As an unemployed ex art student with few discernible skills, about to turn 30 I wrote a big list of things I was good at & what I wanted to be when I was little to try & find myself a job I wouldn't hate.
This list pointed to one thing. I'm going to make a TV show. With puppets. Puppets talking about pop culture & music.
This blog is going to follow that process.
Click the purple words. They are links.
Happy Sunday kids. I'm listening to the Cold War Kids as it is too sunny for something heavy & too cold for Stevie Wonder. I'm also drinking a G & T which is customary in our house on a Sunday. I like this custom a lot.
I'm currently living in Norfolk which is funny because everyone is accidently racist, but deppressing because a lot of people are actually massive racists. What the hell has this got to do with a TV show or Puppets?
I loved this place when I was a kid. It was just magical. The marrionettes they use have such a destinctive style.
I don't know who took these photos but if it was you, message me so I can give you credit, they are just lovely.
They remind me of Mirrormask:
They look like they've made themselves out of anything they can find, they are cute & creepy, beautiful & slightly haunting all at once.
However hard I tried to dismiss my love of puppetry as something childish, like wanting to be an astronaut, we kept getting taken on school trips here to see strange & wonderful things from all over the world, not just their own productions. Inspiring, inventive & like nothing else on earth.
It is also the same age as me (Although I think the Theatre, situated in old of Norwich's many churches that aren't churches, has aged considerably better!)
Although my Puppets will be quite different, I just wanted to share this wonderful place with you, if you ever get the chance to go, for godsakes GO! You can also Adopt A Puppet, which is possibly the cutest idea ever.
I have found it incredibly hard to find a decent video of one of their performances, so I will share with you another Norwich Institution: The Puppet Man:
Puppets make everyone happy. Happy Sunday to youse.
I had an idea for a little cut away section with super low tech puppets, I was going to cut out figures on sticks, but I'm using those for some jokes in the main bulk of the show, so I decided on SOCK PUPPETS. The whole joke I came up with was that they should start with a typical tough guy trying to start an argument line like "Are you looking at my bird?" which would then be replied to in the politest possible way eg. "Why yes I was, may I say she looks ravishing!" This would then lead to a throughly lovely discourse said in true Chap style.
What do you mean you haven't read The Chap? Here old bean, click this.
As I needed some sewing practice before tackling my main puppets, I thought I'd have a go at
making the sock puppets, I wanted them to have button eyes & look very homemade. Here is the sketch page with the ideas:
You may notice some terrible theme song lyrics, more on that later.
Here are all the buttons my Mother gave me to play with:
I wanted to throw them all on the floor & rol around in them like a cat, but that would've been messy.
Here are the socks with the buttons chosen for eyes:
All these socks are mine. I have cold feet now.
I really didn't think through the logistics of sewing buttons onto an over-the-knee length sock. It took me all night to finish one. By which point I was a bottle of wine down & watching music TV. Then this happened:
To me Slow Hands by the amazing Interpol was a pretty funny song to film to. In doing it I realised several things: I don't know the words of that song as well as I thought. Also my hands are much smaller than my feet, so the sock was quite baggy & didn't move in the way I wanted it to, I may need to look into some padding. I'm also concerned that my camera didn't pick up some of the faster movements very well.
There will be more from these little fellas next week I promise!
So this Puppet Sunday isn't late, I just wanted to post it on "NO FUN SMOKING DAY"
This is going to be a quick one. A good friend of mine has had some sad news recently & when I enquired as to how he was doing he told me he was OK & listening to lot's of SavesTheDay.
It made me think of this video:
I love maribu covered puppets, the movement it creates is almost slow motion. I will be using real hair for my puppets, mainly as I have a bag full of extensions that I no longer use, but the greatest thing about this video is the fact that the puppets are doing the kinds of things even Oscar the Grouch wouldn't be seen doing, yet it still maintains a sweetness that I feel is important, at least it is to me.
As a great example I give you Big Bird on Jimmy Kimmel:
He is totally appropriate for a Late Night talk show, even one that can be 'edgy' (I hate that word but I can't think of a better one.) but the integrity of the character isn't comprimised. Yes there is something awesome about watching cartoon characters doing bad things, whether it's Drugs, Sex or Violence, but with puppets there's something slightly different for me.
As much as my little fellas are going to be drinking, cussing, horror movie loving, chain smoking, sarcastic wee buggers. I don't need them to push it any further.
On the subject of smoking, this is something I do want my puppets to do. Sitting around smoking FAGS (Not other things) is what me & my friends used to do, it's the conversations we had after too much coffee, too many cups of tea, to much booze, that have inspired the scripts & the dynamic of this whole project.
