VIDEO: World's Largest Puppet Unveiled For San Diego Zoo
By Rebekah Gonzalez
March 2, 2022
The world's largest puppet was unveiled for an audience of schoolchildren and media members in a California park on Tuesday, March 1. Percy the Porcupine, which has a circumference of nearly 40 feet and has 2,000 quills, is a joint project of the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
Percy emerged from her stump to celebrate next week's opening of the San Diego Zoo's new Wildlife Experlorers Basecamp. According to the Associated Press, the puppet took six months of planning and is based on the prehensile-tailed porcupine, native to South America.
“We’ve done some fantasy creatures a little bit bigger, but in terms of duplicating an animal it’s the biggest we’ve ever done,” Peter Brooke, creative supervisor for Jim Henson’s Creature Shop told AP. “It’s essentially based on a big inflatable with the addition of a mouth, a jaw and mechanical eyes."
🎉Surprise🎉 Today we quilled out with Percy, our two-story tall prehensile-tailed porcupine puppet to celebrate Wildlife Explorers Basecamp, opening March 11th at the San Diego Zoo. pic.twitter.com/CcWSEG3vGl
— San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (@sandiegozoo) March 1, 2022
Percy will travel down the coast after one more media stop to her permanent home at the San Diego Zoo.
Wildlife Explorers Basecamp is built on the site of the historic Children’s Zoo and will open to the public on March 11, 2022. The entrance sign features nine leafcutter ant sculptures carrying leaves atop a trellis.
The area includes:
- 4 different habitat zones
- 8 buildings
- A floating, 7-foot-high stone globe, which rotates on a thin layer of water. The globe is made of quartzite (Azul Macaubus) found in Brazil, with white and bluish tones.
- Oversized species-themed sculptures and multiple immersive play areas.