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Sam and Friends BookThis has happened to me on occasion: I meet someone, or someone meets me, they find out or realize that I'm a puppeteer, and when they do, their reaction is usually, "Oh, how cool, puppetry is such an under-rated artform".
Since I am active in the field of puppetry, and know there are a lot of puppeteers out there, both professional and amateur, I find myself having to disagree, because to me, puppetry doesn't seem like an under-rated artform at all. However, I've tried to look at puppetry from the perspective of people like this, and I think I can see why they would think that: I think most people, who don't really think about puppetry as a whole, really rely on what they actually see within the general public... what has happened in recent years? As somewhat overly exaggerated with the release of the new movie, in recent years, the Muppets haven't had an impact on pop culture: aside from SST, the Muppets have only been seen in TV movies or TV special that have, for the most part, have gone under the radar with some people, while other people like to pretend those never happened. Before that, the Muppets were regularly active, we got theatrical movies every few years, meanwhile specialty channels would broadcast reruns of TMS or other Muppet/Henson series from time to time. However, it's not just the Muppets either, but for a while, puppets were rampant on TV, especially as far as children's shows go; some of them have ha impact on people and kids growing up, others have become something of cult favorites, while others were un-successful... shows like Puzzle Place, Allegra's Window, Wimzie's House, Tiny Tots, Teletubbies, different shows from Shari Lewis, Between the Lions, etc, a lot of which have disappeared from the airwaves in recent years. Not only that, but we've also had discussions within our MC community of how some much of what's done in movies nowadays that may have used to have been achieved through puppetry or animatronics are pretty much now replaced with CGI and such.
From that perspective, I think I can see why some people would think that puppetry seems like an under-rated artform, but again, because I'm involved in puppetry, I don't think that puppetry as a whole is under-rated, it's just gone under the radar somewhat because of the lack of puppetry seen in movies and television; however, a lot of puppetry is don almost exclusively on the internet these days by people like us who use the internet to showcase their work... but again, the problem there is that not everybody in the world has regular internet access, let alone, not everybody in the world is even computer-literate... what do you guys think of this?
Since I am active in the field of puppetry, and know there are a lot of puppeteers out there, both professional and amateur, I find myself having to disagree, because to me, puppetry doesn't seem like an under-rated artform at all. However, I've tried to look at puppetry from the perspective of people like this, and I think I can see why they would think that: I think most people, who don't really think about puppetry as a whole, really rely on what they actually see within the general public... what has happened in recent years? As somewhat overly exaggerated with the release of the new movie, in recent years, the Muppets haven't had an impact on pop culture: aside from SST, the Muppets have only been seen in TV movies or TV special that have, for the most part, have gone under the radar with some people, while other people like to pretend those never happened. Before that, the Muppets were regularly active, we got theatrical movies every few years, meanwhile specialty channels would broadcast reruns of TMS or other Muppet/Henson series from time to time. However, it's not just the Muppets either, but for a while, puppets were rampant on TV, especially as far as children's shows go; some of them have ha impact on people and kids growing up, others have become something of cult favorites, while others were un-successful... shows like Puzzle Place, Allegra's Window, Wimzie's House, Tiny Tots, Teletubbies, different shows from Shari Lewis, Between the Lions, etc, a lot of which have disappeared from the airwaves in recent years. Not only that, but we've also had discussions within our MC community of how some much of what's done in movies nowadays that may have used to have been achieved through puppetry or animatronics are pretty much now replaced with CGI and such.
From that perspective, I think I can see why some people would think that puppetry seems like an under-rated artform, but again, because I'm involved in puppetry, I don't think that puppetry as a whole is under-rated, it's just gone under the radar somewhat because of the lack of puppetry seen in movies and television; however, a lot of puppetry is don almost exclusively on the internet these days by people like us who use the internet to showcase their work... but again, the problem there is that not everybody in the world has regular internet access, let alone, not everybody in the world is even computer-literate... what do you guys think of this?
