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jeremyactor
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Friends, I have returned from the coolest thing I have ever done in my life. I shadowed the puppeteers at "Playhouse Disney" in the Disney MGM Studios in sunny Orlando, Florida. This is the show that utilizes the Bear characters.
So I thought I'd post my report like I promised I would. It's been really busy here, so I haven't been able to type it all up. Until now.
9:30 AM I arrive at the Studios, and meet the stage manager in the green room of the theater for Playhouse Disney. I talk to her for a few minutes about how the show is run, and she gives me an overall tour of the stage. The stage has trapdoors that open so the puppeteers can hoist puppets up for certain sections of the show, and then the host can walk on the stage during the other parts of the show. But this is only the beginning.
I get to meet the puppeteers. There are 5 underneath the stage and one inside the Bear suit. I get to watch Bear suit up, and get to put my hand inside the head, as well as see the monitor he sees out of. That's really cool. The eyes on the costume are actually cameras. I don't know if that's how Noel McNeal's bear suit worked or not, but Disney buys their puppets straight from Henson, so they are the real deal - I would have to guess that is the same way Bear works on the show. If anyone knows differently though, please tell me. I walk into the green room to meet the cast and they're all playing video games (Street Fighter 2, actually). They joke with me about this being warmups for their hands - they were an incredibly friendly bunch.
10:00 AM The show begins. The puppeteers for the first show put me in my little box - the stage is in a semi circle, and I was sitting in the cage, a little box out of the way of the puppeteers. If you picture a rainbow, I'm in the little clear area underneath the arc. The show begins, and Bear comes out (right above me), and the theme song begins. The puppeteers are all sitting on little stools with wheels on them so they can move around very quickly. There isn't enough room for you to stand up underneath the stage either, and crawling on your knees is both uncomfortable and slow. Plus it's a lot of fun sliding around on those things.
The voices are all pre-recorded (so they don't have the real guys or impersonators in the show), so all the puppeteers have to do is sync their hand with the tape. And after a few weeks of practice, they have the entire 20 minute show memorized. A few of them mouthed along with the show, most didn't. I guess it helps some people to do that. First, they all do the Bear Cha Cha Cha, but Tutter doesn't want to dance because he doesn't want to look foolish in front of all the new people in the audience he just met. So Jamie (the human host of the show) decides to tell Tutter some stories to relax him. First up is Rolie Polie Olie. All the Bear characters dissapear (Bear goes backstage for 15 minutes to cool down and relax), while the other 5 puppeteers grab other puppets. There are 3 puppets, all controlled with bicycle controls in this case. Only one of the puppets is simple enough to have one person do the arms and mouth, the others are 2 person puppets. Next we have Stanley. Stanley is a one person puppet, with his goldfish being a bicycle puppet. What's REALLY cool about this part is the gorilla that shows up. Someone is actually wearing a gorilla suit, and someone is below them controlling the arms with rods. The amount of teamwork that went on underneath that stage was amazing. Then came Book of Pooh. Piglet, Pooh and Eeyore are all hand puppets, Tigger is a bicycle puppet. I sit in awe as these guys (and girls) do their job so beautifully - I still believed in Tutter even though I saw someone with their hand up his..... ahem... back.
10:45 AM Break time!
It's between the shows, and I get to talk to the person who maintains the puppets. This was one of the highlights of my day - she let me experiment with a few of the puppets, which was something I NEVER anticipated. They told me how much the puppets all cost (quite pricey - can't tell you how much, but it's WAY more than I expected.) I got to play with piglet for a while, then Winnie the Pooh, and then I got what I always dreamed about. I manipulated Tutter. The real Tutter. As I said before, they get their puppets straight from Henson, so this is the same kind they use on the show. I actually held and operated a real Muppet on my hand (yes, I consider BITBBH characters Muppets). After a while with him on my hand I got to play with Ojo for a while. I was in HEAVEN. HEAVEN!!! Unfortunately I had to put them down and go away for abit, but I got to talk to some puppeteers about what kind of experience and training they had (ranging from full degrees to absolutely none - in fact I believe the ones who had no training were BETTER than the ones who had degrees) and what I should do if I wanted to become a puppeteer right now. They told me a few of the puppeteers who work for Disney get pulled by Henson to work backup on Muppet productions - apparently Disney has one of the best training programs after you pass your auditions, and Henson trusts them enough to ship some people up to them. Good to know.
11:30 One more time!
So I got to watch one more show from the pit. It was interesting after seeing just how all the puppets work to focus more on the more complicated ones. But the real fascinating part was just before Book of Pooh. One of the puppeteers I was talking to during the break (who's met a number of the Muppeteers) looked at me and said "So are you ready for this?" I replied "Excuse me?" She said "Yeah, I'll let you play Piglet if you want."
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I panicked. My reply?
"Umm...I would... Oh.. Gosh... Hummina.... No."
NO? NO!?!?!?! WHAT WAS I THINKING??
I figured since I didn't know the lines or anything I didn't want to make her look bad by screwing up her job. I had worked with Piglet backstage and was pretty good at manipulating him - that wasn't the issue. She asked me just before she hoisted her arm up there, and had I had a few minutes to prepare I would have said yes.
THE GOOD PART about that is though, I've been invited back to do it again - they had fun with me and I had fun with them, so my response? OF COURSE I'LL COME BACK!!!
I've seen the show a few more times since, and I'm going to make sure I get to see a show where that puppeteer was working and ask her pretty please if she'll let me play Piglet. I've got to start memorizing those lines!!!
But I had a GREAT experience. And I know a lot of the people on this board don't care much for Disney - but any company that offers me this kind of opportunity and the managers who set up my experience stopped by to make sure I was getting all I could from the experience can't be evil. It just can't be.
