Note that yes, while Jim Henson and his company have created a variety of shows that have been influential for me (The Dark Crystal is my favourite movie of all time after all), they really need a part all to themselves and I wanted to talk about some others before I go into that. I'll talk about them in another part so look out for that one. I do feel a little limited in talking about these in such short segments, so perhaps sometime down the road I can look into them in a bit more depth. We'll see. So let's get started with my first one.
1. Mr. Squiggle
Image Via Wikipedia
So here's a real classic from my childhood. Mr. Squiggle (the man from the moon) was a delightful character who would travel from the moon to join a human cast member of the series to make pictures from squiggles that would be sent in to him. These squiggles would be enlarged onto card which was placed on the character Blackboard, a rather grumpy character who always insisted that they 'hurry up', which Mr. Squiggle would draw on to make pictures. He had a habit of loosing concentration and going off on space walks, which the human assistant had to bring him back down to earth and get him focused again.
Other characters included Gus the snail (who's shell seemed to change depending on the series) and Bill the steam shovel, who appeared to blow smoke (was actually a powder) when he had a jolly good laugh. These characters were more side characters to the main cast, but more often had some small storyline in the episode in which they appeared.
We recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of Mr. Squiggle, but sadly it seems that many kids have no idea who he is or why he is such an icon in Australia. For me, this was a brilliant and creative show, with family friendly characters that was a joy to watch. Thanks to the internet, you can still find a number of episodes over the various series online here and there, so go check them out.
2. The Ferals
Image Via BuzzFeed
The Ferals are an interesting bunch of characters. There original show (The Ferals) was about four characters, Rattus the Rat, Modigliana the Cat, Derryn the Dog and Mixy the Rabbit. The group were advertised as a messed up bunch of feral animals and characters like Rattus and Modigliana could be quite brutal & violent to each other (in the comedic sense of hitting each other with objects, but recovering quite quickly) would be some what concerning and yes, some parents were concerned, but somehow it really seamed to work.
Kind of like a cross between a kids show and a bogan comedy, the Ferals were a big thing on the ABC back in the mid 90's and looking back at it now, I wonder what the real reason was that ultimately sent them into obscurity. While the original show had human actors in it, their spin-off show called Feral TV was more puppet based and worked well with its idea of a pirated TV station and having various parodies of actual shows on it. After that they just seemed to fade away, with Mixy being the face of the new ABC Kids channel for a period of time while Modigliana was co-host with a human for the educational show Creature Features (a show about animals).
I think what brought them back up for me more recently was a show called Throwback which featured Tina Matthews, the person who made the puppets and looking at their designs, they are quite detailed and a real inspiration for pushing the creation of my own characters in puppet format. After watching it I felt that this path may be the right one to be on.
3. Agro
Image Via Courier Mail
The Ferals may have tried pushing the envelope, but Agro would cross the line. While much of his on-air performances for children's television was obviously edited, much of the non-edited stuff is now out on the internet for all to see. He was a rather naughty (making a number of adult jokes, usually involving sexual innuendos) and self-aware puppet (would make the occasional comment about puppet related things, like his hands or the hand up him). He was a real comedian about things and would often annoy and infuriate his female co-host. It also probably doesn't help that the this he said and did would most likely be slammed today as more harassment then anything funny.
Once again, time takes away from a character like that and his popularity has waned as the years have gone one. I hear his puppeteer and voice actor, Jamie Dunn, has moved on to other things and Agro these days makes a rare appearance now and then. Like most things on this list, we would like to see his return, but also like all things on this list, that is probably never going to happen.
4. The New Adventures of Blinky Bill
B&W Cast Photo from the Blinky Bill Puppet Series Facebook Page
So here's an old one from my childhood. Blinky Bill has always been an Australian icon, but has gone through a few variations in the visual media over the years. This one in the 80's had Blinky and friends as puppets with human actors playing various roles. It's hard to talk about this show as only a few episodes can be found online these days and sadly, thanks to former actor Robert Hughes being convicted of sex offenses, the show will most likely never get released in any format.
It was still a good show (I really enjoyed the characters of Mrs Magpie and Angelina Wallaby) and from the few I have seen they were very enjoyable to watch. Iwould like to see some sort of re-release in the future, though I understand that it would be difficult seeing a children's show featuring a sex offender in it.
