June 24, 2025 • 22 mins
We pull their strings and stick them on our hands, but puppets are so much more than toys! Today Mango and producer Mary are taking you on a whirlwind world tour of puppetry, from Indonesian puppet shows that run until dawn to an avant-garde French ice marionette to… emo puppets? That’s right, emo puppets.
Got a question you’d like us to answer? A rabbit hole you think we should explore? Send an email or voice memo to higeniuses@gmail.com, and we might use it in an upcoming episode.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Mary?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Do you know? One of the most famous French puppets
in history was created by a nineteenth century dentist as
a way to distract his patients from their toothpain.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Did he also treat their toothpaint or what? Did he
just put on a puppet show and send them on
their way? That's unstandable.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
That part's unclear. The dentist puppeteer in question was this
man named Louren Morga, and he lived in Leone in
the early nineteenth century. And Morgay worked a series of
odd jobs before becoming a dentist. And he almost certainly
didn't have any formal medical training because back then dentistry
(01:02):
mostly just involved pulling teeth, which I guess anyone could do.
It wasn't considered a full fledged medical practice.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Wow, you know, I do love the diy, but not
when it comes to dentistry. That must have hurt.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, I think so. But in eighteen oh eight, more
Gay created a puppet named Guinyall. And this is a
working class every man. It was loosely based on himself,
and he performed for his patients and he used Guenal
to drum up new business, so I guess it was
great marketing. At some point Morgay must have realized he
(01:36):
was a way better puppeteer than dentist, so in the
eighteen twenties he quit dentistry to focus on puppetry full time,
and it actually became this family affair. Morgay had sixteen
children who helped spread Guenioll puppetry across France and these
shows became a sensation. Other puppeteers started putting on Guiniall
(01:56):
shows and at one point the French police even tried
to put a stop to them.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Why what was the problem.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I think I had something to do with all the
slapstick violence the show's featured, but also gen y'all lampooned
authority figures and the wealthy, or you know, maybe the
police just hated puppetry. It could have been that too.
Either way, the censorship didn't work and gin y'all survived,
and if you go to France today, especially the young,
you can still see gin y'all puppet shows to this day,
(02:24):
and you have one mediocre dentist to thank for it all.
But we've got eight more surprising puppet facts waiting backstage,
so let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to
(02:55):
Part Time Genius. I'm Mongus Articular and today I'm joined
by producer extra Ordinaire Mary Philip Sandy. And over there
in the booth is the man who literally pulls the
strings on this show. It's our pal and producer Dylan Fagan. Hey, Dylan,
maybe you can make me stop waving at you now?
My arm is getting tired.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Dylan. Well, speaking of getting tired, my gosh, have you
ever heard of wyang kul It? It is a type
of Indonesian shadow puppetry whose performances can go all night. Traditionally,
these shows start at midnight and they run until dawn.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
It sounds like it requires quite an attention span.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, fortunately, it's not considered impolite for the audience to
come and go as they please. It's kind of like
a festival atmosphere. It's not like you're sitting at the
opera and you can't get up and move around. But
what's really impressive is that during the whole performance, the
puppeteer never takes a break.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Wait, that's insane, So it's not even like an intermission.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Nope. And the whole show is performed by one puppeteer
called a DeLong, and the DeLong sits in front of
a screen manipulating all the puppets, which are usually made
from water buffalo hide and mounted on sticks. A single
performance might involve hundreds of them. Now, Wyanmkulit is an
ancient art form. It dates back to the eight hundreds,
not the eighteen hundreds, the eight hundreds, but it's evolved
(04:16):
a bit to cater to modern taste. These days. Some
of the shows are just a few hours long, you know,
because our attention spans are shorter, and to appeal to
younger audiences, delongs have begun to mix in some pop
culture references like Superman, or they'll dress the characters in
modern clothes, you know, like sneakers and beanies.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I love that beanies are like modern clothes, well.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Compared to the eight hundreds. My gosh, the beanies in
Indonesia in the eight hundreds, so you know, they're bringing
it up to modern times. In one DeLong even did
a show where he added a Barack Obama character. This
was in twenty twelve, and of course that's because Obama
spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, and you know,
so the DeLong wanted to celebrate that, but he also
(04:59):
took the op opportunity to poke fun at some of
Obama's policies in the show. He suggested that the president
should be spending less on the US military and more
on the arts, of which puppetree, of course is one.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So a lot of puppet traditions incorporate really topical political
commentary and satire and something I hadn't really picked up
on until we started this episode. But in Nigeria, the
a Bibio people practice a highly satirical form of pop
tree known as ekon or ekng. Ekon was huge during
the country's colonial era. So if you're thinking about like
(05:35):
from the eighteen nineties through the nineteen sixties, and the
puppeteers skewed everyone from local criminals and neighboring ethnic groups
