Worst/creepiest puppets/puppeteer work

[Luke kun]

But ventriloquism made a good Goosebumps book.

 

[mr3urious]

I'd like to turn your attention to an $8,000+ Kickstarter project from 2012 that was an attempt to compile a DVD out of their preschool show that's supposed to teach love, acceptance, and diversity (and I use those terms very loosely here). What is that show, you may ask? Why, Wee Bee World, of course!

https://www.youtube.com/user/weebeeworldvideos/videos

And here is a summary of the show for those who don't wish to go insane watching it themselves!

And how well did this project go over?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/722153803/create-an-educational-dvd-for-toddlers

- 7 backers
- $5,280 pledged of $8,250 goal

I think some appropriate music is needed.

 

[Drtooth]

And how well did this project go over?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/722153803/create-an-educational-dvd-for-toddlers

- 7 backers
- $5,280 pledged of $8,250 goal

On the contrary. I'm surprised they even got that much.

Lumping the Muppet Show in there with kid's edutainment aside, this guy has a point. We have an insane amount of preschool shows. It's a freaking gold mine. We have at least 3 whole cable channels devoted to it now. It's the easiest thing to access in the world. Like 2 new shows come out a week, I swear. Why would anyone want some low rent puppet show that's even below 1990's Public access TV quality? When Peppermint Park looks like the superior and higher budget show, that's when you know you have a real klunker on your hands.

But what makes this one so special is this: There's a crapload of cheap, terrible, and worthless Youtube educational videos. You wonder who even makes them. They're either Wolf Tracer Studios quality CGI (Studio Brinquendo who?), Power point presentations, or still frames. And you get those results no matter what you look at because they're those kinds of shifty videos that put popular search terms in their descriptions so someone will accidentally click on them (and whoa be thee who looks up "Sesame Street"... they all say they are but aren't!). But this one...this one has the stone cold brass ones to try and get a physical DVD release and have people pay to get them to do something that shouldn't even cost a couple hundred.

Scam is the word here. You have a bad puppet show no one wants to watch for free they want to release for sale on a dying format, and they took to Kickstarter to get the funding to put them on said format. Probably with a healthy bribe left over to get some store to sell it. Yeah.

 

[mr3urious]

But what makes this one so special is this: There's a crapload of cheap, terrible, and worthless Youtube educational videos. You wonder who even makes them. They're either Wolf Tracer Studios quality CGI (Studio Brinquendo who?), Power point presentations, or still frames. And you get those results no matter what you look at because they're those kinds of shifty videos that put popular search terms in their descriptions so someone will accidentally click on them (and whoa be thee who looks up "Sesame Street"... they all say they are but aren't!). But this one...this one has the stone cold brass ones to try and get a physical DVD release and have people pay to get them to do something that shouldn't even cost a couple hundred.

And yet the new Letter People series is still a cut above the rest.

 

[Drtooth]

Cut above? That's an understatement. I'd say more like the Letter People Reboot is...effort of some kind. I just don't get why there's so many of those things online. Do they actually get any ad revenue?

 

[D'Snowth]

Do they actually get any ad revenue?

Yeah. If you're a partner channel, you can monetize the content you upload, but Google/YouTube gets a large percentage of your revenue.

 

[Drtooth]

Thought as much. So it really isn't even that much money unless you're somehow popular enough. Probably explains why they randomly use popular characters and dump a bunch of random popular search topics into their videos.

Even then, Wee Bee World looks like it has a 10 dollar budget. If they were popular enough to become a partner, they probably get a little more money.

Ain't NO excuse for needing 8,000 big ones to compile that stuff onto DVD.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

Behold!

That's very creepy.

 

[Drtooth]

An epilogue to the Wee Bee World brutal slaughtering by that web critic... seems Wee Bee World is incredibly intolerant...to criticism. He's apparently flagged the video and spammed it with obnoxious amounts of self righteous oblivious defensiveness. And he's a total butthat about it too.

Look at how many of the members come to the defense of the video calling out the outright stupidity. But let's let Wee Bee World speak for itself.

You are wrong. We are not desperate. Just standing up for what is right. Our Kickstarter Project has nothing to do with this discussion. We will survive with or without the money from Kickstarter. This about morals and the rights of individuals and treating people with respect. Too many of you hide behind your key pads with out thinking about what you type ... and it promotes hate.

Because you promote hatred! There are a half dozen explicit racist comments here in these posting. And one which I just flagged that referred to a butt*ucking Hom* ... so Asa ... you see who your audience is and why I can not stand to the side and allow this type of content? Or are you homophobic and a racist too? Can you answer that question? I will let you reply here and you can let your people know point blank. I am done and will only report any "hate crimes" I see here accordingly.

Your review on the video was fair enough ... if you could stomach the racist comments. But the unfounded nonfactual statements appeared in your correspondence with viewer postings that alleged we were scam artist and racist ourselves that you replied to and commented on supporting such inferences.

Yes, in fact a latino lady, an african american kid and a furry monster is diverse.

What on earth are you talking about? Out of 24 videos we have posted to YouTube, there have been a hand full of events that some of you have declared "racist". To which we have replied to and denounced as false. In fact the comments from this page have provided the most severe racist comments. Wee Bee World's mission is to teach love, laughter, diversity and acceptance. It is part of our signature and it is on each video description listed on YouTube and also on our website.

You too Asa are out of line. Besides Youtube we have fans that have followed us for over 2 years and enjoy our content. I support your right to criticize our content or production values in a constructive manner. That is your right. But your approach and style is totally unprofessional and as mentioned before your racist comments on several events in the review are socially offensive .. and as such I reported them to YouTube.

And my absolute favorite comment...

I wish Sesame Street would come OUT of the closet with Bert and Ernie and do just as you said. That would be a great day for the human race. A true mile stone to celebrate.

Really?!?! That?! That overused meme? I'm sure most actual Muppet fans have moved off the "Ernie and Bert are teh gayz" meme. I'm absolutely convinced Bunsen and Beaker are. Why is no one mentioning that?

But overall, arrogance and obliviousness. Sure, it's easy to agree with saying his stuff is racist, albeit so incredibly accidental that it's accidentally worse than the actual accidentally racist "Accidental Racist" song Braid Paisley and L.L. Cool J pooped out. And sure, the fact that he's stood by it with "some of the people working on the show are black and I have black friends." But I'm seeing the overall picture.

And that overall picture is I can take a bad project as a bad project. I can point out that Wee Bee is an amateurish piece of garbage, and even if it was professionally done and good, it's just another drop in the ocean of preschool media. Even if they had a budget and was well written and well performed, it still offers nothing special. But as a piece of crap, it's a guy with a stick figure drawing that he had to trace trying to sell it to Marvel Comics. I wouldn't doubt for a minute the show has "fans" of negligent parents that pop it up on their iPhones to shut their easily amused 3 year old at a restraunt they had to drag them to because they couldn't get a baby sitter at the last moment. Even then, why? There's so freaking many options, including the already trusted and established brands of Sesame Street, Nick Jr., and Disney Jr. Why go for a cheap looking, bargain basement production that offers nothing special? I love puppetry as much as the next Muppet fan here, but even I get the feeling using puppets to edutain children is dated when watching this. And that would be forgivable if the creator wasn't such a freaking dipstick. Yeah. Some people are very defensive when they're hammered with criticism. None more so than those of which who wind up making things worthy of scorn. But just like his internet puppet show (and let's remember there are indeed internet puppet shows that are high quality and professional looking), his behavior is frighteningly unprofessional.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

I saw Puppet Parade for the first time the other day.

It's a very creepy show and the puppets are so horrible.