What was your weirdest puppeteering experience?

[D'Snowth]

I was doing Grover's near and far bit and as he was running far I leaned to far and fell down the stairs. I guess you could say that I was "stuck in character" because when I fell I screamed in Grover's voice. Also the Grover puppet went flying off of my hand and hit the wall. The kids laughed because they assumed it was part of the show and I am actually very happy that happened, It was an unplanned but funny scene

Oh gee! I had a very, very similar experience once, though not when I was puppeteering. This was during a talent show at the country fair that PBS was televising one summer years ago, and I was one of the stage managers: just before the show began, I sat down in a metal folding chair that was evidently too close to the end of the stage - I went over the edge of the stage, while still the chair, and the next thing I know, I'm on the ground, looking up at a crowd of talent show contestants all circling around me like they had just witnessed a car accident. I joked with my PBS teamsters that had we been rolling camera when that happened, I could have submitted it to AFV and become very rich.

I think my weirdest experience was when I puppeteered at a birthday party, and one of the kids kept wanting to pull the puppet's arm off, and their parent didn't even say anything about it; in fact, they encouraged them to continue doing so! I eventually had to break character to tell this kid to get the **** off my puppet lol.

Luckily I had sewed it on pretty well, but from that point forward I use doll joints to secure puppet arms!

My very first day performing Steve D'Monster, just before cameras began rolling for our second pledge drive spot for the day, his entire arm fell off (because it was not sewed on well at all), but luckily, one of the others happened to have a small sewing kit in his office, so I was able to do a quick repair job just before we were back on the air.

One interesting experience I had was when I puppeteered for VBS one summer: I played a construction barrel named Darrel, and he was incredibly popular with the little kids, they just loved him. One evening after my performance, a few little rugrats managed to mob our makeshift puppet stage (which was just some PVC pipes with black cloth draped over it) because they wanted to get back there and talk to Darrel, but instead were met with a big hairy man sitting in a chair instead . . . that didn't stop impressing them, though: they told me how much they love Darrel and how much they love how I do his voice and everything, so that was nice.

 

[Cookie3001]

once at a summer VBS I teamed up with 2 friends and in a talent show that weak we had done a puppet sketch that was thrown together in about 10 minutes (maybe even less). We were lypsicing to "Rock it to Me" with 4 monsters (spoofing Henson's Rock and Roll Monster sketch) and I was performing a rod handed monster that had a cardboard guitar and one loose hand was pinned onto it, the other was moved with the rod to give the illusion that he was strumming the guitar and all went horribly wrong. It started when one of my friends was moving the puppet and just broke out laughing because of how bad we were doing, near the end of the song my puppet strummed the guitar TOO hard and it ripped right out of his hands so I improvised by making it look like he was destroying his guitar as they used to do after rock and roll songs (like Little Chrissy in 8 Balls of Fur)

 

[Cookie3001]

One event that I should tell you all about was a charity festival called "Moonlight Madness" that I performed at in November. It was a good show and good experience, I made some good money but the children were INSANE. We had kids trying to steal puppets, trying to get behind the stage and one tried TO RIP OF A PUPPET EYEBALL! The worst part was that the parents were shopping a room or two away and I was supposed to entertain the kids while their parents were shopping. Even during intermission, I would just leave to go to the bathroom or something and there would be kids chasing me screaming "MORE PUPPET SHOW". during the second show my assistant got very impatient and yelled at some kids. Finally the show was over and they payed me and I was OUT OF THERE. Now you won't believe this but today I was at the library working on some stuff on the computer and as I'm working I hear some kids running and screaming, I looked up and thank god I did because THEY WERE THE SAME KIDS FROM THAT SHOW! I quickly hid my face behind the computer and they would have recognized me since I had photos of my puppet stuff up on the computer.

 

[Doctimelash]

Sadly, I've never performed to the public with puppets, although I can. I'm more of a builder than a performer. But keep the thread up

 

[Chuk]

Sadly, I've never performed to the public with puppets, although I can. I'm more of a builder than a performer. But keep the thread up

You should at least try. Its honestly fun.

 

[BlakeConor14]

I was in a play called Goodnight Mr Tom and the main character, Mr Tom has a dog called Sammy who is also a fairly large role

now I’ve got this puppet which looks very lifelike however this puppet was not professionally built and even if it was things can break and come off and need mending. Now the guy who built it kept giving me a hard time with the puppet if the legs would come out of place and would have a go at me about it.

then on the final dress rehearsal the worst of the worst happened...
The head of the dog fell off !

 

[Cookie3001]

Okay this one actually happened relatively recently, I was performing at a holiday concert at my school, I was behind just some wooden poles with a sheet over them. I got behind with the puppet but when I did the dang microphone stand started falling towards me, I grabbed it and tried to prop it back up but it started falling again and thankfully a stage manager ran behind and held the mic stand in place for me