to Catholic missionaries and British colonial officials, and they really
did not hold back. There's a mid century econ puppet
at the Smithsonian that depicts King George of England wearing
(05:55):
a crown and holding his arms out to the audience.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, okay, well God isn't really making fun of him though.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, but he's also completely naked from the waist down.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Okay, there it is, there it is, I gotcha.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So during the British occupation, Econ performances attracted crowds of
up to one thousand people at a time. Their popularity,
combined with their controversial subject matter, meant that being a
puppeteer could be dangerous. In fact, it was so dangerous
that the identities of puppeteers were generally kept secret to
protect them from backlash, which is pretty amazing. But in
(06:30):
a way, this could explain why puppets are so perfect
for political speech. The puppet provides anonymity. It's a buffer
between the performer and the audience, so you can kind
of be whoever you want to be.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, that makes sense, And actually that is the exact
principle behind my next fact. Because puppets aren't just for
theater and storytelling anymore. They're used in classrooms, therapy, and
even wildlife conservation.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
There's a wildlife center in Wisconsin called the International Crane Foundation,
and it's using puppets to help the endangered whooping crane.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Are they putting on political theater for these birds? No?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
No, that would be amazing. No. So what it is
is the ICF breeds whooping cranes, right, they raise the
chicks and then they release them back into the wild
to help the population grow. But there's a problem. Baby
whooping cranes imprint on whoever is raising them, which in
this case is humans, and if that happens, basically they
won't know they're a crane and then they won't know
(07:30):
how to function in the wild. So employees at the
ICF started wearing these big white suits that completely cover
their bodies, and they use hand puppets that look like
cranes to interact with the chicks. Oh wow, And they
take the puppeteering part of this job really seriously, Like
if they hear a loud noise, they'll cock the puppet's
(07:50):
head toward it in a crane like way, or if
they see something, you know that could be a threat,
the puppet will freeze. And as a result of this,
the chicks actually learn how to be brains.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
That is both really cute and a little unsettling, right, Like,
I mean, how would you feel you found out one
of your parents was a puppet.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe teenage whooping cranes have
to go to therapy. I don't know. That could be,
that could be part of the part of what they're
working on. But apparently crane puppets make really good parents.
It actually works, and this helps prepare the babies for
living independently in the wild and surviving.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I love that. I love the idea of someone going
to school to become a wildlife biologist and then they
ended up running around with a crane puppet.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Right. I did not get a PhD for this.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
But speaking of weird puppet careers, Mary, how familiar are
you with emo music?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Well, you know, I never wore eyeliner, if that is
what you're asking. But uh, you know I had a
couple Jets to Brazil CDs in college. I mean didn't
we all right?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
No, you were cool, you liked hip hop?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
You did not.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You were not dealing with this sort of thing, were you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You know, my cousin produced the US to Brazil album.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Sorry okay man.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
But in twenty fourteen, this comedian named Brentley Hilbrun formed
an all puppet emo band called Fragile Rock Finno is
kind of based off of fraggle Rock of course. Of course.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Wow, you know that's one of those puns where I
hear it and I just kind of get mad because
why didn't I think of that when I was in college?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Brizill, that's really funny. Anyway, Hilbrun was going through a
rough to Wars at the time, and he decided he
needed a musical outlet, so he teamed up with a
group of musicians and puppeteers to bring Fragile Rock to life.
The band is made up of five puppets and their
respective puppeteers who sing songs with titles like wake Up
(09:55):
to the Breakup and I Am Sad and so Am I.
The band has played at music festivals. They even had
their own NPR Time Desk concert, which I did not
see but I need to go back and look at now.
And at one point they tried their luck on America's
Got Talent, but apparently they were bowed off stage and
(10:16):
the segment never aired, which only feeds into their emo
NEAs I think you but Brentley wrote about the experience
on the band's website in a post titled I was
an emo puppet failure on America's Got Talent.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You know what, that doesn't need to be a blog post.
I would watch an hour long like TV documentary just
about that.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
One hundred percent. I would too. But my favorite thing
about Fragile Rock is that its members have developed complex
backstories for each of their puppets, and their backstories are
pretty quirky. They mostly involved dramatic romances and breakups between
the band members. There's even a whole love triangle involving
the actor Elijah.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Sure you know what. I take it back. I did
not mean TV episode or documentary. I mean series. I
mean a limited run Netflix. Please get on this right now.
