Have you heard about ImaginOcean, the black light puppet musical in New York? Created by John Tartaglia, the show tells the story of a “musical undersea adventure” and was originally commissioned for a cruise line before moving Off-Broadway, where it’s been playing to positive reviews since earlier this year.

The show’s puppets were built by the recently-mentioned Puppet Kitchen (see previous post). ImaginOcean features a great cast of puppeteers including familiar faces from the internet puppetry community like James Wojtal and Ryan Dillon, as well as puppeteers Jonathan Carlucci, Brian Carson, Carole D’Agostino, Lara Maclean, Stacey Weingarten, and Nate Begel.

You can learn lots more about the show at www.imaginoceanthemusical.com (be sure not to miss the behind-the-scenes videos).

Fighting Gravity (see previous post) has made it to the top ten on America’s Got Talent. It still irks me to here the show’s judges use works like “Fresh” and “original” to describe Fighting Gravity (they aren’t either), but I have to admit that they are getting a  better and better each time they perform on the show. They’re far from the best black light act I’ve seen, but they’re not the worst either.

More importantly though, audiences seem to be enjoying them. It looks like they’ve got a decent shot at winning the show’s prize of $1,000,000 and a headlining spot on the Las Vegas Strip. Does anybody else notice that puppeteers seem to do really well on shows like this?

You can watch Fighting Gravity compete again on America’s Got Talent next Tuesday, September 7 at 9 p.m. EST.

ABC News pays a visit to The Puppet Kitchen in New York, home of Eric Wright, Emily Decola and Michael Schupbach.

Over at Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow writes:

Last week in Toronto, I happened upon a delightful busker hidden inside a puppet theater that advertised “Improv Song on Demand.” As Alice and I stood before it, a puppet emerged and offered us a song. Alice asked for a song about Star Trek and got this gem.”

As Corey goes on to note in his original post, the “delightful busker” inside the puppet theatre is Alexander Winfield, whose improv puppetry near the corner of Queen and Spadina in downtown Toronto is becoming something of a minor institution.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Alexander a couple of times – he worked on the recent Bear Town demo I directed (see previous post) – and he’s one of the most brilliantly funny puppeteers I’ve ever met. You can see more of his work on YouTube.

I’m off to Chicago for the next several days, but before I depart for the Windy City, enjoy this video for Mala Papachan’s Conengitetis that’s been attracting a lot of attention online. It kind of defies description.

If you like the song, it’s available to download on iTunes.

The original Muppets have returned home to Washington. The Henson family has donated the original Kermit the Frog puppet – famously made by Jim Henson from his mother’s coat and ping pong balls – to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Along with Kermit, nine other puppets from Jim Henson’s first television series Sam and Friends were also donated to the museum. The Hensons are planning to give the Smithsonian a dozen more puppets from the family’s personal collection in the years to come, although that’s at least partially contingent on the approval of Disney, which of course now owns the rights to the Muppets.

The first of Monster Factory’s online shorts (see previous post) has been released. It’s a short episode built around one character having misgivings about the others propensity for fainting. It’s pretty well done; I hope we see more of these soon.

Funginears – a new project from Kyrian Ginearian and friends – looks like a very promising amalgamation of puppets, actors and animation that explores music in a fun and unique way. The show features puppets built by Furry Puppet Studio (see previous posts) and in addition to having a couple videos online, they also do regular Funginears webcasts on Ustream.

This is one of those projects that’s kind of hard to describe, so please watch and see it for yourself!

Just a random, hilariously cute little animated film to help you start your week. Directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp; Marcel was voiced (untreated & unenhanced) by SNL’s Jenny Slate.

Via Kelly.

This is a public service announcement that Jim Henson made in 1962 for the Council of Churches/Protestant Radio and Television Center in Atlanta. It was made in cooperation with a group called the Citizens Advisory Committee on Highway Safety to help promote safe driving. It’s one of those classic early Muppets commercials with two likable characters named Billy and Sue who “try to be good (drivers) despite the hounding of the irresponsible Sneegle.”

Via HensonCompany on Twitter.