The FUTURE of puppetry in Television!

[Jack Rennon]

My fellow Muppet fans, I implore you! What will be the future of Puppetry! It has been far too long since the primetime reign of the Muppets! I miss those days. I want to return to them. I want puppets back in primetime television. I want fresh, new blood, new puppeteers to band together and make something that everyone, adults, children, even geezers can enjoy! Yes. Even geezers.

But I'm serious. I have a vision. I know I am a new member on this forum. I didn't really come here for the "message board" experience, although I have nothing againts it! I have come here to look for like-minded people! I want to hear your thoughts and ideas for getting puppetry back into the tv sets and hearts of america, nay, the world.

Jim Henson and his programming is one of the biggest inspirations I have in my life and what I do. I have been a puppeteer since I was 10 years old, and a filmmaker for almost that long. I want to see things happen! I want to bring back the magic. I know Jim Henson is gone, but, I know that he, along with Kermit, Fozzie, and the rest of the dreamers, would not want that magic to die with him. I think he'd want his spirit of creativeness and kindness to continue through the work of others.

So, this is my message to you. If you're not interested, go ahead and just skip over this message. But I would love to hear some of your opinions and ideas.

Heres to the Lovers
The Dreamers
And You

Jack Rennon

 

[Toasty]

This post got me thinking about people trying to get new puppet productions on TV and then I started writing and, well... I wrote a lot. I ended up posting the entire thing on my blog http://bubbleboyblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-time-for-creative-puppet-peeps-to.html
because I didn't want to toss in one of those seemingly endless posts here.

Here's an excerpt for anyone interested...

The old idea of getting a show on TV and in a primetime slot is changing every day that the internet becomes a greater and greater mass media delivery system for the masses. I don't think we are at the point where the power of the old network model can be completely discounted or ignored --- mostly because the companies that own those networks ALSO own most of the internet portals delivering broadband media entertainment on the web. But the days of begging for a chance to make a pilot for a show, and then a chance for that pilot to be advertised and aired at a decent time to build an audience, and then for a network to agree to pick up the idea and buy a season or two worth of shows based on the ratings of that pilot, are being changed every day by the rise of the internet delivery model.

Think iTunes and YouTube and SuperDeluxe and Blip.tv and any other number of popular ways people are experiencing the very same shows via the internet that other people are watching on cable or over the networks. Now think about how many more people will be getting their daily and prime time doses of entertainment delivered to them over the next few years. There is a huge shift happening in the delivery system and that is going to change the way shows are made and the way they are marketed.

Audiences are already changing. Fewer people tune in to network TV during those, once-coveted, prime time slots to get their entertainment. Many people never turn in at all during those times. They use on-demand services or record programming on DVRs and watch when it is convenient.

 

[Nojoy]

I gotta agree with Toasty... In this day and age, primetime really is as antiquated as the term "Saturday Morning Lineup"... The landscape has changed a lot since the days the Muppet Show aired, and to yearn for a return of those days just really isn't feasible.
Creators should explore the new options to reach people that are available now... They stand a greater chance of being heard and seen with a podcast or a youtube video than they ever did trying to get a pilot on the air.
Case in point, "Transylvania Television"... IMO, this show meets those high quality standards and if I had any say it'd be nestled into that Adult Swim lineup faster than they could make them.
It was put together as an actual TV pilot episode, but the TV TV crew have been active on the net, exposing the public to the show and getting fans by word of mouth. Hopefully, the ripple will extend beyond the internet and get this thing off the ground.
Then there's dotBoom, Gloomy Roomies, the Wippets, 99 Acre Woods, the Bubbleboy himself, and a truckload of others that have been popping up left and right on the net over the past year or two.
We ARE on the verge of a "puppet renaissance" ... Each day a new person sees something out there and is inspired to add to it... and yeah, some of the efforts are not going to be "high quality"... but from a tiny acorn...

And to be honest, after seeing television flow throw the most recent trends of game shows, realtity TV, and homicide/forensic drama... Watching them strip mine those concepts from unique and special down to tired and hackney... I dunno...

