What is a TV quality puppet?

People advertise their puppets as “TV quality” and “professional style” but what do those terms actually mean?

When I was checking my Gmail account this morning I saw a sponsored link at the top of the page for “TV Quality Puppets”. For some reason I decided to click it and I was brought to the web site of Wow! Puppets. While they sell some nice looking puppets, there’s no indication anywhere on their web site that they’ve done any significant television work. This left me thinking about the term “television quality”. What does that mean exactly?

I can make a sock puppet in five minutes with two buttons and a magic marker, put it on TV and at that point it becomes “television quality”. Any puppet you’re paid to perform with is technically professional, even if it’s the ugliest, most poorly constructed thing in the world.

If you look at the web sites of some of the most experienced (and often expensive) puppet builders there is often a noticeable absence of terms like “professional puppets” or “TV quality”. The assumption is that if you’re paying in to four figures for a puppet it’s going to be professional and if the builder actually builds puppets for television shows they’re going to build something that’s “television quality” (again, whatever that means).

Please understand that I’m not knocking Wow Puppets, their work, or anybody else. I’m just pointing out that a lot of these terms that get thrown around like “TV quality”, “professional quality”, etc. are pretty meaningless.

Maybe people should just do great work, sell great puppets and let that speak for itself.