It is so wonderful and bizarre. I love it. And
you know, like you were saying, I think getting booed
off stage is a lot more emo than winning America's
Got Talent.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
You know what, You are absolutely right. If the Fragile
Rock folks are listening, I hope they take comfort in that. Okay,
we have to take a quick break, but when we
get back, we've got an Indian puppet tradition that goes
back centuries and puppets in water. Please don't go anywhere
(11:49):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're answering all
the questions you didn't know you had about puppets. But
you know, if you have any questions about other things
or a fun rabbit hole you think we should be down,
send us an email at high Geniuses at gmail dot com.
That's Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com. You can even
(12:10):
send us a voice memo if you'd like, and we
might use it in an upcoming episode. So, Mary, I
know we've got to go back to puppetown in a second.
But are you a fan of puppets?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I am, and you know, I think I've mentioned this
on the show before. I have a deep dark history
as a theater kid. And that first category of puppetree
we spoke about the Indonesian shadow puppetree. I have a
little experience about. My college actually had a gamal on.
Of course, the really the Indonesian orchestra that typically performs
with the Indonesian shadow puppetry, and so we did actually
(12:40):
some performances that incorporated principles of Indonesian shadow puppetry. So
this is not my first go round. I know I
made it sound like this was new to me because
I wanted the audience to feel like I was not
as big a nerve as I am. I'll tell you now,
in the second half after the ad break, I knew
all about it.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
That is amazing. I had no idea. I feel like
my puppetry understanding really like ends. So I have a
little bit of marionettes and muppets, and like, you know,
I've always been like fascinated with puppets, but it's not
something I've ever really played around much with.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, because you were cool and listening to cool music
with your cool producer cousin while I was being a
theater That's why I don't feel that you should feel
good about this.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
But you know, I did see I saw the pee
Wee Herman documentary on HBO this weekend, and one it's
really good and fascinating his whole career and how ambitious
he is, the way he had these identities that he
lived in. But they also showed how the puppet cherry worked,
(13:42):
you know, that chair and like how there was like
a little monitor in there, and how the puppeteer was
working in it was like, it's kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, it really combines all of
these things that are great about puppetry. There's art, there's craft,
there's a little bit of subversiveness a lot of the time,
and it can create something really magical. But we do
take it for granted because we grow up with this
stuff on TV, and so it seems silly or childish.
But I mean there's actually a lot of really complicated
and rich history to puppets, which is why we wanted
(14:12):
to do this episode. And there's also some really novel
ways of approaching puppetry. Right, it's not all happening on
a stage. For example, I want to tell you about
this next fact, which is Vietnamese water puppetry. It takes
place in a pool of water.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I'm so excited about this, Yeah, tell me more so.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I know you might be thinking that this would be
a feat of incredible physical strength, right, Like if the
puppeteers had to be treading water the whole time, that
would be very difficult. That would be more like water
polo puppetry.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
That's not what this is.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
No, the pool's only about waste deep. But what it
does is the water gives the illusion that the puppets
are moving or swimming on their own. And that's because
the puppeteers are behind a screen. They're completely hidden from
the audience, and they control the puppets using polls and
strings that are attached underwater. And the puppets themselves are
made of buoyant fig wood, so they float on the water,
(15:07):
and naturally they tend to be aquatic themes. So you
got a lot of fish and fishermen and boats, and
from the audience's perspective, it looks like the puppets are
swimming and splashing around completely independently. There's all these cool
effects they do by having the puppets dive down under
the surface of the water and then re emerging.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Do you know how they came up with this method
of performance.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Of course I do. It was invented by farmers in
the Red River Delta about a thousand years ago, and
every year farming villages would hold a big festival at
the end of the rice harvest, and at some point
they came up with the idea to hold puppet shows
in the flooded rice paddies. Right, there was already standing
water there, so they thought, let's put puppets in it,
(15:48):
and so water puppetry was originally this really local tradition
tied to farming and the agricultural cycles. But unsurprisingly something
that cool it grew in popularity started to spread across Vietnam.
