The PBS Gig

[D'Snowth]

By reguest, here's my story of how I got my puppetry gig at my local PBS.

July 2004, I had started my new internship down there. Mainly, I was to help out with production (mainly camera work, which is nice). I had proven myself to be one who was ready to learn new things, so I was there to stay.
August 2004, it was time for our bi-annual pledge drive (one week in August, two weeks in March). During the afternoon, we have a "kids club" called The Friends of Sesame Street. As I was helping getting the phone booths up and running, I over heard two of the other techincians talking, and heard that their usual puppeteer was unavailable, and they needed a substitute. So right then and there I said "I'll do it!" And so that was that. During that week, my character turned out to be a big hit, that they have me coming back to perform his some more during the kids club. At first it was kind of scary, because I had never worked with moniters before, and it was live TV, but after a awhile, I got the hang of it, and now it feels natural to me, and plus I'm getting better at getting the message about supporting public television. Now, since our regular puppeteer is back, I'm the co-star now, but her puppet is quite the camera hog, and I end up basically doing the "uh-huh's" and "mm-hmm's", and the "yeah's" and the "no's".

 

[MrsPepper]

That's really cool, D'Snowth. Good for you! Very gutsy of you. What's your puppet like?

You're shifted to doing Uh-huh's?!? Come on man, if there's one thing we've all learned from the Muppets, it's upstaging!! ^__^ Maybe they'll realise that you are in fact just too good for just uh-huh's.

 

[Iokitek]

Great story! Hopefully it will inspire others not to give up on their dreams. I just saw on TV that Brad Pitt also started out being a chauffeur for strippers, delivering refrigerators and walking around in a Chicken suit at malls. So everyone has to start somewhere. You did a good thing by calling out "I'll do it!" That was really smart. You just have to take the opportunity when it presents itself.

 

[Was Once Ernie]

I don't mean to highjack this thread, but the title of it is perfect for my story, too.

I was working for New Jersey Public Broadcasting as an engineer. I ran video tape, telecine and master control. They used to do a live newscast everyday and they were looking for a new weather person. My friend and I wanted to build a puppet anyway, so we built one with the idea of auditioning for the spot of weather person. We thought it would be cool to have a funny weather person.

The puppet we built is the one you see in my avatar. His name is Davey Simpson. Although, I think we called him "David" in the beginning. More formal for doing the weather.

Fortunately for us, we were the station engineers, so we could go in and rehearse in front of the cameras whenever the studio wasn't in use. We were able to get used to working together (I was the voice and left hand and my friend was the right hand). Also, watching a monitor is very different from working in a mirror. When you look at yourself on a TV monitor, you see yourself the way others see you. Which means, that everything is reversed from how you are used to seeing it in a mirror. If you raise your right arm, it will be the arm on the left side of the monitor that goes up. It takes some getting used to!

We wrote some gags and made some props and auditioned for the weather spot. While they thought it was amusing, the news department didn't really have a sense of humor and they wanted a serious weather person.

BUT, one of the other producers saw the audition and asked us to become regulars on his show! He did a public service show called "The Wireless Anything Goes Notebook" and each week, they read events happening around the state of New Jersey as one of the segments. That became our spot. We did a little comedy bit with the hostess of the show that I wrote and then read the notebook items. It was great experience and great fun.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

That's great stories, folks!

I need to get involved with Muley at the local PBS station, because it's only about 5 minutes from my house. Muley's been on a few of the local TV stations and radio stations. Would love to get him a permanent spot somewhere, though.

He worked his way up to Official SpokesMule for the Ronald McDonald House of Memphis a few years ago and has done speeches, but the TV experience would be fun as heck.