Today we’re gonna spend some time looking at the different types of puppets that are available for you to use. These are puppets that you can purchase, puppets that you can build puppets, or that you can recycle from other things. There’s just a lot of opportunities out there, and so you can spend a little bit or a lot of money on puppets, and it really depends on what you want to do with them and how you’re gonna use them.
There are a couple of different styles of puppets. So the first puppet that we’re gonna look at is probably the simplest, most basic puppet, but you can pretty do some pretty dramatic things with them. We’re gonna look at some finger puppets.
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Finger Puppets
And so finger puppets come in a variety of styles. These are typically the ones that you’re gonna find in a toy store. And so let’s look at a couple of those.
Some are basically just, just fingers little characters like that all the way up to a lot of these style of puppets that look like animals. And so you can find a variety of these little bitty finger puppets and a lot of different animal styles.
Hand Puppets
These are a little bit more involved. They are more like a glove. You have a finger that goes up inside the head and then a finger that goes in the arms. And yeah, if your hand fit, then you can move his head. You can move his arms and you can kind of tell some stories. I remember right, Mr. Rogers puppets kind of did that. There was not a lot of moving mouths, a lot of head nobbing nodding and, and movement.
And so they’re fun, they look great, they’re simple, they’re easy to package, store and carry. So it takes a little bit of work to figure out how you’re gonna use ’em, but those are great.
Rod Puppets
Okay, our next style of puppet is the rod puppet. And these can be as simple as a picture on a stick. Print our some pictures on cardstock on two sides, reverse them, cut them out, and mount them on an old arm rod and a stick. And they came out really well, especially on a black background or a white, a blue background.
You could make ’em talk just by giving ’em a little nod. They’re very simple to make, again a printer, a computer, and a stick. So that’s a simple arm rod a simple rod puppet. You can get a little bit more involved by.
Basically a rot puppet is puppet on a stick.
Moving Mouth Puppets & Rod Arm Puppets
The next group of puppets are probably the ones we most associate puppetry with, and that’s the moving mouth puppets. Most of us probably are familiar with the Muppets, and so these are sometimes called Muppet style puppets. But they’re basically a hinged moving mouth puppet, and you can kind of start from the very bottom and move your way up into complexity and cost.
Moving mouth puppets may or may not come with arms. If they have arms, they will often come with arm rods for movement or you can attach your own arm rods.
Human-Armed Puppets
A human armed puppet has, a sleeve with a entryway in the back and your hand simply goes through and comes out the sleeve of the shirt. And then you can hold things and move things. You can use your hand or a lot of ’em will come with a glove that matches the skin of the puppet. You operate these by yourself, or if you have somebody else with you, they can do the hands or they can do one of the hands. I think it’s easier if I have somebody that’s just doing the hands. Sometimes it’s gets a little detached from the body cuz you’re you’ve got one brain operating the head and the mouth and another one operating the arms.
But with a little bit of practice you can do some pretty neat stuff. You can do a lot of things cuz you can grab things and move things and manipulate things. It just takes a little bit of practice.
That basically is the different styles of puppets. When choosing a puppet, you can decide on your performance, your skit what you’re gonna do what you need. Do you need people puppets? Do you need animal puppets? Do you want some, some monster puppets that do things? What are you gonna do and what will you use most?
Tips
A couple of tips that I have for puppetry is, number one, if you’re gonna be doing skits of somesort with people puppets, then get some generic puppets that you can change the costumes with. If you buy a fireman with everything mounted on him he’s pretty well gonna stay a fireman.
But if you got just a general person, you can change his shirt. You can put a jacket on there, you can put a hat on, you can put some glasses on him. You can do all kinds of things to him. And he can be anything you want him to. He can be a cowboy from the old West. Put on a robe and he can be a Bible character. He can be a detective.
When you get a generic character you have the flexibility of changing his costumes in his character.
So a another tip that I like, a lot of times I will build wild colored puppets instead of the human skin tone puppets. I like being able to have an audience that can identify with my puppets and it not be connected with skin color. Think again of the Muppets. Ernie & Bert are orange and yellow. These guys will identify with everybody.
That’s not a rule, it’s just an opinion. I also have some, some puppets with different skin colors. But I like using different colored guys. They’re unusual, they stand out and they’re fun. And then everybody can pretty well identify with them.
Another tip is to find puppets that have some good mouth grips inside. Look for finger tubes or straps. You will have much better control.
Another thing to consider is what is going to be your setting for your puppets? Are you going to use a stage? Are you going to be walking around holding a puppet? What, what are you gonna do? A lot of the times with your full body puppets, body puppets that have legs on them are used for ventriloquism. And they sit out in front of the audience. And so it’s only natural that they have legs.
If you were to use these on a, on a typical puppet stage where the puppets are over your head sometimes these legs get in the way. And so these are a little harder to use. Also, the entry is through the back instead of up underneath. You can make it work, you can go up underneath the shirt but a lot of times they’re in the back of the head.
These are a little difficult to do on a stage because your arm becomes visible. If you’re going to use a puppet stage you wanna get a puppet that has entry at the bottom that your hand is going to go up and be hidden while you do that performance.
Now there are some puppets that that I use that don’t use a stage and they’re not ventriloquist puppets. I’ll pull the puppet out by simply putting my hand in the bag. I’m loading the puppet, and when I come out, he is already on my arm, on my hand. And I simply hold them. And it’s amazing how many people eventually quit paying attention to me or the fact that he’s a puppet and they just engage with the puppet.
One way I use puppets is by letting them whisper in my ear. Then I respond to what they have said.
And I’ve, it’s amazing how many people gear into the character of this puppet. They forget that he’s a puppet and they just engage with him. And so it’s, it’s learning how to move him and maneuver him and making him realistic.
And I’ve even had kids tell me that they swear they could hear him talking. And so you can have a lot of fun with him. With this guy, I don’t have to use a stage.
Now I will tell you this, if you take your puppet off in front of the audience, it ruins the whole thing here. They don’t realize it’s a puppet or they don’t connect it, but if you take him off, you’re gonna blow the whole thing. So the way you take him off is you put the, put him back in the bag and you pull your arm out and he’s in the bag.