It’s been awhile since we’ve checked in with Kasou Taishou, the awesome twice-annual Japanese game show/competition where people complete against each other by staging skits with outrageous props, costumes and puppets. I’m really late posting about this – Kasou Taishou 86 was broadcast back in May and the next one is coming up soon in the New Year – but here’s a quick overview of all the skits that were featured in the most recent editions.

You can see complete versions of some of the best skits after the jump…

An invisible man weightlifting:

Although this it isn’t necessarily the best example of puppetry, this photography skit is just conceptually fantastic:

Finally, one of my favourites, a really nicely done black light skit about underwater life:

You can see even more of these by doing a quick search on YouTube for “Kasou Taishou 86″ or checking out previous posts about Kasou Taishou here on PuppetVision for some great skits from previous editions.

Although the independent feature film Bunraku has little or no connection to puppetry, its brilliant opening titles are filled with it. The sequence takes the audience from the creation of the earth, to the dawn of human civilization and up to the present day. A key theme in the titles is the increasingly rapid development of human warfare and different styles of puppetry and animation are used to represent each passing era.

It’s a brilliant piece of work by Guilherme Marcondes, who is probably best known for Tyger (see previous post), a really popular short film that was made about five years ago using a combination of animation and Bunraku-style puppetry. The Art of the Title has a fascinating interview with Guilherme about the process of creating the titles that includes lots of great sketches and behind-the-scenes material.

Bunraku is currently playing in select U.S. cities; it will hopefully have a wider release in the near future.

Earlier this year Nokia decided to launch a pink version of their Nokia N8 smartphone with a nicely done music video starring a dancing puppet/doll.

Here’s a look behind-the-scenes at the making of it:

I don’t have a full list of credits for this commercial unfortunately, but Jonny Sabbagh (see previous posts) was the lead puppeteer.

This is a music video for the Disasteroid song “Chasing Ghosts” that was produced by students in the Motion Graphic Design Program at Ex’pression College For Digital Arts. It’s a nice mash-up of simplistic Bunraku-style and animation, although the overall feel is very similar to the more professionally executed Piece of Me, Piece of You music video a few years ago.

Special thanks to Strange Kids Club for sending this in!

If you haven’t already watched this – it’s been spreading around the internet like crazy for the past couple days – you need to. It’s an inspiring TED Talk with Handspring Puppet Company co-founders Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones explaining the evolution of their puppets, which culminated in the incredible horses of Warhorse (see previous post). Over the course of this 18 minute long video Adrian and Basil explain how their style of animal puppets have evolved over the years and demonstrate the innerworkings of “Joey” the star of Warhorse.

I had the chance to see Warhorse in London last year and it’s an amazing piece of theatre. The horse puppetry is absolutely stunning; watching it you really believe that you’re watching horses. Warhorse recently opened in New York and a new production is planned here in Toronto next year. If you have the chance to see this show, please do. You won’t regret it. If you’d like to learn more about Handspring, their history and their process I highly recommend the excellent Handspring Puppet Company book, which you can order online from David Krut Publishing.

Special thanks to all the readers who took the time to write in with this!

Puppetry is used to create an interesting metaphor in this PSA for the Tourettes Syndrome Foundation of Canada. The puppetry in the video was created by Montreal’s Beans and Bueller; you can read a good interview with them over at Strange Kids Club.

This is one of the most talked-about performances from last night’s Grammy Awards, Cee Lo Green channeling Elton John (circa the Muppet Show) with Gweneth Platrow and puppets from the Jim Henson Company.

Update: YouTube has been fast and furious taking down clips from the Grammys and there doesn’t seem to be a sanctioned version of this available yet, so I’ve embedded a brief authorized clip from Yahoo above. Trying checking the CBS Grammy website, which has unfortunately blocked access to their videos from Canada.

The latest edition of Kasou Taishou (see previous posts) recently aired in Japan and as usual, there were a lot of interesting and innovative skits to be seen. I thought that the Home Appliance Circus was ridiculously awesome (and much better than the grand prize winners).

Here are some more highlights from the show:

This one is very short, but very cool.

These black and white animals are pretty good too.

Although this Rooster sketch could have been executed much better technically, conceptually I liked it a lot.

You can watch almost all of the other skits by searching for Kasou Taishou 85 on YouTube. The next edition of Kasou Taishou is scheduled to be broadcast in Japan in May.

The Aussie Roo has been appearing in commercials for for Aussie shampoo for years now. I’ve always wondered who was responsible for it and I only recently discovered that she was built by Artem in the UK and is performed by Nigel Plaskitt.

So there you go, now I know and you do too.

It’s almost the end of the year and you know what that means…time for JibJab’s annual salute to the year we’ve all just lived through. Although JibJab is primarily an animation studio, they’ve never shyed away from blending puppetry and animation in the past (see previous post) and this year’s video is almost entirely puppet characters.

As always, JibJab has an extensive look behind-the-scenes on their website. Everything you see in the video was designed and built in-house at JibJab. The puppetry in the video was provided by Swazzle, who seem to be on quite a roll lately.