Say, you know what we haven’t done around here lately? A run-down of Michael Jackson puppet acts!

Let’s get started after the jump…

#5 Scott Land’s Michael Marionette

Michael Jackson always seems to be a popular act for marionette puppeteers to spoof and with good reason. Have you ever tried to make a rod puppet moonwalk? (early in my career I had to and I don’t recommend it unless you have a lot of patience). Probably the best Michael marionette you’ll ever see is performed by Scott Land. He’s a really amazing, old school marionette puppeteer who does cabaret shows in the style of legends like Tony Sarg, Frank Paris and Rufus and Margo Rose (it probably helps that he studied under other marionette masters like Tony Urbano, Albrecht Roser and Phillip Huber).

I would love to see this live.

#4 Mini Michael

This is one of the smallest Michael marionettes I’ve seen and it’s performed by a puppeteer in (I think) Comoros, which in case you didn’t know is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa.

…and don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of Comoros before, I had to look it up on Wikipedia myself!

#3 Malaysian Michael

Another thing that Michael Jackson puppet acts seem to have in common is that they’re really popular in Latin America and Southeast Asia (especially the Philippines and Malaysia for reasons that I don’t completely understand). This act from a magic convention in Malaysia isn’t that great, but I give the performer full props for actually singing rather than just lip syncing to a prerecorded track.

#2 Terry-Fator-as-Michael

You know who doesn’t need to lip sync either? Terry Fator. Now intricate, complex manipulation isn’t really Terry’s thing (he’s more of a straight Ventriloquist/impressionist) but, who cares? Is there a better or funnier celebrity impressionist working in puppetry today? I seriously doubt it.

#1 Damon Scott’s Michael Monkey

Our last act is Damon Scott, who nearly won the first season of Britain’s Got Talent. This is a video of his first appearance on the show and watch how he actually makes Simon Cowell grin and laugh out loud. Just accomplishing that alone should win you a cool million on that show!

The theme of the 2013 Puppeteers of American National Festival is “Puppet Festival (r)Evolution” and now there might be a minor revolution brewing over the content of a video that was produced to promote it.

The video in question was shot by Spencer Lott (see previous post) to promote the call for performers at next year’s festival. It features American puppetry legend Bil Baird in puppet form encouraging puppeteers to apply, perform and become puppetry legends themselves. It’s a clever concept, but at least a few people have publicly objected the co-opting of the Baird name for promotional purposes. Although I’m sure that this was just done for fun and that no offense was intended, I can understand why some people might feel it’s questionable for the festival’s organizers to be putting words in the mouth of a deceased and nearly universally beloved member of the puppetry community like Bil Baird.

I don’t know if the Baird Estate was consulted about this video beforehand or not, but the situation reminds me of the minor uproar that was caused a few years ago when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation used puppets from the classic Canadian series The Friendly Giant for a comedy sketch without securing permission from the creator’s family first.

Potential (minor) controversy aside, Puppet Festival (r)Evolution is shaping up to be a great event. The deadline for puppeteers to apply to perform is May 7th. You can learn more and apply online www.puppetfestivalrevolution.org.

Here’s Glove and Boots in an Ode to Seuss, yet another example of how to put YouTube to good use.

A wonderful find via Open Door Designs.

It’s been awhile since we looked in on The Potter Puppet Pals. Let’s see what that little rascal Harry Potter has been up to lately.

The Onion sits down for a chat with the puppeteer who performs Nicolas Cage.

Special thanks to Cristina for sending this in!

Here’s another puppet-centric entry in that Fake Film Contest that Virgin Radio is running in Vancouver. This one is a sixty second version of Requiem for a Dream directed by Brendan James Boyd (see previous post) and featuring puppets by Brendan’s Odd Lot Puppetry Co and Jarrod Boutcher.

Like it? Vote for it at vancouver.virginradio.ca.

There’s a bit of spat at the moment between Spain and France and it seems that a French puppet show is to blame.

The fuss started with an episode of Les Guignols de l’info – a sort of French version of Spitting Image – that featured puppets of disgraced cyclist Alberto Contador singing about blood doping (see the video above) and tennis star Rafael Nadal replenishing the tank of his car with his own supercharged urine. Both athletes are superstars in Spain; although Contador was recently banned from cycling for two years due to a failed drug test, Nadal is apparently clean (he passed a surprise drug test on Saturday) and the perceived slight to Spain’s national pride has caused such an uproar that the Spanish government has filed official protests with the French media and Nadal is threatening to sue the TV show.

Let it never be said that puppetry can’t start an international incident.

Via Public Radio International.

The year is drawing to a close and that means it’s time for JibJab’s annual year-end salute to the year that just was. I’ve been chronicling these videos here for several years and it has been interesting to see how they’ve evolved. JibJab began making these back in 2005 with Flash animation, but after using puppetry for a several shots in Never Had A Year Like `09, they fully embraced it for last year’s So Long To `Ya 2010 and the tradition continues this year.

If you want to take a peak behind-the-scenes, as always JibJab has put together an extensive “making of” 2011, Buh-Bye! on their blog.

Although I know that a few JibJab fans have griped about their decision to move away from Flash animation, I think it’s really cool to see how they have experimented with combining different techniques and I like the low-fi aesthetic they’ve embraced. I think we’ll see even more mash-ups of puppetry and animation like this in the year ahead.

Part of the legacy of Spitting Image is that it inspired a series of similar (some would say copycat) shows in other countries around the world. One of the better known examples is Les Guignols de l’info (News Puppets) in France, but there have been many others in countries ranging from Russia (Kukly) to Kenya (The XYZ Show). A fairly recent production is ZA News, a web series that pokes fun at politics in South Africa, a country that has a tradition of politically minded puppetry.

Here’s a look behind the scenes at the making of ZA News:

ZA News is currently in its fourth season online and now appears weekly on South Africa’s TopTV on Sundays nights as well.

Every Bomb You Drop is probably the most famous of the Spitting Image musical parodies and was one of the most poingent segments that the show ever produced. A parody of Every Breath You Take, Sting agreed to rerecord the song with new lyrics for the show. We tend to take videos like this for granted today, but when this was produced during the era of Thatcher, Regan, the Cold War and emerging international terrorism it was a profound (and unusual) political statement on prime time television in the UK.

Two decades after this was made almost all of the leaders spoofed in it have been (for the most part thankfully) relegated to the dustbin of history, but it’s sad to realize that even though the faces and conflicts may have changed, not an awful lot else has.