Major OT: Did the Muppets ruin Puppetry?

[Leviathan]

I know John K. threads tend to get a little hot around here, but one of his latests posts on puppets (http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/) and how the Muppets "ruined" puppets. This could be him being an iconoclast for the sake of it, as well as a case of "Blame the original for the imiators" or he could have a valid point. If we can keep John as far out of the actual discussion as possible, we can uncover some interesting points.

I don't understand John's point. Jim Henson and his team favored felt, cloth and fabric-based puppets over the wooden marionettes and rubber puppets that prevailed before his time and the kind John is plugging on his blog, and that caught on, but I don't understand how that "ruined" puppets. If anything Henson helped take puppetry BEYOND those '50's kids shows.

The "cloth" puppets eventually did crowd out the old-timey wood marionettes like Howdy Doody, but those kinds of puppets would've disappeared from televsion anyway for being so archaic. And the Mupepts didn't force other puppeteers to copy them

Does anyone hold that belief? That puppetry was somehow superior in either design or technique before the advent of the Muppets?

[The G Man]

John K is the type of person who wishes that things would stay the way he remembers them from when he was young - cartoons, magazine art, etc. (in this case, it's puppets) I can relate to that a little bit (I think everyone can; I feel the same way about Sesame Street), but the fact is, the Muppets didn't "make everyone think they had to copy them" - nowhere in history is that mentioned. After all, there were several Muppet builders and performers who went on to do work on plenty of non-Muppet projects with puppets (list here (http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Projects_with_Muppet_Crew_Connections)).

[thornhill]

Who cares what John thinks or says about the Muppets. Does it make them any less enjoyable to you? Threads like this go nowhere.

[nickramer]

Muppets ruined puppets? Brother, that has to be the dumbest statement to come from an animator who dates women 20 years younger than him. Hasn't John seen the 1968 TV Special, "The Muppets on Puppets"?

I never think of the Muppets ruining the art of puppets. Jim was just doing the art his way, like Chuck or Friz were directing cartoons their own way.

[thornhill]

Brother, that has to be the dumbest statement to come from an animator who dates women 20 years younger than him.

It's more like 30, but I digress. :D

[speedy fast]

I didn't know that John K. had a blog, but looking at the post, it looks like a joke. I mean, he also says that Peanuts ruined the comics (what the...?). He also thinks it's better and more believable for a puppet to have an obvious seam in the middle of the face (Kermit the Frog does have a subtle seam down the middle of his face, by the way). he also thinks it's better for the puppets bottom jaw to be a seperate piece?

So no, Muppets didn't ruin puppetry.

[Actorman]

I just read the blog in question. You guys all realize it was satirical, right? I thought it was hilarious.

Even if you hadn't figured it out after the human co-star "looking positively creeped out the whole time" and "Howdy Doody's gay twin brother", how could anyone not know by the "burn victim effect mesmerizing the children" that it was a joke?

I think the point he was making is that the Muppets actually took puppetry to a whole new level and changed (and improved) the medium forever.

[nickramer]

I just read the blog in question. You guys all realize it was satirical, right? I thought it was hilarious.

Even if you hadn't figured it out after the human co-star "looking positively creeped out the whole time" and "Howdy Doody's gay twin brother", how could anyone not know by the "burn victim effect mesmerizing the children" that it was a joke?

I think the point he was making is that the Muppets actually took puppetry to a whole new level and changed (and improved) the medium forever.
If this post of his was joke, I'll take back what I said.

[Leviathan]

I think the point he was making is that the Muppets actually took puppetry to a whole new level and changed (and improved) the medium forever.

I certainly didn't get that impression. He suggests that something about the Muppets and their imitators ruined puppetry.

[speedy fast]

I just read the blog in question. You guys all realize it was satirical, right? I thought it was hilarious.

Even if you hadn't figured it out after the human co-star "looking positively creeped out the whole time" and "Howdy Doody's gay twin brother", how could anyone not know by the "burn victim effect mesmerizing the children" that it was a joke?

I knew it! I knew it! Just look at my post before that one. But at first the post sounds serious, before sounding unbelievable.

This is sort of off-topic, but www.toughpigs.com once had a similar blog post, reviewing and criticising the second season premiere of Sesame Street, satrically written as if the review was written when the second season began, and criticising the many improvements from the first season.

[Cartman]

Here's my argument in a nutshell:

Who cares what John K. says??? He's giving his opinions and that does not make it a fact!

Yes, the man is a little full of himself, but all we need to do is stop worrying about the things he says.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Although Kricfalusi is being humorous, I think he does believe what he writes -- that the Muppets inspired imitations ruined puppetry. (Why blame the original for the poor quality of the imitators?) Jim Henson didn't just work in felt, though. His creature shop did the creepy puppets for the film Dreamchild (1985).

I had trouble finding a decent image from the film, so I hope this will do.

http://www.cannonfilms.co.uk/cannonscreenentetainmentvideo/Dreamchild%20(1985).jpg

[Leviathan]

The Creature Shop did work for a whole bunch of movies, and most of the creations didn't look like standard Muppets.

And how could the Muppets or their Imitators ruin Puppetry? Because they weren't creepy, groteque Howdy Doody marionettes? It seems just like such a dumb position to take, honestly belived or not, And yet the sycophants gobble it up.

[PudgieDParrot]

I think what we are all driving at is, as far as "imitators" go, things like Comedy Central's Crank Yankers or Avenue Q, whose characters bear an eerie resemblance to Henson creations.

However, it cannot be denied that Jim's goal was, after visiting Europe and seeing puppetry being seriously taken by adult audiences, to make a puppet show in the States (and possibly the rest of the world) that would appeal to both kids and adults alike. The result was The Muppet Show. But Crank Yankers and Avenue Q take the "adultness" a little farther, which is sort of disturbing since most people associate puppetry with "family" entertainment.

[Madison Carter]

I'm not sure I'd use the word "ruin" but the Henson style has certainly more-or-less monopolized puppetry in the last couple of decades. Even that word may be wrong.

[J Lee]

A great deal of the success of the Muppets when they hit the big time back in the 60s was both due to the skill of Henson and his crew and the versatility of the style of hand-puppets he used vs. the more traditional marionettes. With Kermit on local TV in Washington, or with Rowlf on ABC's Jimmy Dean Show, Henson's hands could create a facial reaction for Rowlf interacting with the show's host and others that went far beyond the locked-in facial expression you had with a standard puppet. So in that way it was a lot like the advancement in personality animation the folks at Disney achieved in the 1930s, where you could care about the characters and get inside their heads through the improved drawing in a way that wasn't possible before.

[Daffysleftfoot]

I know John K. threads tend to get a little hot around here, but one of his latests posts on puppets (http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/) and how the Muppets "ruined" puppets.

At least he said they "ruined" puppetry by being so damn great. That's not really a put-down. It reminds me of a post Eddie Fitzgerald had on his blog some time ago where he it was discussed that certain artists "own" things, in that their art is so wonderful that they've pretty much co-opted whatever subject or medium they use and thusly everyone else will be immediately compared to them. Tex Avery owns wild takes, Bob Dylan owns deep anti-establishemnt protest songs, etc. In this case, Jim Henson simply "owns" puppetry. That's what John should've said.

Whatever, we should all know by now that if you're going to read Mr. K.'s blog, have a grain of salt handy. ;)