November 22, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, everyone’s a New Yorker on Thanksgiving Day, when young and old rise early to see what giant new balloons will fill the skies for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Our next story is about the man who first invented these "upside-down puppets”—Tony Sarg. Here to tell the story is Deborah Sorensen, Curator of Exhibitions at the Nantucket Historical Association where their exhibition, “Tony Sarg: Genius at Play” is the first comprehensive exhibition exploring the life of Tony Sarg.
Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Everyone's in New
Yorker on Thanksgiving Day, when young and old rise early
to see what giant new balloons will fill the skies
for Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Our next story is about
the man who first invented these upside down puppets. His
(00:31):
name Tony Sarg. Here to tell the story is Deborah Sorensen,
curator of Exhibitions at the Nantucket Historical Association, where their
exhibition Tony sarg Genius at Play is the first comprehensive
exhibition exploring his life. Let's take a listen to the story.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Tony Sarg is a really remarkable early twentieth century commercial
artist and entrepreneur who was born in Guatemala to a
family that was a German father an English mother. In
eighteen eighty and whenever he was around seven years old,
they moved back to Germany and where he could attend
(01:14):
military school. He inherited a number of toys from his grandmother,
who was also an artist, quite well known Mary Ellen Best.
She is a remarkable watercolorist and so as a child
he loved playing with her marionettes and mechanical toys and
always just had a fascination with how things worked and
(01:37):
were put together. Had a very mechanical mind, but was
also very artistic, so he kind of blended these two
halves of kind of the right and left brain, of
being very technical but also very creative. Whenever he was
a teen and actually was commissioned as a lieutenant in
the German Army, he was always sketching. He was self taught.
(01:58):
This is something that people are always prized by when
they come through the exhibition because the quality of his work,
even just as a child, the early sketches he did,
but then definitely as he was growing into adulthood, are
very skillful and very sophisticated. And so he resigned his
commission against his father's wishes by all accounts, and moved
(02:18):
himself to London to pursue a career as a professional artist.
And it was really the golden age of commercial illustration.
You had print media circulating that needed visuals. You had
artists working sketching, visiting theater productions, which is what something
that Tony sarg did documenting those events. So this is
(02:40):
nineteen oh five, he's in London. He watched other artists
that were more well established and saw that they had
ways of promoting themselves that were indirect, that they were
not able, or it was considered, as he put it,
quote unethical to self promote as an artist, to try
to go out and seek for yourself. But if you
(03:02):
could have a party trick, or invite people to your salon,
or have ways to get your name in the air,
as he described it, you could make good connections and
you would solicit new commissions. And he looked about for
something that might work for him, saying that he was
a shy individual, which I find very hard to believe.
(03:24):
But he turned to puppetry and the kind of inspiring
situation or the thing that actually launched this was on assignment.
He went to a performance by Thomas Holden's Marionettes and
was completely fascinated, and it revived kind of this childhood
fascination with puppets and toys, and he returned again and again.
(03:46):
After being rebuffed by the performers who would not share
their secrets with him, he's like, well, I guess I
will just watch the show as many times as I can,
and he figured it out for himself, went back to
his studio and started to experiment. He invents a new
controller that can hold up to twenty four strings. Prior
to that, you might have one controller that has just
(04:09):
a few strings on either side, that has a limited
range of movement, and that his innovation was to have
more points of contact, more ability for more subtle movements.
But I do know that that controller, that T shaped controller,
that he airplane shaped controller, is something that's still used today.
(04:30):
It was not in use before his creation of it.
And as he gains the skills, he starts to invite
people to his studio put on small performances, realizes that
puppetry could be his hook, his way of gathering new
contacts and promoting himself, and does really well and basically
(04:52):
would have continued along those lines as an illustrator doing
a side hustle, if you will, of marionettes, if not
for World War One, and being of German heritage an
anti German sentiment that is of course spreading at this time,
he decides to relocate himself as well as by now
he has a wife and a young daughter to New
(05:14):
York and they in nineteen fifteen immigrate to the United States,
and once he's there, he's now a ten year veteran
of kind of commercial art and illustration. He's fairly well known.
He starts doing illustrations for popular humorists like Irvin Cobb,
settles in Greenwich Village and the city gets to know
(05:37):
everybody in that kind of artistic bohemian community. In the
late teens, now establishes a studio in the Flat Iron Building.
He brings people into his studio. He puts on impromptu
marionette performances, delighting all sorts of publishers. Newspapermen are there
are a number of publications that were headquartered in the
(05:58):
Flatirn at the time. So a theatrical producer wants to
invest in him. Launches the Tony sarg Marionettes Company, starts
performing in theaters in the city, but then eventually makes
his way to Broadway. Is all the while receiving really
incredible press for his tricks that he puts on stage.
(06:18):
You have marionettes that are smoking, you have marionettes that
are juggling, playing piano, spinning on stools, really remarkable feats
that people can't figure out, are very humorous and very original.
