DIFFERENT IS HARD

THUNDERBIRD PUPPETS LAUGHING

BOB BAKER~ END OF AN ERA

i had the pleasure of attending a puppet show @ BOB BAKER'S MARIONETTE THEATER way back in the late 80s. I loved the dancing cucumber and carrot puppets. i remember after the puppet show, (no seats. guests sat on the floor) we were all treated to free punch and ice cream. my friend "helen" and i were by far the oldest people there and only adults in attendance without children.

Puppeteer Bob Baker, whose marionette theater near downtown Los Angeles was an institution serving generations of kids, died Friday of natural causes. He was 90.

Baker, who launched the Bob Baker Marionette Theater in 1963, offered puppet shows in what was billed as one of the world’s oldest and longest-running children’s theater companies. In 2009, the theater’s location on First Street was named a Los Angeles Historical Cultural Monument.

An L.A. native, Baker traveled the world with his famous marionette troupe. His work was featured in prominent films, ranging from Disney’s “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” to Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” to the 1954 version of “A Star Is Born.” He was said to have an archive of more than 3,000 puppets.

Baker’s interest in puppetry was sparked at the age of 5 when he saw a puppet show at a downtown Los Angeles department store. Within a few years he was studying the art and competing in local talent shows.

Baker graduated from Hollywood High School and served in the Army Air Corps during WWII, when he worked at Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank. After his discharge, he worked for the George Pal Animation Studios. Amid labor unrest, he left Pal and began marketing his own line of marionettes. He created window displays for prominent retailers around the country — and he did the same for storefront windows on Disneyland’s Main Street, USA.

Baker’s workshop on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood became a magnet for future showbiz stars, including producer Bob Clampett, Stan Freberg and Daws Butler, who who would go on to create a TV sensation locally with the KTLA-TV hand puppet series “Time for Beany.” In the late 1940s Baker also worked in local TV with the series “Adventures of Bobo.”

In the early 1960s, Baker teamed with Alton Wood to launch the marionette theater. He worked as an adviser to Disney and other studios, and was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as well as the Television Academy.

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SHOWBIZ PIZZA ANIMALS VERSION OF "POP, LOCK AND DROP IT"

Animatronic band from Showbiz Pizza Place plays Baby Huey's 'Pop, Lock and Drop It'

1930'S MARIONETTE SHOW

A rare showcase featuring the only entirely trick marionette show in the world from the early 1930s. The puppet builder and main manipulator was a Mr. Wentworth Fling. 
 Mr. Fling the string puppeteer (who later went on to be an electrical engineer).
repost courtesy~ roy johns~ hollywood hills~ antebellum correspondent

SEA ODYSSEY
GIANT SPECTACULAR

In April, the world's greatest street theatre company, Royal De Luxe, 

will bring their LITTLE GIRL GIANT to Liverpool in one of the UK's 

most spectacular events. Sea Odyssey is a magical tale of love, 

loss and reunion played out on a gigantic scale.

 It will take place in key city spaces, moving across North Liverpool

 and the city centre, wowing the hundreds of thousands of people

 who are expected to descend on the city over the three days.

The show will take place from April 20-22 and is one of the most

 complex events Liverpool City Council has ever staged,

 involving hundreds of people in its planning and execution.

Seeing is believing, so come join the Little Girl Giant 

and be part of her amazing journey of discovery in Liverpool.

LIVERPOOL STORY

The Sea of Liverpool has swallowed up so many sailors, travellers and adventurers that you would think it was a cannibal.

Icebergs are boat hunters and Liverpudlians are huge children with eyes full of hope and rebellion.

For the unsinkable Titanic, her first voyage was also to be her last.

But let's move right away to the story of one stowaway: loaded on board during the night, unnoticed -

 a thirty foot tall Giant capable of traveling through time, on his way to another continent to meet his daughter, the Little Giant.

Giants don't grow old, don't grow up, they just stay the age they are for eternity - that is, 

if they don't die. Disaster struck in the Atlantic Ocean; everyone knows the details of the accident.

 The ocean liner was the pride of Liverpool, and many different Liverpudlian tradesmen 

were recruited, mainly to maintain the ship and to look after the passengers.

But let's return to our gigantic passenger trapped in one of the holds. He feels the full force of the iceberg's blade. The sea rushes into the ship so fiercely that he is unable to move.

He is a prisoner and plummets 12,000 feet with the Titanic. We believe that, knowing he would soon die, he took his last underwater lift ride before coming to rest in a cloud of dust on the ocean bed.

Above, petrified with fear, survivors hoped for miracles - some were rescued, that too is known.

When the Little Giant heard the news, she sought out her uncle, the Great Giant's brother.

 While listening to her, the uncle made a decision that was to take him a century to carry out.

First, he would make himself a diving suit. Then he would scour the ocean floor for the shipwreck. After that, he would bury his brother in the deep-sea bed. Most importantly, he would come back with the letter the Great Giant had written to the Little Giant Girl. This is why he walked for many long years across the ocean floor, pulling the Titanic's mail trunk to bring back the post to Liverpool.

Such tragedies do not affect the Little Giant's morale who bravely decided to come to the reunion. While reading magazines before leaving, she discovered that there are another two famed legends in Liverpool - The Beatles music, and the sheer madness for football of the rebel City.

Before setting up her first camp in Stanley Park, between the two football stadiums north of the city, she decides she will go on a cruise through the town on a road-sailing boat. A few hours before her arrival, as if by magic, a geyser shoots up from the ground in the city centre, to herald her arrival.

Written By Jean-Luc Courcoult
Author, Artistic Director and Founder, Royal De Luxe.

 posted by rick castro~ editor~ antebellumblog