There was lots of Muppet-related stuff to see at Disney’s D23 Expo this past weekend. Brian Henson accepted a Disney Legend award – which recognizes people who have made “an extraordinary and integral contribution to The Walt Disney Company” – on behalf of his father Jim. Afterwards, Brian treated the crowd to the live puppetry demonstration above, re-enacting Jim Henson’s classic “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face skit” with Leslie Carrara-Rudolph.

The marketing machine for the upcoming Muppet movie (see previous post) was in full swing as well. Jason Segal made an appearance on stage with Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy to introduce clips from the new movie and Kermit also performed a duet with Rowlf the Dog:

Visit Tough Pigs and Hollywood.com for more coverage and commentary about the Muppets at D23.

I have to apologize again for the lack of updates, I’m waiting to have a new Internet connection set-up at home and in the meantime my Internet access is limited to work, which is very busy at the moment. Updates might remain few and far between for at least another week or so.

In the meantime, have a look at the video above of the new “talking” animatronic Mickey Mouse that Disney has been testing at Disneyland in California. It’s likely a by product of Disney’s previously-blogged Living Character Initiative. It looks pretty good, although there are still a few bugs to work out (ah, the joys of animatronics!).

Via Cartoon Brew.

Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (see previous post) was mostly panned by critics and didn’t fare too well at the weekend box office, but it features some of the most sophisticated animatronic puppetry ever seen on film and for that reason alone I think it’s worth checking out.

Most people probably won’t appreciate just how much of this film was done with practical, on-set puppets involving no CGI. Especially impressive is the villain Mr. Tinkles, which is played exclusively by an animatronic puppet with no live animals or computer animation involved. Animatronic Supervisor Dave Barclay – who built most of Mr. Tinkles’ mechs – calls the furry feline the “most sophisticated animatronic that has ever been built”.

The team of puppeteers who worked on the film included Dave Barclay, Bruce Lanoil, Michelan Sisti, Adam Behr and Geoff Redknapp. Animatronic cats, dogs and other animals were built by Romaire Studios with Dave Barclay supervising.

Although robots and automata aren’t generally considered puppets unless they’re controlled in real-time, puppeteers have been working with them for decades. Puppeteers are often employed by toy companies to help “animate” electronic toys like Furby and Disney projects like the Muppet Mobile Lab have taken pupppetry and robotics to a whole new level in recent years.

I don’t think that puppeteers and animators have to be competitive about who does what in this brave new technological world of ours. The more the line between different disciplines like puppetry, animation and robotics get blurred, the more I think that artists working in each field can learn from one and other.

Where the Wild Things Are is just one of several examples of recent hand-crafted films featuring puppets

A few weeks ago The Toronto Star ran an interesting article explaining how puppets got to be so cool. The article talks about Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are, which is just one example of what I think is a much bigger trend towards a growing appetite for interesting, intelligent, handcrafted films. The current renaissance in stop motion animation (which isn’t puppetry per se, but is pretty darn close) and the return to popularity of 2D animated films like The Princess and the Frog and Ponyo offer further evidence of this.

Hollywood is starting to pay attention. The Muppets’ latest viral video, Bohemian Rhapsody (see previous post), has been watched close to 5 million times since it debuted on Monday, part of Disney’s build up to a new Muppet film called The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever that’s going in to production. Likewise, the Jim Henson Company is slowly moving forward with a film based on Fraggle Rock and they’ve gone out of their way to stress to fans that it’ll be made the old fashioned way, with puppets instead of new fangled CGI wizardry. Making films based on established Muppet franchises is a safe bet for Hollywood at this point, but it will be very interesting to see what happens if either of those movies are a big hit when they’re released over the next few years.

I’ve always believed that audiences just want to be entertained and care more about a good story than what medium it’s told in, but movies like Where The Wild Things Are and Fantastic Mr. Fox are helping to dispel the myth that all anyone wants to see is computer generated animation. Although I don’t think we’ll see a deluge of puppet films at the box office just yet, don’t be surprised if sometime in the next five years one or two puppet movies hit big and everyone is talking about how puppetry has finally arrived as the next big thing.

Mark Sonntag posted these fantastic storyboard pages from Plane Crazy (the very first Mickey Mouse cartoon ever made) on his Tag Toonz blog about a week ago. They are really good, especially considering the crude nature of animation at that time. A lot of people don’t know this, but storyboard is a process that was invented at the Disney studio. As Mark points out, actual storyboards weren’t in use at Disney until about 1932 so these are technically just “story sketches” created by the legnedary Ub Iwerks, who helped Walt Disney create Mickey Mouse.

Spotting this was kind of timely for me because I’m currently reading Neal Gabler’s Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. I’ve read several biographies of Disney, but I think Gabler’s is the definiative one. If you have an interest in Disney or animation in general and haven’t read it yet, you should.

I didn’t catch this past weekend’s Studio DC: Almost Live!, but it’s the latest component of Disney’s strategy to reintroduce the Muppets and make them culturally relevant again (see previous post). As if to remove any doubt that they’re serious about making the whole Muppet thing work this time (really!), they’ve brought out their big guns – Disney Channel megastars like Miley Cyrus, Ashley Tisdale and the Jonas Brothers – to co-star with the Muppets (I’m told that if you’re under 16 years of age these people are, like, the best thing ever).

For those of you who like your Muppet analysis with a side of snark, check out what the Tough Pigs have to say about it. As for me, well, I’ll just say that a world where Kermit the Frog needs the endorsement of a 15 year pop star in order to succeed is a world I don’t want to live in anymore (sigh).

Look for a second “Studio DC” special with the Muppets and more Disney Channel tween stars this October.

• Potter Puppet Pals have been nominated for a YouTube Award in the comedy category for their video The Mysterious Ticking Noise. You can show your support and vote for it at www.youtube.com/ytawards07.

• Disney has green lighted a new Muppet movie.
• Puppet meets puppet when Stephen Colbert interviews Emperor Palpatine in the latest phase of Brian Hogg’s grand Colbert puppet scheme (if you like it, Digg it).
• Canadian indie rock darling and occasional puppeteer Feist is teaming up with the acclaimed Old Trout Puppet Workshop for her next music video.

Well, I think that about catches me up. I’ll be back with more soon!

I am thinking that Pixar’s WALL•E is going to be one of the most interesting movies of the year. It’s hard to explain why without mentioning the few spoilers that have appeared on the `net, so instead I’ll mention the Superbowl ad for WALL•E that aired yesterday in the U.S. (if you can’t see the video, click the “Read More” link below to watch it).

I love the way that WALL•E’s character in this ad – and reportedly most of the movie – is conveyed primarily through movement. The little robot is really well animated here (most of the animation in the spot was done by Pixar’s Victor Navone) and it’s a great example of the old axiom “show, don’t tell”. It also stands up to the no sound test…turn off the sound when you watch the ad and you can still tell what kind of character WALL•E is and what’s happening on screen.

I think that both great animation and great puppetry should create character and tell stories primarily through movement, not dialogue.

Quick question…what’s the very first motion picture ever to feature an animatronic puppet? The Dark Crystal? Nope. The Empire Strikes Back? Guess again. Believe it or not, the answer is actually Mary Poppins!

Walt Disney of course pioneered the field of animatronics and, as this short video about early Disney animatronics explains, Mary Poppins was the very first Disney film to utilize Walt’s brand new toys. Anybody else notice how the contraption being worn by a man in a chair around the 1:10 mark of the video is really, really similar to a modern motion capture rig? And this was the early `60s!

Say what they will about Disney, there’s no disputing that he was a man who was way, way ahead of his time.