording it -- especially since they were so into their play that I got a replay and was able to catch footage then. Best of both worlds I suppose.)