Hola, Sneakers! Welcome back to Sneaky Dragon, the podcast that is too young to vote.
This week: off the hop; go with the floe; two timing; quick trim; fast clip; gone South; brain dommage; a joke to remember; writing other voices; stale tales; death notice; Dave eyes Creepshow; the beast with two brains; roach hole; voodoo dolts; EC does it; horror mascots; Vampirella regrets; raising the Barbarian; X marks the spot; communal experiences; exploitation films; Belgian wafflin’; creative bursts; expanding travel; Dork Shadows – Bad Moon Rising; night wolf; Questions of the Week – Sneakers respond; sports vs. comedy; needle tips; split images; Mr. Peppermint; down the butthole; bubble out; block heads; French letters; nice to emu; and, finally, avatards.
Question of the Week: Apart from the Muppets, what’s your favourite puppet?
Sub-question of the Week: Apart from Disney (which includes Pixar), who makes the best animated films?
Thanks for listening.
Fans of No Fun and our good friend David M. can find the first of the complete No Fun reissues at Bandcamp here!
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Here’s that Family Guy Hudson Bros clip, I’m sorry…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcQr6oF2bQk
You know what would be funny? Having to watch this instead of being Rick Rolled.
I hope those hair styles never come back.
Next week post a Family Guy Conway Twitty clip just to keep it going.
Favourite puppet: The puppets that the ventriloquist brought to my elementary school and used to tell us stories about Jesus.
Favourite animation: Let’s look at the (non-Disney) American animated films released in theatres since 2021.
Tom & Jerry BAD
Spirit Untamed BAD
Boss Baby: Family Business GOOD
Space Jam: A New Legacy BAD
PAW Patrol: The Movie BAD
The Addams Family 2 BAD
Sing 2 BAD
The Bad Guys GOOD
Minions: The Rise of Gru BAD
Paws of Fury BAD
DC League of Superpets BAD
Considering the two movies that I liked are from Dreamworks, I would have to say they make the best animated films.
For favourite puppet, it’s hard to top that emu. Rod Hull was really able to pull off the illusion of the bird being a separate entity with its own untamed personality. It helped that it was non-verbal otherwise skeptical me would’ve been watching to see if the puppeteer’s lips moved. I remember seeing Waylon Flowers on TV shows nd he always had his puppet Madame open with, “He’s no ventriloquist and I’m no dummy” so you knew he wouldn’t be trying to throw his voice. Then the camera would stay in close-up on the puppet, like with Robert Smigel and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. He’s more of a parody of a puppet and/or stand-up act, but I like him in small doses, especially when he’s challenging pompous celebrities and politicians and their lackeys. I also appreciate the puppetry behind Grogu a.k.a. Baby Yoda. They use some CGI, but it’s mostly the physical animatronic puppet that you see on screen. The design is great. I don’t know when he’ll fully develop whites in his eyes, like Yoda, put for now those big dark eyes make him look both alien and cute like a puppy.
Correction: Wayland Flowers.
Even though he’s voiced by Muppet Royalty, I’ll have to pick Yoda as my all-time favorite puppet. I remember how taken I was with him in “The Empire Strikes Back”, Yoda was immediately my favorite and I still l don’t know his last name! I can still remember hearing a much younger child in the theater say, “That’s not Grover..”
Years before Star Wars I grew up listening and watching Charlie McCarthy get under the skin of W.C. Fields from Edgar Bergen’s lap. Bergen & McCarthy were a favorite of mine but it was hard to find them on television so I bought their album on ventriloquism and got a Charlie McCarthy puppet from Santa and did myself…kind of.
A previous Senior Art Director of mine was a HUGE Gerry Anderson fan and was always on me about watching Anderson’s “Supermarionation” shows. I think I watched some of The Thunderbirds or Fireball XL5 but they just came off as creepy to me, especially when the female marionettes were operated as “sexy” and the puppets would kiss…you know someone out there has a fetish for that…
The only thing worse was “Clutch Cargo” which leads me to…animation!