Today there are specially made water puppetry stages even in
major cities, so you don't even need to have a
rice patty anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
That is really really cool. I can't wait to check
it out. Okay, So for our next fact, we are
traveling to India, where puppeteer is known as knots or
bots have carried on a puppetry tradition called Cutwucki, and
this has happened for nearly four hundred years now. Cut
puckly puppets look a bit like Marionette's with strings attached
(16:30):
to their head and arms. But one of the things
that makes them really unique has to do with the
way that the puppets communicate. They speak their own puppet language,
which the puppeteer evokes using a bamboo whistle called a bowlie,
So none of the dialogue in performance is in language
the audience can understand. It's a little like adults in
(16:51):
a Peanuts cartoon.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So the audience can follow what's going on through the visuals.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Or what there is a narrator there who helps the
audience follow the story and translates the puppet language and
explains what's going on. Traditionally, the bots were semi nomadic,
so families of puppeteers would travel together during the dry season,
then return to their own villages during the rainy season
to farm their crops. Nowadays, some of the bots are
(17:17):
still nomadic, but others have settled in cities in search
of bigger crowds. In New Delhi, there's even a neighborhood
that's home to many of these puppeteers. It's called the
Cuthputley Colony.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Wow, I wish there were more puppeteers in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I mean, you can move to Brooklyn, dear. Really yeah? Wow?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I mean you know, I do love living Uptown, but
I can say we do not have a lot of
puppets unless there's a puppet scene that I just am
not tapped into, in which case, if you know anything,
hygeniuses at gmail dot com, tell me Uptown Manhattan's puppets scene. Okay, Mango, Well,
I told you about water puppetry in Vietnam, but now
I'm going to tell you about something a little differnt
and that is solid water puppetry.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Solid water this is this is like ice puppetry.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, exactly ice. So in twenty sixteen, a French theater
company called Teatre de Lantruvert premiered a show called Anywhere,
starring a puppet made of solid ice.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Which sounds amazing, But wouldn't that melt?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, and that was the point. The play is based
on the novel Oedipus on the Road, which tells the
story of the mythological king Oedipus well on the road
after he's been exiled from Thebes, and it's all about
his internal struggle and metamorphosis. And by making the Oedipus
puppet out of ice, the playwright Elis vig Neuron wanted
(18:40):
to show those interior transformations happening physically, so the puppet
changes shape over the course of the play as it
gradually melts. Of course, this does mean they have to
make a new puppet every time they perform the show,
and it is a whole process. Oedipus is a marionette,
and ice marionette. Think about that. With articulated wrist, elbow,
(19:01):
and knee joints. Every piece of the body has to
be frozen in a separate mold and then they put
it together very very very carefully.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Wow. That sounds both really beautiful and like so much work.
I'm kind of glad I'm not a French ice puppet performer,
Like I didn't you know that was a thing. I
don't want to be.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
We're all about learning unexpected things on this show. Okay,
man hit us with our final puppet fact.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Do you know we have a puppeteer to thank for
one of our most iconic Thanksgiving traditions?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
And what tradition is that? Over eating, having uncomfortable political
conversations with those relatives you only see once a year,
Thank god?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
What what is it? Neither of those? Unfortunately or fortunately,
I'm talking about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. So puppeteer
named Tony sarg designed the original Thanksgiving Day parade balloons.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Oh I guess those are kind of like skypuppets.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, that's exact what they are. So the first parade
floats didn't even float. They were filled with oxygen instead
of helium, so Macy's employees had to carry them through
the streets of New York City. But this guy, Tony
Sarg was an extremely influential puppeteer. He's actually sometimes referred
to as the father of modern puppetry in North America.
But he used his puppetary skills in some really idiosycratic ways.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, like designing parade floats for a department store.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
That's kind of weird, but also pranks. So he once
orchestrated an elaborate hoax in Nantucket where he tricked locals
into thinking there was this sea monster on the loose.
He staged all these fake sea monster sightings and had
his daughter plant giant footprints in the sand, and in
the end he revealed that the sea monster was actually
(20:46):
one of his Thanksgiving Day parade floats.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I love that he got his daughter in on this too.
It was like he had to implicate his child.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
And that he's still promoting Thanksgiving Day parades like he's
really dedicated.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I love it. It all comes back to that, well
Tony Sarg, shout out to you, master puppeteer, master prankster Mango.
I am so thankful you shared that fact that I'm
going to give this episode trophy to you.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, I am thankful for your thankfulness.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
You know what I'm thankful that you're thankful for my thankfulness.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I feel like we're gonna get stuck in a gratitude loop.
We should wrap things up right now. So that is
it for today. We'll be back next week. Be sure
to subscribe on your favorite podcast app if you haven't already,
And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend.
