What are your stories?

[Brian Damage]

Errmm... I found these forums after a lot of time searching through the massive amounts of (Mostly pointless, seemingly) references to Fraggles spotted by Google.

So, yeah... I've come here for the Fraggle stuff, due to having reawakened my love of that particular TV show via the lucky find of a video tape, but I'll probably hang around for a few other things, too (I'm quite partial to the occasional viewing of Dark Crystal and Labyrinth)...

Um... Lets see... Okay, this is the third set of forums I've ever been a member on. The other two are the HalfLife2.net forums, and my very own forums for a computer game I'm developing... So, depending on one's definitions, I may or may not be a forum newbie...

Age... Well, I'll be nineteen for about another week...

I like computers (And almost anything to do with them), animals, books, miscellaneous interesting stuff, and metasyntactic variables. Oh, and JHC stuff, although I prefer the stuff from when the master of the art was still around... Ah, and chocolate, too, as it's sometimes the only up when you're down...

I hate... errrrm... Anything that becomes a persistent irritation...

I feel quite ambivalent about the creature depicted in my avatar.

And I have a tendency to waffle like nobody's business, when given the chance...

I live in Melbourne, Australia, which is quite a nice city if you can put up with some of the weirdest weather on the planet...

Nice to meet you all, glad I finally found the "New person's thread" for these forums...

(And the name is Brian. Not Brain.)

 

[homerthegreat]

Age group??? 13.

What brought you here???I read about it somwhere on Palisades.

Anything else??? Nope.

 

[JaniceFerSure]

Welcome to the dorms & MC HTG.Glad you made it,& enjoy your stay.

 

[superfan]

Aaah, it is such a relief to find this site.

Honestly, it appears that I am living in a small world where it seems noone shares the same interest in all things Henson as I do. So here I sit on my lunch break, while the other girls are talking about where they're going to get their highlights done. See what I mean? *blech*

I am 29, as my bio states and I am trying to maintain a level of immaturity...or I think I'd go nuts.

I came across this site while turning web page after web page of Henson related sites. And then I stopped here...*sigh*

I must commend each and everyone of you for being so true to what you love and committing yourself to what seems like very detailed research on this. It's so fun to read and I try to respond to as much as I can.
I'm a Superfan, I'm just not as in-the-know as some.

 

[Beebers]

That's a nice post. re:immaturity - maturity certainly has its place and should be exercised whenever appropriate and necessary. However, fun and mischief and silliness, oft misdiagnosed as immaturity, are necessary to quality of life. Never should we grow up all the way, to the point where whimsy and foolishness are left by the roadside of life. Carry on, carry on.



I mean, look at my avatar, for example. My greatest holiday joy this year is not having to change over for Christmas, lol.

 

[Whatever]

That's a nice post. re:immaturity - maturity certainly has its place and should be exercised whenever appropriate and necessary. However, fun and mischief and silliness, oft misdiagnosed as immaturity, are necessary to quality of life. Never should we grow up all the way, to the point where whimsy and foolishness are left by the roadside of life. Carry on, carry on.



I mean, look at my avatar, for example. My greatest holiday joy this year is not having to change over for Christmas, lol.

Says the woman with a rubber chicken in her car.

Not that I can talk. My mom and I have so many silly jokes, and as soon as she gets here we can start going through all of them (hurry up, Mom! I'm waiting on you!).

 

[Beebers]

Says the woman with a rubber chicken in her car.

Precisely. And my avvie, I am happy to say, is Totally Immature. Danged proud of it, too.

 

[Whatever]

Precisely. And my avvie, I am happy to say, is Totally Immature. Danged proud of it, too.

There are worse things to be proud of. Just look at the Guiness Book of World Records.

 

[FISH'N'WOLFE]

Bio: I got into puppeteering about four years ago purely by chance. It actually started with the purchase of the Mr. Bill Collection on DVD oddly enough. I had been a Muppet fan all my life, growing up on Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, Muppet TV specials (Muppet Family Christmas, favorite Muppet film of them all.) but had never been actually interested in puppeteering itself, except for a short time at age 9 when I was severly ill with Cat Scratch Fever (a severe bacterial infection transferred from a cats nails, it has nothing to do with the cat itself.) I created an alter ego of my doctor in a sock puppet and named him Doctor Demento, along with a couple of other characters. I simply needed a release of some sort to get me through that time, and it did just that along with the support of my parents and close friends. After that I moved onto other things, but even though different, they were still creative and artistic, which of course is a huge part of puppetry. I also was extremely interested in show buisiness in general and knew that I wanted to do something in the industry, but wasn't sure what. So now we arrive at my Mr. Bill purchase. I, along with my best friend Lucas, started shooting our own Mr. Bill style skits with a simple black and white security camera starring a character Wil, who we based on a real friend of mine of the same name who is excessively accident prone in real life. We would have various mishaps happen to him which we thought were hilarious, and we soon evolved into other puppet styles (Wil went from clay to Play-Doh to rag doll to string puppet to stop animation armature and finally to hand puppet, over the four year period.) and finally reached a point where we couldn't develop the character the way we wanted, we were animating him frame by frame by pausing and un-pausing the VCR in record mode with okay results. So finally one night I said to Luke, why don't we try out hand puppets? So we did and were off to the races, making huge strides including the development of over twenty characters so far, Luke being an excellent character designer along with my character construction skills made for a perfect combination. So we learned basic puppetry, voices, and to work with monitors by setting up in my living room. We had a full homemade set jammed in a tiny apartment with a TV monitor and camera. Anyways after filming several skits we finally decided on a whim to send a demo tape to the Jim Henson Co. and see what would happen, well, lo and behold five months later I got a package containing my tape and a hand-typed letter with their logo on it, now at this point I had completely forgotten about sending the demo. Figuring I had been rejected due to the tape being returned I opened it casually, well was I SURPRISED! This is what the letter said:

Dear Mr. Provost,

We recently recieved your demo tape regarding your interest in becoming a puppeteer with the Jim Henson Company.

Kevin Clash has reviewed your tape and was very impressed by your work. Though we would like to invite you to our next workshop for an audition and training, we have no set date at present. Therefore, we will keep your details on file and contact you accordingly.

In the meantime, I am returning your tape as I thought you might like it back. We know how much work goes into creating one. Thanks for your interest and keep up the great work.

Sincerely,
Joe Roddy (Hand signed)

So I was quite happy as you can imagine. I'm still waiting for a reply. But I am actually content in not having been hired by the JHC since I have many of my own dreams to realize. I am really enjoying running a production company currently with Lucas, Provost-Mahoney Productions (formerly FISH'N'WOLFE Productions.) I also have worked on local theater productions as sound engineer, and I also worked for a time as production assistant for exit4music multimedia. (www.exit4music.com) Lucas, my mom Laurel, and I are now currently working on developing a unique pilot involving puppetry set in New York city. We are currently moving along slowly seeing as we do not have studio space to film it in, and are on a tight budget as well. I will eventually be looking for aspiring puppeteers, puppet builders, (specifically foam sculpture) costume designers, and the like, anyone in MA and the surrounding states or anywhere for that matter who is interested in working for bread and water until money arrives is free to email me through my profile.

That is my story, which is actually adapted from my very first post on this forum. I simply copied and pasted it, and have updated a few parts of it at the end. I also have recently posted my Henson demo tape information in the puppetry section under the "How do I get a job as a Muppeteer?" thread for those who are interested.

Kevin Provost

 

[Emerald]

What brought you here??? When I first discovered the internet in '96, one o' the first thangs I searched fer was "Muppets". The rest is history!

Me, too. Except that it may not have been exactly 1996 when I found the internet. I can't remember the year for sure anymore. But "Muppets" and "Dark Crystal" were two of my first searches.

I don't actually have internet at home because my computer has retired and is now a very expensive paper weight with no ability to print or burn CD's (which are very important things for computers to be able to do), so I don't visit this site as much as I did in college. But catching up on Muppet stuff is what keeps bringing me back here.

I'm 23, almost 24, and a substitute teacher. My husband is a music teacher, or will be after he finishes student teaching. He is actually the first person I met who is as excited about Muppets as I am. We even had Muppet candies on our wedding cake. Before him, I seemed to be the only person in this area who had a strong attachment to The Muppet Show.

TMS was, in fact, where I was first exposed to the likes of Alice Cooper, Harry Belafonte, Leo Saywer, and many more people. I guess I was a pretty weird kid, since most preschoolers probably didn't know all the words to "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" back then. TMS has made me the well rounded person I am today.

I would have been more well rounded, had TMS not disapeared from TV back then. I think that's why there are so many people in their 20's here. We got a taste of Kermit at a young age, and it left us craving more. Like full season DVD sets. (Hooray for the rumors that could come true!)

I cried when Jim Henson died. My brother wasn't even in America yet (he's adopted and was about a month old at the time), and it broke my heart that Jim was gone. It was even worst that my brother didn't get to experience the Jim Henson world of entertainment quite the way I did, and I think the world would be a better place if Karl's generation had Jim more directly in their lives.

I love Rowlf. He is deffinately my favorite. My first dog was even named Rowlf, even though he was a Brittney Spaniel and not -- well, whatever Rowlf is. He's much furrier, for sure. My least favorite is by far the post-1992 Elmo. My brother was about 2 when Elmo first started to annoy me. I liked Elmo a lot better when his appearances were scarce.

Anything else - Well, I have to say that spelling is one of my weaknesses. I try really hard to spell correctly, though (on account of being a teacher). So IM language has always annoyed me. Also, I see students sometimes who think it's acceptable to use IM language on book reports and research papers. Grrrrr. No offense intended to anyone here, though. I know why people use it on computers and it is totally appropriate here, I just thought that it might be something kind of unique about me.

I think that's more than I meant to type when I first started out. Sorry!