Kim W. on "Raised by Puppets"

Kim is amazing and research-crazy and I've asked her to contribute information to the 'blog.  She's also responsible for the study guide content ETC produces.  She also has some 'blog access problems so, for now at least, she post through me.  Below is a sort of response to my post of October 27.


Puppets.  Jeff pointed out how this lead to AVENUE Q -- part of how that came about was a sort of meta-commentary on shows LIKE "Sesame Street," which sought to teach kids using puppets.  The creators of AVENUE Q were speculating on, "well, what would it look like if someone used puppets to teach more adult concepts like 'how do I handle an adult relationship' or 'how do I figure out my life's purpose' or 'what is the Internet'?"

Plus, there's something titillatingly subversive about puppets - something that culturally we all think of as "kids' stuff" -- singing songs like "The Internet Is For Porn".  ...Although, AVENUE Q isn't even the most "adult stuff with puppets" that's out there -- there's also the all-marionette movie made by the guys who did SOUTH PARK -- called TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE.  This was a spoof of action films, complete with a "love scene" that would have been graphic enough to flirt with an NC-17 rating if it were real people.

Found here.  Warning - some disturbing puppetry at link.

Then there's something called MEET THE FEEBLES, a very early film by Peter Jackson.  (In his Oscar acceptance speech, he briefly mentioned it, only to thank the Academy for turning a blind eye TO it.)  It's kind of a cult classic now, and....well, the person who showed it to me described it to me beforehand as "Imagine a cross between THE MUPPET SHOW and HOLLYWOOD BABYLON."  ....That's not too far off -- I'd say it's more like, what THE MUPPET SHOW would have looked like if they were doing a burlesque show rather than a vaudeville one, and Jim Henson had done an internship with PLAYBOY MAGAZINE.  It's...quite something.  (I hesitate to recommend it to you for research purposes, for fear of really skewing the show in some unforeseen way.  However, once you've opened the show, maybe see it then, for amusement's sake.  And have a bottle of something very strong by your side when you watch.)

I suspect that this is another aspect of having grown up with puppets -- it's so much a part of all our childhoods that the idea of taking something so "of childhood" and putting into an adult realm makes it subversively funny.  And I wonder if we may be the first generation for which this would have worked; don't forget, the very first season of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE had Muppets in the cast.  But the audiences then -- all of whom would have been little kids in the 60's -- didn't really seem to go for the idea, and the writers also loathed working with them.  (An early writer on the show came up with an oft-quoted response when he was asked to write a sketch for the Muppets for one episode -- "I don't write for felt.")  So the Muppets were retired after that first season.

Then again, shows like HOWDY DOODY and KUKLA, FRAN, AND OLLIE were on in the 50s and 60s, which seems to kill my theory.  Perhaps the media saturation was not as great?