I really do hate people who's horrid actions spoil a good thing.
5. Bambaloo
Image Via beIN.net
This one was a morning show on Channel 7 that, despite being an Adult be this point in my life, I actually enjoyed watching. I can't tell if it was the puppets or the story lines that I found interesting, though having little sisters I found tended to get me interested in all manner of children's television shows, so who knows. Was more surprised to find out that, when researching this show, that it was apparently created by Yoram Gross and the Jim Henson Company. What a surprise there.
The show featured Angela Kelly as the host character Sam, who lived in a tree house (The Bambaloo Tree) with her dog Fidget, a fish called Jet and a bird named Portia. They are shown to be the main cast of the show, but the real stars are the two mice called Jinx and Gypsy, who would commentate and interact with things, but remained hidden from the group. In fact, they really only interacted with one human, a man called Jake (played by Andre Eikmeier) who would make something each episode with the mice nicking his food just after. At one episode (Leaky Tap), Sam and Jake interact with each other for the first time, which makes me wonder just what would have happened if the show had continued on for a few more seasons. Would there have been more human interaction or was it just for one episode? Maybe they did and I just never knew.
Sadly, information for this show is somewhat scarce (and my memory is shoddy these days), but I do hope I can find more to learn about it cause it seemed to be a perfect balance of activities for a children's television and the kind of stories one could tell in it. That or I may be thinking far to hard for this one.
6. Lamb Chop's Play-Along
Image Via Reddit
Growing up, this was a name you knew by heart in primary school and it was due to one thing, one song...
A creation of the late and great Sheri Lewis, Lamb Chop and her friends was a morning series addiction with short stories and skits, along with jokes and songs, you knew who they were and you loved them. The ending credits song was a piece that would be repeatedly sung over and over with the lyrics:
This is the song that doesn't end
Yes it goes on and on my friend
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was
And they'll continue singing it forever just because
(Repeat)
It was damn catchy and you knew that once you started you couldn't stop (didn't help that the song itself started small and just built up, making seem to get more catchy as it kept going). Because of this, we all found ourselves drawn to this show. Looking into the work of Sheri Lewis and Lamb Chop now, you can see they did all manner of shows and even adult content was not out of the question, though it was still rather clean (especially if you compare it to say, Agro). Sheri brought a smile to us all and at times the way she would interacted with Lamb Chop you would swear that the puppet was almost real. Strangest part is, given how simple and some what limited the puppet designs were, Sheri really brought them to life with the way their faces moved as they talked and her interactions with them. You can see why people are still endeared with Lamb Chop even to this day.
7. The Sooty Show
Image Via The Telegraph
My memories of Sooty and friends were from the Matthew Corbett era and to me, this was the best period in the Sooty history.
The Sooty Show was a family favourite in the 80's and I can remember enjoying the antics of Sooty and Sweep, usually at the expense of Matthew. Looking back at it now, it was rather amazing how you can make a non-speaking hand puppet so interesting and exciting to watch. What I found out later in life was that at one point in Sooty's career, people were outraged because apparently Sooty and Soo were boyfriend/girlfriend and were living together in the same house, which was somehow offensive to people. Boy, times have changed haven't they.
I can see why some people feel that a show with puppets has to have at least one human to interact with, as shows like this can have its puppet only segments, but much of the comedy needs a human for it to work (mostly cause the human is the victim in this case), but also to be the voice between the puppet and the audience and to bring in the moral message home so everyone can understand. The show seems to have a mix between antics and fun, but also a family feel, which can really appeal to certain audiences.
The show had both indoor and outdoor segments, but I really like how they created smaller sections to act as bedrooms and bathrooms for the puppets. It really did feel like this human person had modified his own house to accommodate for the needs of these smaller characters and it's something I can really appreciate, both from a creative and a narrative point of view. The Corbett family really worked hard to bring Sooty and his friends to life and it is something I just love.
So I think that will do it for now. Now doubt I will do another one of these soon as there are still so many shows to talk about and I only have so much in me to talk about them. Hopefully some of these will spark a little nostalgia in you and make you go back and watch them or perhaps you might find yourself interested in looking some of these up just to see what the heck I'm rambling on about. What ever reason, go watch them and be inspired.
Till next time...
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