Nothing says I'm thinking about you like a bunch of
fun puppet facts. Is that right, Mary?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
That is absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
This episode was written by the wonderful Anna Green. Thank
you so much, Anna, and from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
and myself, Thank you so much for listening. Part Time
(22:08):
Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show
is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongish Heatikler and
research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode
was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with
support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for
iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media
(22:30):
support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Mary?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Do you know? One of the most famous French puppets
in history was created by a nineteenth century dentist as
a way to distract his patients from their toothpain.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Did he also treat their toothpaint or what? Did he
just put on a puppet show and send them on
their way? That's unstandable.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
That part's unclear. The dentist puppeteer in question was this
man named Louren Morga, and he lived in Leone in
the early nineteenth century. And Morgay worked a series of
odd jobs before becoming a dentist. And he almost certainly
didn't have any formal medical training because back then dentistry
(01:02):
mostly just involved pulling teeth, which I guess anyone could do.
It wasn't considered a full fledged medical practice.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Wow, you know, I do love the diy, but not
when it comes to dentistry. That must have hurt.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, I think so. But in eighteen oh eight, more
Gay created a puppet named Guinyall. And this is a
working class every man. It was loosely based on himself,
and he performed for his patients and he used Guenal
to drum up new business, so I guess it was
great marketing. At some point Morgay must have realized he
(01:36):
was a way better puppeteer than dentist, so in the
eighteen twenties he quit dentistry to focus on puppetry full time,
and it actually became this family affair. Morgay had sixteen
children who helped spread Guenioll puppetry across France and these
shows became a sensation. Other puppeteers started putting on Guiniall
(01:56):
shows and at one point the French police even tried
to put a stop to them.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Why what was the problem.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I think I had something to do with all the
slapstick violence the show's featured, but also gen y'all lampooned
authority figures and the wealthy, or you know, maybe the
police just hated puppetry. It could have been that too.
Either way, the censorship didn't work and gin y'all survived,
and if you go to France today, especially the young,
you can still see gin y'all puppet shows to this day,
(02:24):
and you have one mediocre dentist to thank for it all.
But we've got eight more surprising puppet facts waiting backstage,
so let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to
(02:55):
Part Time Genius. I'm Mongus Articular and today I'm joined
by producer extra Ordinaire Mary Philip Sandy. And over there
in the booth is the man who literally pulls the
strings on this show. It's our pal and producer Dylan Fagan. Hey, Dylan,
maybe you can make me stop waving at you now?
My arm is getting tired.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Dylan. Well, speaking of getting tired, my gosh, have you
ever heard of wyang kul It? It is a type
of Indonesian shadow puppetry whose performances can go all night. Traditionally,
these shows start at midnight and they run until dawn.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
It sounds like it requires quite an attention span.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, fortunately, it's not considered impolite for the audience to
come and go as they please. It's kind of like
a festival atmosphere. It's not like you're sitting at the
opera and you can't get up and move around. But
what's really impressive is that during the whole performance, the
puppeteer never takes a break.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Wait, that's insane, So it's not even like an intermission.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Nope. And the whole show is performed by one puppeteer
called a DeLong, and the DeLong sits in front of
a screen manipulating all the puppets, which are usually made
from water buffalo hide and mounted on sticks. A single
performance might involve hundreds of them. Now, Wyanmkulit is an
ancient art form. It dates back to the eight hundreds,
not the eighteen hundreds, the eight hundreds, but it's evolved
(04:16):
a bit to cater to modern taste. These days. Some
of the shows are just a few hours long, you know,
because our attention spans are shorter, and to appeal to
younger audiences, delongs have begun to mix in some pop
culture references like Superman, or they'll dress the characters in
modern clothes, you know, like sneakers and beanies.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I love that beanies are like modern clothes, well.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Compared to the eight hundreds. My gosh, the beanies in
Indonesia in the eight hundreds, so you know, they're bringing
it up to modern times. In one DeLong even did
a show where he added a Barack Obama character. This
was in twenty twelve, and of course that's because Obama
spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, and you know,
so the DeLong wanted to celebrate that, but he also
(04:59):
took the op opportunity to poke fun at some of
Obama's policies in the show. He suggested that the president
should be spending less on the US military and more
on the arts, of which puppetree, of course is one.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
So a lot of puppet traditions incorporate really topical political
commentary and satire and something I hadn't really picked up
on until we started this episode. But in Nigeria, the
a Bibio people practice a highly satirical form of pop
tree known as ekon or ekng. Ekon was huge during
the country's colonial era. So if you're thinking about like
(05:35):