So unlike in London, as soon as he starts to
establish something in New York, his name is the brand,
(06:39):
he becomes the brand, so it's Tony Sarg's Marionettes is
the company that leads to a touring company in nineteen
twenty one. He takes that success and that name recognition
and starts a series of short films animated cartoons that
between nineteen twenty one and twenty three take his name
(07:02):
to all of the city locations where his company is
now traveling and puts them in lights with a new
cartoon series, which is the Tony Sarks Almanac series. So
he went from New York theaters to national theaters to
national movie theaters and it's Tony Sarks Marionettes Tony Sarks Almanac.
By then, he publishes his Tony Sarks Marionette Book, revealing
(07:25):
all of his secrets of how he produces all of
the marionettes that people are seeing when they're able to
go visit in their own towns. Now they have that
kind of behind the scenes inside scoop and instead of
it being a limiting factor or keeping people from coming out,
they're more interested and intrigued in actually seeing the work
(07:46):
he's doing. So the very savvy businessman and also just
a believer in spreading his knowledge. So by nineteen twenty three,
it's not terribly surprising that the RHAC company you would
approach him to then design mechanical or puppets for their
display windows. So in nineteen twenty three, they've built this
(08:08):
new the world's largest department store in New York. They
have all of this window real estate, and they go
to kind of the master showman himself and they said, Okay,
we want Tony Sarg window displays, like that's going to
open our brand new store. It's going to kick off
the holiday season. And so in nineteen twenty three he
(08:29):
does this spectacular fairy tale inspired I don't remember how
many windows it is. It's like sixty six feet long
or something like that, full of moving mechanical puppets. It
was like a revolving platform and all sorts of mechanical
components with this fairy tale setting.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And you've been listening to Debora Saarns and tell the
story of Tony Sarg and like so many stories about
people who are pioneers in their field on this show,
from the Right Brothers to Irving Berlin, Sarg was self taught.
And when we come back, we're going to learn about
how that initial visit with Macy's to help with their
(09:10):
store windows turned into those upside down puppets we've all
come to know and love. On the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
The story continues Tony Sarg's story that is here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(09:41):
and Tony Sarg's story. In nineteen twenty three, Macy's in
New York City, their flagship store is still today, commissioned
puppeteer Tony Sarg to create an animated holiday window display
for their brand new department store. Let's continue with the
story from Deborah and she's the curator of exhibitions at
(10:03):
the Nantucket Historical Association.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The following year with Macy's company inaugurates their first Christmas parade,
and the goal of the parade at that time was
to lead you to the display windows. It was basically,
we're going to march to the store, reveal the windows,
and then you can come inside. Right So the function
of the parade was literally just to guide you to
(10:29):
the display. It was a circus theme. That first year
they had animals from the Central Park Zoo. Actual animals
included didn't go very well there weren't balloons yet, but
Tony Sarg did designed floats and all sorts of very
strange figures like giant heads and costumes. They were called
(10:51):
almost from the very beginning hit the grow Tesques. It
was Tony Sarg's grow Tesques for some reason. So nineteen
twenty four you have this parade, You have Sar designing
materials for the parade and also the windows, so his
role is now expanding. There's a bit of a hiatus
with other individuals kind of coming in to do work
for the parade. But by the time you get to
(11:13):
nineteen twenty seven, Sarg is back and he takes kind
of control of it again and introduces his first balloon characters.
But at this time they're held up on poles, so
they're inflated rubber figures, but they are not helium filled,
they're not floating on ropes and strings. They're just sort
(11:33):
of they're heavy, they're being carried. The story that you
hear is that the balloons, because they were lowered to
the ground, were hard to see. I find that not
so accurate because they're still very big and it's no
different than a float, right, So, but that's the excuse
or a justification for the following year working to produce
(11:56):
a larger inflated helium filled that uses rubberized silk, and
beginning in then nineteen twenty seven. The partnership the Sarg
forms is actually with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
in Akron, Ohio, and they're the ones who are producing
the balloons. So Sarg would do the designs, the rubber
would be designed these kind of spherical forms that then
(12:18):
are turned into patterns cut out on these huge scale
pasted together. It's like rubber cement that's putting them together. Painted.
They were assembled at the Goodyear Airship of air dock
where they're building zeppelins, is also where they're building these
balloon figures. So nineteen twenty seven they bring the figures.
(12:41):
They're popular, but weird because at the time they were
not copyrighted figures like today that are coming from branded things.
They were imaginary. So they are all sorts of storybook
characters more than anything that Sarg is creating, which is
in keeping with the types of plays that his Mary
company is doing. They're doing lots of traditional folk tales
(13:03):
and stories, and so he's building upon characters that are
in those very popular, but there's only a few of
these large balloons in the parade at first. It's not
as though the entire parade is filled with balloons like
we see more today. The thing to know about early parades,
this is about nineteen twenty eight to nineteen thirty two,
(13:23):
is they actually released the balloons after the parade, so
they would let them go untether them fly up in
the air. There's great photographs showing these balloons up by
the Empire State Building, and they would have tags attached
to them offering a reward freed by the Macy store
for people who would let them know where they were found.