I get cross that a lot of characters in both film & on TV that would smoke in real life don't. EVERYONE on Corrie & Eastenders would smoke. Instead we have this one beacon of truth (& AWESOME)
This what made Britain Great.
She is sad because you are not smoking.
This exception to the rule of fag smoking TV characters (Shameless & Skins being notable exceptions. Godbless you Channel 4) is so outstanding, Dot Cotton is slang for a fag! (If Urban Dictionary says it, it must be true.)
I'm excited to look into the mechanics of making the little fellas smoke. There are plenty of puppets who have.
If you think he'd melt your knickers, just wait til you hear his voice...
I have a top five FAVOURITE voiceover artists (I have my Top Five Bestest, but that's a different list, Patrick is on both.) The others are; Frank Oz, Cree Summer, Billy West & Tom Kenny (Kenny is No. 1 on both list & I will talk about him later, also along with people like Nancy Cartwright, Seth Mcfarlene, Hank Azaria & Tara Strong who are crazy talented but not necessarily my favourite voices, or get disqualified for being part of a crazy cult. Or even people like Mark Hamil, Drew Barrymore or various other "Stars" who you wouldn't necessarily regonise or realise how many awesome voices they do.)
The main thing you need to know about Warburton is he isn't just the voice of The Tick:
Do you know who that is? Good, I though you would, it's Brock Mutha Fuckin' Samson in the awesome Venture Bros:
This is a fan made video set to the hilarious Drowning Pool, there are A LOT of Brock Samson fan videos on you tube:
Again if you don't know about The Venture Bros:BUY IT!
Warburton is just great at shouting, so it should come as no suprise on of his most famous characters is Joe Swanson the paraplegic cop from Family Guy:
(These are all short so I don't feel bad about the amount of videos that are going to be on this post, get used to it Nerds.)
He was also in the underated Less Then Perfect:
Stop spitting at Andy Dick & notice Zachary Levi of "Chuck" fame, ummmm, tasty.
I have no idea why he doesn't do more cartoon work. He does the best voices. (Go & watch Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, it's a dope film. Anna Faris is a lot funnier than Scary Movie(s) may have made her seem.) I can't find a clip for it that you can watch in the UK but go & find the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode with the Balloon Hitler in, Der Inflatable Fuhrer. I believe it's called. He does the voice of Hitler.
As it's PUPPET Sunday, not Bill Hader Sunday, here's some more Dracula:
I would like my little fellas to look & work like this, but it's scaring the Class Of Nuke 'Em High Hell out of me that they take two people to opperate. I think the hardest thing I have to do is going to be finding someone to play Hutch. If only I knew Bill Hader...(Who is AWESOME.)
Fuck it. Here's some more:
Also go watch Hot Rod. It is also dope. If only for Lovejoy being an utter asshat, oh & this scene:
If this doesn't make you laugh I hate you.
I feel this is valid as dancing will be a big part of the show, the puppets have to look funny when they dance. I'm working on an "Excited Grover" type movement.
Yes, like that.
Oh & no, I didn't forget. Bill Hader was on the creative crew of South Park which had a rare guest voice for Chef Vader, now who do you think did that voice? Peter Serafinowicz. ONE STEP HAH!
I am proud of these things, for I fail at most everything else.
So there's going to be a pug puppet. I think it's mostly because I like saying "PUG PUPPET" Go on, say it, it's super super fun to say. PUG PUPPET!
Also, Pugs are expensive & dumb & funny as all hell. Here are my 4 favourite pug videos:
How much fun will it be to make my Pug Puppet do that action?
This video makes me weep with laughter, everytime I see it. Srsly. I have been trying to cut this to music, but I'm having a super hard time with my video editing software. The Music I want to use is by AnAlbatross They have the number 23 (More about this later) in their myspack URL. Which is awesome. If you know their music, you will probs guess which track I want to use.
I like this video because it highlights two great things about pugs: The stupid noises they make & the amount of stupid they have, make & do!
Pugs make dumb noises. They are funny, I've been practicing making those weird creaky sounds, but they always turn into snuffly pig noises (Not because I can't, but because I LOVE making snuffly pig noises, it's fun.) Also, there used to be a dog that lived in one of the houses near mine who would come into our yard and play with me & the cat. I called him Pigdog as when he got excited (Which was every two seconds.) he made that noise. I heard him being called by his owner once & found out his name was "Beckham". Oh My Days. I think Pigdog was infact a kinder name.