from the eighteen nineties through the nineteen sixties, and the
puppeteers skewed everyone from local criminals and neighboring ethnic groups
to Catholic missionaries and British colonial officials, and they really
did not hold back. There's a mid century econ puppet
at the Smithsonian that depicts King George of England wearing
(05:55):
a crown and holding his arms out to the audience.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, okay, well God isn't really making fun of him though.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, but he's also completely naked from the waist down.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Okay, there it is, there it is, I gotcha.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So during the British occupation, Econ performances attracted crowds of
up to one thousand people at a time. Their popularity,
combined with their controversial subject matter, meant that being a
puppeteer could be dangerous. In fact, it was so dangerous
that the identities of puppeteers were generally kept secret to
protect them from backlash, which is pretty amazing. But in
(06:30):
a way, this could explain why puppets are so perfect
for political speech. The puppet provides anonymity. It's a buffer
between the performer and the audience, so you can kind
of be whoever you want to be.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, that makes sense, And actually that is the exact
principle behind my next fact. Because puppets aren't just for
theater and storytelling anymore. They're used in classrooms, therapy, and
even wildlife conservation.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
There's a wildlife center in Wisconsin called the International Crane Foundation,
and it's using puppets to help the endangered whooping crane.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Are they putting on political theater for these birds? No?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
No, that would be amazing. No. So what it is
is the ICF breeds whooping cranes, right, they raise the
chicks and then they release them back into the wild
to help the population grow. But there's a problem. Baby
whooping cranes imprint on whoever is raising them, which in
this case is humans, and if that happens, basically they
won't know they're a crane and then they won't know
(07:30):
how to function in the wild. So employees at the
ICF started wearing these big white suits that completely cover
their bodies, and they use hand puppets that look like
cranes to interact with the chicks. Oh wow, And they
take the puppeteering part of this job really seriously, Like
if they hear a loud noise, they'll cock the puppet's
(07:50):
head toward it in a crane like way, or if
they see something, you know that could be a threat,
the puppet will freeze. And as a result of this,
the chicks actually learn how to be brains.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
That is both really cute and a little unsettling, right, Like,
I mean, how would you feel you found out one
of your parents was a puppet.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe teenage whooping cranes have
to go to therapy. I don't know. That could be,
that could be part of the part of what they're
working on. But apparently crane puppets make really good parents.
It actually works, and this helps prepare the babies for
living independently in the wild and surviving.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I love that. I love the idea of someone going
to school to become a wildlife biologist and then they
ended up running around with a crane puppet.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Right. I did not get a PhD for this.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
But speaking of weird puppet careers, Mary, how familiar are
you with emo music?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Well, you know, I never wore eyeliner, if that is
what you're asking. But uh, you know I had a
couple Jets to Brazil CDs in college. I mean didn't
we all right?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
No, you were cool, you liked hip hop?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
You did not.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
You were not dealing with this sort of thing, were you.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You know, my cousin produced the US to Brazil album.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Sorry okay man.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
But in twenty fourteen, this comedian named Brentley Hilbrun formed
an all puppet emo band called Fragile Rock Finno is
kind of based off of fraggle Rock of course. Of course.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Wow, you know that's one of those puns where I
hear it and I just kind of get mad because
why didn't I think of that when I was in college?
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Brizill, that's really funny. Anyway, Hilbrun was going through a
rough to Wars at the time, and he decided he
needed a musical outlet, so he teamed up with a
group of musicians and puppeteers to bring Fragile Rock to life.
The band is made up of five puppets and their
respective puppeteers who sing songs with titles like wake Up
(09:55):
to the Breakup and I Am Sad and so Am I.
The band has played at music festivals. They even had
their own NPR Time Desk concert, which I did not
see but I need to go back and look at now.
And at one point they tried their luck on America's
Got Talent, but apparently they were bowed off stage and
(10:16):
the segment never aired, which only feeds into their emo
NEAs I think you but Brentley wrote about the experience
on the band's website in a post titled I was
an emo puppet failure on America's Got Talent.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You know what, that doesn't need to be a blog post.
I would watch an hour long like TV documentary just
about that.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
One hundred percent. I would too. But my favorite thing
about Fragile Rock is that its members have developed complex
backstories for each of their puppets, and their backstories are
pretty quirky. They mostly involved dramatic romances and breakups between
the band members. There's even a whole love triangle involving
the actor Elijah.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Sure you know what. I take it back. I did
not mean TV episode or documentary. I mean series. I
mean a limited run Netflix. Please get on this right now.
