About Marionette Puppets

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Paul Louis. I'm a professional puppeteer living here in Miami, Florida. So, let's talk a little bit about marionettes. What are marionettes exactly? Well, marionettes are puppets and they are puppets that are operated by strings. Typically, a marionette will have many strings. Some marionettes will just have a couple strings with three strings or four strings but the more complexed marionettes have many strings which operate different parts of the body. So, you can operate a character's neck, you can operate sometimes their mouth, you can operate their eyes maybe through the use of a separate control. You could operate their legs, their arms and usually the strings extend from the character all the way up to a couple of bars that are crossed in the shape like a T. Sometimes the bars are attached, sometimes they are separate. The word marionette where did it come from? Well, it's said that in the 1600s that's how the term came up. It was associated with the Virgin Mary hence the name marionette or Mary doll. There has been traces back in ancient Egypt where marionette dolls where found in the tombs of great kings so it's said to believe that the Egyptians used them and they still use the Odyssey. There's several mention of puppets in the Odyssey. One of the most famous stories is Pinocchio which is the story of a marionette that turns to a real boy. Puppets have been involved in theater, in plays, in TV and film. Let's say back in the 50s Bill Baird was a famous marionette operator and by the way the puppeteers control the marionettes they're called the manipulators. So, Bill Baird was one of the most famous manipulators and he had a series of marionettes appear on television programs and his characters are very cartoonish and very well-liked among his audiences. Later on Jerry Anderson in the 60s created a very successful TV show called Thunderbirds and it was all marionettes and that actually inspired Trey Parker and Matt Stone the creators of South Park to create Team America World Police which was kind of an adult oriented marionette film, a very funny film. But again the characters were very detailed and they were very life-like so Howdy Doody was one of the most famous marionettes for American television back in the 1950s created by Buffalo Bob Smith. Marionette puppetry is very popular in Europe especially in Italy which is where the original story Pinocchio took place but it's also embraced by America so it is part of American culture which shows like Howdy Doody and things like that. So again, you know, marionettes have been around for awhile and it seems like they are here to stay. So, that's just a little bit about marionettes."