My 2 cents, take it or leave it...

 

[staceyrebecca]

Another case in point

http://www.makingfiends.com had two seasons of webisodes before Nickelodeon brought her on to do podcasts, and now they're finally developing a show for Nickelodeon's cable station.

Do what you do how you're able to do it, make it awesome & push for it & others will take note & hopefully help you along.

 

[Luke]

I want puppets back in primetime television.

Right now and over the last few years, between the USA and Europe there have been more family/adult orientated puppet shows on TV than since the mid nineties - so it's not such a bad period for puppets at the moment. As for primetime - i think the guy who won America's Got Talent may get a show, but "Got Talent" itself did quite a good job of exposing people to puppetry again. Also Oscar on 1 vs 100, and Kermit on Deal or no Deal. Variety is supposed to be the next "Reality TV" so i can see puppets being a big part of that.

I'd like to see a brand new Muppets sketch or variety show, i think now is the time really - but it needs to be very "current" to attract todays viewer.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, if any of you guys have read some of my posts, I'm currently trying to develope a sitcom for primetime television that involves strictly puppetry (well, there WILL have to be SOME CGI for special effects), and I HOPE to have it on the air by the fall of 2009, and I HOPE people will watch the show, and think "Now why don't they make shows like that anymore?", as I'm shooting for an "old-school" look, like the kind of show you'd see on primetime television back in the 60s when TV was so much more wholesome, and wasn't filled with overtly sexual innuendos with people who can't act to save their lives to mind-numbing garbage, rather than well-written, and well-fleshed out scripts to work with.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I don't know much about puppetry, but I do say if you have a dream then try persuing it. It is possible that the better place to strive for is the Internet, as I think that's really where the future is in entertainment.

 

[frogboy4]

The culture of entertaiment has moved from stage to silver screen to television to cable to home video and now to dvr, the internet and the ipod. Television isn't dead, it simply is turning into what theater and film became when television came around. What Disney is doing with muppets.com is where the market is, not just for puppets, for all entertainment. If Jim Henson were alive today he'd be a major pioneer of internet programming!

Yeah, I prefer television and there is much about the internet experience I don't enjoy, but for better and for worse that is the forum for modern entertainment.

However, I would love to see more puppety on television whether it be Fraggles, Muppets, more artistic puppety shows or even a Greg the Bunny style program. Personally I want the Muppet Show back!

 

[MGov]

Hey I'm all for more puppeteers getting paid decent money to perform on TV. I want to be one of them.

But I put in a bunch of years on the development side of TV and movies when I lived in L.A. Take a good look at the link Stacey put up. Amy Winfrey, the creator of "Making Fiends" went to UCLA, one of the two top schools for getting into the TV and Film business (the other being USC, also in Los Angeles). She was an animator on "South Park", both the series and the movie. She did two other web cartoons before beginning "Making Fiends" in 2003. And here it is, 2008 and the show is going to be on Nickelodeon.

So that's about ten years time, in one of the best situations she could be in, before she reached cable TV.

It doesn't happen quickly or easily. No one is an instant success.

Why do you think there is bad TV at all? Because IT ISN'T EASY! I had to read hundreds of scripts from people who had the attitude that writing a screenplay or a TV script couldn't be that hard because, gee whiz, look how bad TV and movies are.

But it's just like anything else. You don't get good at it until you do it for a while. You need to be where the work is. You need people that have been there and done it to help you. You need to have some real talent and be ORIGINAL. And then you still need to be lucky and persistent.

The internet is great and all, but it won't change who has the money and who makes the decisions.

As for puppetry on TV, I think it's possible to come up with something. And it won't be coming from YouTube.


Edited to add: I just read Bubbleboy's blog all the way through and he hit on a lot of the same stuff I said, though he might have been a little nicer about it.

 

[CensoredAlso]

The internet is great and all, but it won't change who has the money and who makes the decisions.

We shall see.