It is so wonderful and bizarre. I love it. And
you know, like you were saying, I think getting booed
off stage is a lot more emo than winning America's
Got Talent.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
You know what, You are absolutely right. If the Fragile
Rock folks are listening, I hope they take comfort in that. Okay,
we have to take a quick break, but when we
get back, we've got an Indian puppet tradition that goes
back centuries and puppets in water. Please don't go anywhere
(11:49):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're answering all
the questions you didn't know you had about puppets. But
you know, if you have any questions about other things
or a fun rabbit hole you think we should be down,
send us an email at high Geniuses at gmail dot com.
That's Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com. You can even
(12:10):
send us a voice memo if you'd like, and we
might use it in an upcoming episode. So, Mary, I
know we've got to go back to puppetown in a second.
But are you a fan of puppets?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I am, and you know, I think I've mentioned this
on the show before. I have a deep dark history
as a theater kid. And that first category of puppetree
we spoke about the Indonesian shadow puppetree. I have a
little experience about. My college actually had a gamal on.
Of course, the really the Indonesian orchestra that typically performs
with the Indonesian shadow puppetry, and so we did actually
(12:40):
some performances that incorporated principles of Indonesian shadow puppetry. So
this is not my first go round. I know I
made it sound like this was new to me because
I wanted the audience to feel like I was not
as big a nerve as I am. I'll tell you now,
in the second half after the ad break, I knew
all about it.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
That is amazing. I had no idea. I feel like
my puppetry understanding really like ends. So I have a
little bit of marionettes and muppets, and like, you know,
I've always been like fascinated with puppets, but it's not
something I've ever really played around much with.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah, because you were cool and listening to cool music
with your cool producer cousin while I was being a
theater That's why I don't feel that you should feel
good about this.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
But you know, I did see I saw the pee
Wee Herman documentary on HBO this weekend, and one it's
really good and fascinating his whole career and how ambitious
he is, the way he had these identities that he
lived in. But they also showed how the puppet cherry worked,
(13:42):
you know, that chair and like how there was like
a little monitor in there, and how the puppeteer was
working in it was like, it's kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, it really combines all of
these things that are great about puppetry. There's art, there's craft,
there's a little bit of subversiveness a lot of the time,
and it can create something really magical. But we do
take it for granted because we grow up with this
stuff on TV, and so it seems silly or childish.
But I mean there's actually a lot of really complicated
and rich history to puppets, which is why we wanted
(14:12):
to do this episode. And there's also some really novel
ways of approaching puppetry. Right, it's not all happening on
a stage. For example, I want to tell you about
this next fact, which is Vietnamese water puppetry. It takes
place in a pool of water.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
I'm so excited about this, Yeah, tell me more so.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I know you might be thinking that this would be
a feat of incredible physical strength, right, Like if the
puppeteers had to be treading water the whole time, that
would be very difficult. That would be more like water
polo puppetry.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
That's not what this is.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
No, the pool's only about waste deep. But what it
does is the water gives the illusion that the puppets
are moving or swimming on their own. And that's because
the puppeteers are behind a screen. They're completely hidden from
the audience, and they control the puppets using polls and
strings that are attached underwater. And the puppets themselves are
made of buoyant fig wood, so they float on the water,
(15:07):
and naturally they tend to be aquatic themes. So you
got a lot of fish and fishermen and boats, and
from the audience's perspective, it looks like the puppets are
swimming and splashing around completely independently. There's all these cool
effects they do by having the puppets dive down under
the surface of the water and then re emerging.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Do you know how they came up with this method
of performance.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Of course I do. It was invented by farmers in
the Red River Delta about a thousand years ago, and
every year farming villages would hold a big festival at
the end of the rice harvest, and at some point
they came up with the idea to hold puppet shows
in the flooded rice paddies. Right, there was already standing
water there, so they thought, let's put puppets in it,
(15:48):
and so water puppetry was originally this really local tradition
tied to farming and the agricultural cycles. But unsurprisingly something
that cool it grew in popularity started to spread across Vietnam.
