Jodie Foster’s long-delayed film The Beaver finally debuted in select North American cities this weekend. It stars Mel Gibson as Walter, a depressed middle-aged man on the verge of losing his family who heals himself thanks to a discarded beaver handpuppet he finds in the garbage. Mel apparently did most or all of the puppetry in the film. The Baltimore Sun has a nice feature on puppeteer Anney Fresh (see previous posts), who served as puppet wrangler on the film.

The Beaver goes in to wide North American release on May 20th.

The latest video in Etsy’s Handmade Portraits series profiles puppeteer Stacey Gordon (aka Staceyrebecca). Stacey’s well-known in the online puppetry community and on Etsy where she sells some of the coolest finger puppets you’ll ever see. As a puppeteer Stacey’s performed extensively at the Great Arizona Puppet Theatre in Phoenix and is very active in the improv comedy world too as both an actress and puppeteer.

Special thanks to Tara at Etsy for sending this in!

You can find a complete list of Hugo nominees here.

Way to go Mary!

I’m sad to report that we’ve lost another of the early pioneers of television puppetry. Henry “Hank” Stohl – a well-known as a puppeteer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the 1950s and `60s – passed away on Monday after a long illness. Hank was well-known in Pittsburgh (and later New York) for the dozen years he spent working on kids’ shows beginning in 1952. Later in his career put away his puppets to become a successful actor, appearing in dozens of movies, TV series, soap operas and plays, Hank also worked steadily for many years doing commercial voice-overs. One of his well-known characters, Knish, can still be seen today on exhibit at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh.

This was published back in June, but I only discovered it this week and I wanted to share – a nice profile of Big Bird/Oscar the Grouch puppeteer Caroll Spinney by the Seattle Times.

Oh, and in case you in missed it, here’s the Sesame Street float from this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

For more about Mary check out her website www.maryrobinettekowal.com.

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

Hot on the heels of Tough Pigs’ week with Steve Whitmire, here’s an interview with John Kennedy. In it, John discusses his career and some of the current projects he’s working on, like the The Sure Sheep.

Toughpigs ran a fantastic interview with Steve Whitmire this past week (click for parts one, two, three, four and five). In it, Joe Hennes chats with Steve about a bunch of topics, including the recent Muppet viral videos, the upcoming Letters To Santa special, the touchy subject of Disney’s attempt to recast the Muppets a few years ago, Disney’s future plans for the Muppets and how Kermit the Frog and Rizzo the Rat fall into different levels of spiritual and psychological development.

One day this past summer I was walking along Queen West in Toronto and did a double take when I saw a puppet being performed from a burlap sack on sidewalk. I was in a rush so I couldn’t stop long enough to talk to the puppeteer, but I’ve seen him singing songs and improving with passersby on Queen West several times since then. His name is Alexander Winfield and Toronto’s CityNews recently ran a story about his experience performing puppetry on the street.

Via Puppeteers Unite.