If you’re a video or audio podcaster yourself, you should check out the video archive of presentations from Podcamp Toronto 2009. There were a lot of really interesting presentations (I especially liked Becoming a Legitimate Media Outlet by Matt and Nat of BSG Cast) and you’re sure to learn a thing or two from all of them.

This morning I was at Podcamp and sat in on Brian Hogg’s Puppetry of the Podcast presentation (it was streamed live on the web and a recording should be online soon). It was a really good general introduction to the world the world of puppet podcasts/web series. It also reminded me that I wanted to share this, which I’ll just let you watch so you can experience the creativity and insanity inside Brian’s brain.

28/2/09 Update: Brian’s Puppetry of the Podcast presentation is now available to download as a streaming Quicktime file.

A funny little story developed earlier this week…it seems that Brian Hogg wrote a post about taking puppetry seriously that singled out videoblogging puppeteer Loren Feldman for criticism. Loren fired back with an angry response (read the discussion in the comments under the video) and now Brian’s replied in kind and it looks like we’ve got ourselves the beginnings of an old fashioned, silly little puppet flame war here on the interwebs.

It’s hard to say how offended Loren really is considering his “angry man” persona. Taking the debate seriously for a moment, I’m a little torn because on the one hand, I think Loren’s a talented guy and he’s using puppetry (however crude it is) to reach a wide audience that normally doesn’t get exposed to it. On the other hand my inner puppetry snob can’t deny Brian’s point that Loren’s work is, from a technical standpoint at least, horrible.

Interesting…

14/11/08 Update: Brian claims in his most recent blog post that he’s heard through the grapevine that Loren is indeed really upset over this and and does seriously believe he’s done “more than anyone for puppetry since Jim Henson”, which (if true) sort of speaks for itself. You read some examples of what other people are saying about this here and here.

Depending on your feelings towards/knowledge of Star Wars, you may or may not enjoy Ask Palpatine. If you fall in to the first category, check out its latest wonderfully surreal episode.

Best wishes to the happy couple; here’s hoping they have a very long and happy life together.

Brian Hogg has finally launched his Stephen Colbert Puppet Challenge (see previous post). Basically, it’s an elaborate scheme to get Colbert to guest star in the second season of dotBoom and to get Brian on his show to give the real Stephen his puppet counterpart. You can help out by spreading the word.

Work on Brian Hogg’s Stephen Colbert Puppet Challenge seems to be progressing nicely (it’s an idea so crazy it just might work). Check out Brian’s Colbert puppet pics on Flickr.

From the such-a-good-idea-you-wish-you’d-thought-of-it-first file comes Ask Palpatine from Hoggworks (let’s hope no one tells the Ninja…he seems like a testy sort of fellow).

(Sorry for the lack of a graphic, but I’m on a dial-up connection right now and it’s very slooow)

15/10/07 Update: Hey, this got picked up by the New York Times’ Paper Cuts Blog. Pretty spiffy (via dotBoom Blog).

Seattle’s Train of Thought (creators of the previously-blogged Fergalicious and Puppet Tom) have created a brand new Sesame Street parody called Grover Interrogation.

Brian Hogg has created puppets for a clever little promotion for Capital One called Capital One Bankers’ Puppet Theater.

There is now a Sesame Street podcast available for download (via The Muppet Newsflash).

Kanja Chen’s long-in-the-works puppet podcast seems to be coming along nicely.

If you’re in or near Minneapolis and get the local CW affiliate (channel 23) then you can check out the first episode of Transylvania Television on Friday, October 12th.