Today there are specially made water puppetry stages even in
major cities, so you don't even need to have a
rice patty anymore.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
That is really really cool. I can't wait to check
it out. Okay, So for our next fact, we are
traveling to India, where puppeteer is known as knots or
bots have carried on a puppetry tradition called Cutwucki, and
this has happened for nearly four hundred years now. Cut
puckly puppets look a bit like Marionette's with strings attached
(16:30):
to their head and arms. But one of the things
that makes them really unique has to do with the
way that the puppets communicate. They speak their own puppet language,
which the puppeteer evokes using a bamboo whistle called a bowlie,
So none of the dialogue in performance is in language
the audience can understand. It's a little like adults in
(16:51):
a Peanuts cartoon.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
So the audience can follow what's going on through the visuals.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Or what there is a narrator there who helps the
audience follow the story and translates the puppet language and
explains what's going on. Traditionally, the bots were semi nomadic,
so families of puppeteers would travel together during the dry season,
then return to their own villages during the rainy season
to farm their crops. Nowadays, some of the bots are
(17:17):
still nomadic, but others have settled in cities in search
of bigger crowds. In New Delhi, there's even a neighborhood
that's home to many of these puppeteers. It's called the
Cuthputley Colony.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Wow, I wish there were more puppeteers in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I mean, you can move to Brooklyn, dear. Really yeah? Wow?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I mean you know, I do love living Uptown, but
I can say we do not have a lot of
puppets unless there's a puppet scene that I just am
not tapped into, in which case, if you know anything,
hygeniuses at gmail dot com, tell me Uptown Manhattan's puppets scene. Okay, Mango, Well,
I told you about water puppetry in Vietnam, but now
I'm going to tell you about something a little differnt
and that is solid water puppetry.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Solid water this is this is like ice puppetry.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, exactly ice. So in twenty sixteen, a French theater
company called Teatre de Lantruvert premiered a show called Anywhere,
starring a puppet made of solid ice.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Which sounds amazing, But wouldn't that melt?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, and that was the point. The play is based
on the novel Oedipus on the Road, which tells the
story of the mythological king Oedipus well on the road
after he's been exiled from Thebes, and it's all about
his internal struggle and metamorphosis. And by making the Oedipus
puppet out of ice, the playwright Elis vig Neuron wanted
(18:40):
to show those interior transformations happening physically, so the puppet
changes shape over the course of the play as it
gradually melts. Of course, this does mean they have to
make a new puppet every time they perform the show,
and it is a whole process. Oedipus is a marionette,
and ice marionette. Think about that. With articulated wrist, elbow,
(19:01):
and knee joints. Every piece of the body has to
be frozen in a separate mold and then they put
it together very very very carefully.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Wow. That sounds both really beautiful and like so much work.
I'm kind of glad I'm not a French ice puppet performer,
Like I didn't you know that was a thing. I
don't want to be.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
We're all about learning unexpected things on this show. Okay,
man hit us with our final puppet fact.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Do you know we have a puppeteer to thank for
one of our most iconic Thanksgiving traditions?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
And what tradition is that? Over eating, having uncomfortable political
conversations with those relatives you only see once a year,
Thank god?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
What what is it? Neither of those? Unfortunately or fortunately,
I'm talking about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. So puppeteer
named Tony sarg designed the original Thanksgiving Day parade balloons.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Oh I guess those are kind of like skypuppets.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Yeah, that's exact what they are. So the first parade
floats didn't even float. They were filled with oxygen instead
of helium, so Macy's employees had to carry them through
the streets of New York City. But this guy, Tony
Sarg was an extremely influential puppeteer. He's actually sometimes referred
to as the father of modern puppetry in North America.
But he used his puppetary skills in some really idiosycratic ways.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, like designing parade floats for a department store.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
That's kind of weird, but also pranks. So he once
orchestrated an elaborate hoax in Nantucket where he tricked locals
into thinking there was this sea monster on the loose.
He staged all these fake sea monster sightings and had
his daughter plant giant footprints in the sand, and in
the end he revealed that the sea monster was actually
(20:46):
one of his Thanksgiving Day parade floats.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I love that he got his daughter in on this too.
It was like he had to implicate his child.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
And that he's still promoting Thanksgiving Day parades like he's
really dedicated.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
I love it. It all comes back to that, well
Tony Sarg, shout out to you, master puppeteer, master prankster Mango.
I am so thankful you shared that fact that I'm
going to give this episode trophy to you.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Well, I am thankful for your thankfulness.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
You know what I'm thankful that you're thankful for my thankfulness.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
I feel like we're gonna get stuck in a gratitude loop.
We should wrap things up right now. So that is
it for today. We'll be back next week. Be sure
to subscribe on your favorite podcast app if you haven't already,
And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend.
Nothing says I'm thinking about you like a bunch of
fun puppet facts. Is that right, Mary?
Speaker 2 (21:42):
That is absolutely right.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
This episode was written by the wonderful Anna Green. Thank
you so much, Anna, and from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
and myself, Thank you so much for listening. Part Time
(22:08):
Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show
is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongish Heatikler and
research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode
was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with
support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for
iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media
(22:30):
support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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