I will now open the field for questions.
That's my experience - thanks for listening - you've been a great crowd.
Jeremy
So I thought I'd post my report like I promised I would. It's been really busy here, so I haven't been able to type it all up. Until now.
9:30 AM I arrive at the Studios, and meet the stage manager in the green room of the theater for Playhouse Disney. I talk to her for a few minutes about how the show is run, and she gives me an overall tour of the stage. The stage has trapdoors that open so the puppeteers can hoist puppets up for certain sections of the show, and then the host can walk on the stage during the other parts of the show. But this is only the beginning.
I get to meet the puppeteers. There are 5 underneath the stage and one inside the Bear suit. I get to watch Bear suit up, and get to put my hand inside the head, as well as see the monitor he sees out of. That's really cool. The eyes on the costume are actually cameras. I don't know if that's how Noel McNeal's bear suit worked or not, but Disney buys their puppets straight from Henson, so they are the real deal - I would have to guess that is the same way Bear works on the show. If anyone knows differently though, please tell me. I walk into the green room to meet the cast and they're all playing video games (Street Fighter 2, actually). They joke with me about this being warmups for their hands - they were an incredibly friendly bunch.
10:00 AM The show begins. The puppeteers for the first show put me in my little box - the stage is in a semi circle, and I was sitting in the cage, a little box out of the way of the puppeteers. If you picture a rainbow, I'm in the little clear area underneath the arc. The show begins, and Bear comes out (right above me), and the theme song begins. The puppeteers are all sitting on little stools with wheels on them so they can move around very quickly. There isn't enough room for you to stand up underneath the stage either, and crawling on your knees is both uncomfortable and slow. Plus it's a lot of fun sliding around on those things.
The voices are all pre-recorded (so they don't have the real guys or impersonators in the show), so all the puppeteers have to do is sync their hand with the tape. And after a few weeks of practice, they have the entire 20 minute show memorized. A few of them mouthed along with the show, most didn't. I guess it helps some people to do that. First, they all do the Bear Cha Cha Cha, but Tutter doesn't want to dance because he doesn't want to look foolish in front of all the new people in the audience he just met. So Jamie (the human host of the show) decides to tell Tutter some stories to relax him. First up is Rolie Polie Olie. All the Bear characters dissapear (Bear goes backstage for 15 minutes to cool down and relax), while the other 5 puppeteers grab other puppets. There are 3 puppets, all controlled with bicycle controls in this case. Only one of the puppets is simple enough to have one person do the arms and mouth, the others are 2 person puppets. Next we have Stanley. Stanley is a one person puppet, with his goldfish being a bicycle puppet. What's REALLY cool about this part is the gorilla that shows up. Someone is actually wearing a gorilla suit, and someone is below them controlling the arms with rods. The amount of teamwork that went on underneath that stage was amazing. Then came Book of Pooh. Piglet, Pooh and Eeyore are all hand puppets, Tigger is a bicycle puppet. I sit in awe as these guys (and girls) do their job so beautifully - I still believed in Tutter even though I saw someone with their hand up his..... ahem... back.
10:45 AM Break time!
It's between the shows, and I get to talk to the person who maintains the puppets. This was one of the highlights of my day - she let me experiment with a few of the puppets, which was something I NEVER anticipated. They told me how much the puppets all cost (quite pricey - can't tell you how much, but it's WAY more than I expected.) I got to play with piglet for a while, then Winnie the Pooh, and then I got what I always dreamed about. I manipulated Tutter. The real Tutter. As I said before, they get their puppets straight from Henson, so this is the same kind they use on the show. I actually held and operated a real Muppet on my hand (yes, I consider BITBBH characters Muppets). After a while with him on my hand I got to play with Ojo for a while. I was in HEAVEN. HEAVEN!!! Unfortunately I had to put them down and go away for abit, but I got to talk to some puppeteers about what kind of experience and training they had (ranging from full degrees to absolutely none - in fact I believe the ones who had no training were BETTER than the ones who had degrees) and what I should do if I wanted to become a puppeteer right now. They told me a few of the puppeteers who work for Disney get pulled by Henson to work backup on Muppet productions - apparently Disney has one of the best training programs after you pass your auditions, and Henson trusts them enough to ship some people up to them. Good to know.
11:30 One more time!
So I got to watch one more show from the pit. It was interesting after seeing just how all the puppets work to focus more on the more complicated ones. But the real fascinating part was just before Book of Pooh. One of the puppeteers I was talking to during the break (who's met a number of the Muppeteers) looked at me and said "So are you ready for this?" I replied "Excuse me?" She said "Yeah, I'll let you play Piglet if you want."
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I panicked. My reply?
"Umm...I would... Oh.. Gosh... Hummina.... No."
NO? NO!?!?!?! WHAT WAS I THINKING??
I figured since I didn't know the lines or anything I didn't want to make her look bad by screwing up her job. I had worked with Piglet backstage and was pretty good at manipulating him - that wasn't the issue. She asked me just before she hoisted her arm up there, and had I had a few minutes to prepare I would have said yes.
THE GOOD PART about that is though, I've been invited back to do it again - they had fun with me and I had fun with them, so my response? OF COURSE I'LL COME BACK!!!
I've seen the show a few more times since, and I'm going to make sure I get to see a show where that puppeteer was working and ask her pretty please if she'll let me play Piglet. I've got to start memorizing those lines!!!
But I had a GREAT experience. And I know a lot of the people on this board don't care much for Disney - but any company that offers me this kind of opportunity and the managers who set up my experience stopped by to make sure I was getting all I could from the experience can't be evil. It just can't be.
I will now open the field for questions.
That's my experience - thanks for listening - you've been a great crowd.
Jeremy
