When I first started building puppets, I think it was Creature Clones that pushed me into making it a business for one reason - his prices. Fair enough there are TV companies who have money to throw at exclusive rights to characters and such, but I know I would never be able to justify paying $5000 upward for what is essentially $100-200 of materials at most and time. I love puppets and probably my one regret is that I spent about 10 years in that doldrums area of not believing I could build and or perform to any reasonable degree - dozens of builds later and thousands of videos, music videos and a tv series later I know that was just a stupid lack of confidence and self belief - but it is because I love puppets that I don't regard building them as work or a cashcow to be milked for all it's worth. I know my material costs, and as this is currently a second income for me, I know what my time is worth. I've also believed in being fully transparent with my pricing which is why I have a page of my website that let's people total up a base cost for their puppet ideas themselves based on puppet type, add ons etc. I don't think it's beneficial to anyone to just say "Contact me for a price" because if your prices are out of the buyers' range then it is wasting both their time and mine.
However good Mike's puppets look, they are still massively overpriced for what is in essence a very good copy of a well known brand; no different to picking up a Rolex watch for a fiver in China except he is selling very good copies at probably more than I would expect to pay for a fully licenced replica if Disney ever made them. You can buy a full animatronic screen used and fully rigged Gremlin puppet for the same price as some of the puppets he sells. If you break it down, even for something as basic as a Kermit replica the hourly wage he is charging is around £40 plus. There are people saving lives and risking their lives out their and they have to fight to get their wage to just a fraction of that. And they deliver what they are paid to do.
There is a market for replicas, my second reason for getting into building was that I wanted to own replica muppets and thought it better to challenge myself to build them for myself rather than being ripped off to buy someone else's copies, but there are also many very talented puppet builders out there who can build something that you imagine and envision yourself for a much more reasonable cost. And while it can be cool to say look at my Fozzie or have you seen my Gonzo, there is nothing can competing with seeing a character you imagined or created coming to life in the same way as those famous puppets.
I hope you get sorted in the end whether it is your money back or the puppet. I had a bad phase of around six months when for various family and health reasons I had to pretty much shut down what I was doing, but even then I managed to update the customers I had waiting to explain the situation, so at the very least there is no excuse for you to have been completely blanked out in trying to get information.
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