If you don't know the noise I'm talking about, imagine a cross between a truffle pig & Willie The Weasle:
Here is the first sketch of the Pug Puppet:
There's a couple of things about this page I will mention: you can see on the left me working through names for the guys. I wanted the dog to have a super long name My cats full name is Charlie Kingston Carwash Fonzerelli III. (I could explain why, but it's not that important right now.) But as this is a pop/geek culture show it made sense to me to name him after someone, I was debating Billy Dee Williams:
This picture tells you why. Lando can double cross me ANYTIME.
Here is is in the trailer for Fanboys playing a Judge called Judge Reinhold also, it's an excuse to look at Jay Baruchel (Dressed as Darth Vader does something I probably shouldn't admit to.) again...(Also it's an amazingly funny film.):
But there will be quite enough Star` Wars references. You should be able to see, at the bottom of the page, the name "Julius Cassius III" Which should actually be Julius J. Carry III .Who in the Zombie Hookers From Hell is he when he's at home, or anywhere else he may choose to be?" I hear you ask? He played SHO 'NUFF: THE SHOGAN ASSASIN in Berry's Gordy's The Last Dragon.
This is the best film you will ever see.
Here is Sho 'Nuff in action:
Hey Kayne, you DID NOT do these glasses first, or bestest!
Here are a ton of pictures, because he is just super dope:
He is not a gay fish, no siree. KISS HIS CONVERSE!
Being a Berry Gordy production, the music in this film is incredible. The Stevie Wonder track "Upset Stomach" is always on my mp3 player. But it's this song (Below) by VANITY that really does it for me:
This video WILL be featured on the show. Mainly because it is dope. There is so much I could say about Vanity, Sho 'Nuff & The Last Dragon, but I'd really just say: watch it & have a read about these guys. I wish Prince would give me a new name...
Back to Pugs.
I can't really mention them without talking about Natalie Dee. She wanted pugs, then she got pugs, when she isn't drawing comics about Anal Bleaching:
(This comic makes me do the kind of laugh that makes a little bit of wee come out.)
Natalie Dee does a comic everyday, make sure you read them. I could've posted SO many more, but these ones sort of cover the Pug behavior I'm after.
He is going to dance at the end of each episode & not turn up much more than that. He is going to be based on two things. Firstly the puppets from The Young Ones:
The Gir thing is especialy usefully as everytime I draw pugs it looks like something else in a pug costune, I'm thinking about putting this into the design of the Pug Puppet. Pugs look awesome in costumes.
He is sad because he is wearing a red shirt. He Gonna Die.
I Like how Batman Pug looks like he's fartin & REALLY enjoying it.
This picture was labled "Star Trek Pug" Is it ok that makes me want to kill? It is? Fanks!
One more Natalie Dee (Because I love her comics SO fucking much:
So I haven't posted for a couple of weeks due to moving house, this sucks as it means I'm miles away from anywhere, but rules as the few things I am near are far more condusive toactually making this thing instead of the endless pages of scripts & writing I've been doing. Or calling everything reserch, when really I'm just googling places to buy Star Wars curtains.
Pretty much the first thing I put to paper was this:
Having drawn them, the idea being they should look like the comic characters I had previously drawn, but some how they came out looking like Canadians from the South Park Universe.
I'm kind of happy with this as Canadians are awesome. Here are some of my Favourites:
There are plenty of others including Shatner, Cree Summer, Tara Strong, Phill Hartnell, The inventors of Trivial Pursuit, Mike Myers, Seth Rogan but I ran out of patience, time for bands:
Again, a bijillion more I coud name, Japandroids & Vovoid spring stright to mind... But that's quite enough for on. Back on course. Saturday I went to my favourite haberdasher/material shop, Anglia Fashion Fabrics. It's just magical & the ladies who work there are all just superstars. Most of my little fella's clothes will be made from dolls clothes & my scrap bag, apart from the girl cardy, which I've started knitting. So all I really needed were the eyes & some felt to play around with. I've choosen dark pink for the girls skin as I want them to have dark brown hair (Yeah for old hair extensions...). I've got the nose for my dog puppet (More on that later) & a bell for his collar. Here is a picture of what I bought!
Honestly it's made me pretty excited. Hehe! I have also picked out names for my guys: I believe they will be Called POPPY & HUTCH, they are both names I've used before in short stories & they seemed to work well. If you can read my scrawlings around the top of the pictures, you will see the have personalities set out & there's also the phrase that will be the title of my show, but more on that later.
I can tell you who did the voice on pretty much ANY [adult swim] cartoon & connect them to Peter Serafinowicz in less than 6 steps. I have no other skills.