I didn’t have to think twice about how much I love the depth and movement of Max Fleischer cartoons. I remember when they released the Superman cartoons back in the 80’s on VHS, I watched those over and over, drawing classic Superman illustrations with the newly vivid colors. I wish Max Fleischer had done more Superman but he did inspire future animation like “Batman The Animated Series” down the road and I was crazy about that too!
Heavens to Murgatroyd! I’d better cut this short and exit stage right!
Be kind to each other out there Sneakers!!
Oh yeah Ian, concerning those magnificent Treasury Edition Comics, I still have my original DC/Marvel “Wizard of OZ” I bought as a kid! Those editions weren’t all that easy to come by so when I saw one, I bought it…or my folks bought it for me. They were the best! Treasury Editions were bigger with huge splash pages and the greatest covers…sometimes painted, but the best thing was that they had no ads! It wasn’t a DC/Marvel venture but do you remember Marvel did a Treasury Edition on “The Land of OZ”? They took a few liberties with the story and added more of the Tin Woodman to the story and drew the characters as they looked in the MGM film. The cover actually calls out “THEY’RE BACK!! The Scarecrow and The Tintinnabulatin’ Tin Man!” whatever that means…and the last page promotes a forthcoming “Ozma of OZ” that would never be published.
Needless to say, I bought that one in a hot minute too and I also still have it!
This has been more “OZ TALK” with Ed.
When puppets are mentioned, I always think of Mr. Rabbit on the kid’s show Captain Kangaroo or those in Mr. Rogers’ Land of Make Believe, like King Friday and Daniel Tiger, but that’s just me being nostalgic. Also Madame, like Louise. Wayland Flowers and Madame had a short-lived syndicated sitcom in the 80s called Madame’s Place.
I suppose my favorite non-Disney animation are films from Studio Ghibli, like Spirited Away and Grave of the Fireflies.
Here’s the “Land of OZ” Treasury Edition if you’ve never seen it!
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1975-marvel-treasury-edition-land-oz-3770736132
Late again so straight into it!
Muppets aside, Henson and co. were responsible for a huge number of favourite puppets as I was growing up, from The Dark Crystal and The Storyteller to perhaps the most impressive puppet of all time – the many incarnations of Audrey II.
It’s hard to think of non-Henson puppets with comparable cultural impact, but one heavyweight female is worth a mention: Her Majesty the Alien Queen. The way she unfolds from the back of the drop ship is slinky and delicious. I seem to remember they used many techniques to bring her to life, from scale models to full size rod puppets – the effect is astonishingly believable, despite her outlandish design, and the sense of strength and weight convinces, even though the real thing must have been both lightweight and fragile.
The many ‘Supermarionation’ shows of Gerry Anderson are also worth a mention – did any of these ever take off in Canada? They slightly pre-dated me, but I remember being very impressed by ‘Terrahawks’ as a youngster.
Strange to see so much talk of Rod Hull, who was a fixture on UKTV in the 70s and 80s. He recently went viral on Twitter, with a sublime clip of emu throwing Rod over his own head into a chest freezer. His death was particularly bizarre and tragi-comic – falling from his roof having climbed up to adjust the TV aerial during a Manchester United game.
To lift the mood, I recommend you seek out the ‘Venezuelan Jungle Parrot’ sketch – a kind of anti-ventriloquist act.
The best non-Disney animated films are of course by:
Japan’s Studio Ghibli (no comment necessary)
Ireland’s Cartoon Saloon (Wolfwalkers is totally gorgeous)
US’s Laika (particularly Boxtrolls and Coraline)
Plus a shout to the historic films by the Czech Unpronounceables:
Jan Svankmajer’s ‘Alice’,
Jiri Barta’s ‘Krysar’,
and Karel Zeman’s ‘Inspirace’
I would wax lyrical about all of these at length, but I’m all out of wax.
Kiss kiss
Peter.
That Parrot sketch in all its glory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVIv3kc3p3I