(13:45):
And there's some photographs of Tony sarg in the newspaper
handing one hundred dollars check to a young man who
found a particular balloon in a field in New Jersey.
So it's hard to imagine that happening today. Even at
the time it was not safe. There were balloons that
caught fire in power lines. There was a balloon that
(14:07):
was visible by airplanes, and in nineteen thirty one actually
collided with an airplane, which is what prompted them to
stop doing this practice. The plane nosedive, but they were
able to recover was a student pilot, so they even
had to release statements ahead of that saying pilots don't
try to catch the balloons for the reward, because they
(14:30):
thought that might happen, and it did. So it's kind
of crazy to think about these early years of the
Macy's Parade and Tony Sark's involvement. He was very much
the celebrity at the helm of creating these spectacles and
led them for the rest of his life. He was
involved in designing balloons, in particular with one of his colleagues,
(14:52):
a puppeteer named Bill Baird, who was kind of a
primary point of contact and colleague working with the Goodyear Company.
Is known for the sound of music Lonely Goatherd marionette scene.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Hi on the Hill was a Lone Lingo hand lay
of the Lone Lingo.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Head lay, those are from Bill Baird. So, but he
got his beginning with Tony sarg and specifically with the
Macy's Parade, developing and designing these huge balloons, and he's
also credited with the notion of them as quote unquote
upside down marionettes. When you see them in motion, there
(15:37):
is something really magical about it, just like he had
done with marionettes. So I could add more tethers and strings.
There are that many more points of movement and the
illusion of life that could be manifest So let's have
(15:57):
more points of attachment, Let's have longer lines. Let's create
a system in which the pieces themselves are bigger and
there's more surface area to move around to create that
sense of life. And I think it's amazing to think
of how much he accomplished in his own life. And
I always liken him to a Walt Disney before Walt Disney,
and there were a lot of points of contact between
(16:19):
Sarg and Disney, starting very early in the nineteen twenties,
going all the way through the thirties. Sarg's development of
a name brand and putting the Tony Sarg this and
Tony Sarg that above. Everything he did is very much
what you see happening with Walt Disney. Later you get
the Walt Disney's X or Walt Disney's Pinocchio, Walt Disney's
(16:40):
what have You, and it's very much along the same lines.
And in the nineteen thirties you even have Tony Sarg
producing marionettes for the Madame Alexander Dahl Company, and they're successful,
and immediately it goes to Walt Disney after that, and
they become Walt Disney characters, and that shift towards DID characters,
(17:02):
which Disney represents versus the brand of the creator of
Tony Sarg. That's the transition you start to see, even
within their lifetime, because Tony Sarg is involved in creating
the first Walt Disney balloons for the Macy's Day Parade.
There were books published of Mickey and Minny go to
Macy's in the early thirties, and they go and they
(17:22):
meet Tony Sarg who's creating their own balloons for the parade.
So you have the Disney characters meeting their maker, but
it's not Walt Disney. It's Tony Sark making the balloons.
And beyond the Macy's book, in some instances, they're immediately
following the success of what Sarg produced turns to Walt Disney.
(17:45):
The Marionette book that Sarg published in nineteen twenty one
and had sample plays at the back. Snow White is
one of the plays that's in the back of that
particular book. The degree to which Walt Disney looked to
store that were familiar, folk tales that were familiar. Most
of them had also, for the past fifteen years, been
(18:07):
touring the country with Tony Sark's marionette company, so they
weren't un known stories. They had been appearing in his books,
in his marionette companies, in his wallpaper designs Alice in Wonderland.
You have all sorts of stories that then become Walt
Disney classics. Not to say they were pre existing properties.
(18:27):
It's not like Tony sarg invented them, but he popularized them.
And it was only natural then that you would have
an individual who's themselves trying to popularize something. Take, well,
this is familiar. It's been touring the country with Tony
sargs marionettes for the last ten years. So there's all
these sorts of amazing points of connection between the two
(18:48):
of them. And then as the years go on and
you get into the post war years of television in particular,
that's when Disney is able to transform this approach to
popular culture and really become the person we know. And
I think had Tony Sarg lived beyond nineteen forty two,
whenever he passed away following a surgery for a ruptured appendix.
(19:12):
Had he lived beyond the World War two kind of era,
everybody would know who he is. There is no doubt
he was a popular for year on radio shows of
the day. He would have been so on television, no question.
Extremely charismatic individual who really left a remarkable legacy that
I hope more people can learn about.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Had a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to
Deborah Sorenson. She's the curator of exhibitions at the Nantucket
Historical Association. Whether exhibition Tony Sarg Genius at Play is
the first comprehensive exhibition exploring his life and what a
(19:53):
life story to go from well just amateur puppeteer to
creating the most iconic puppa of all time. And let's
face it, that's what these are. The story of Tony Sarg,
the story of the Upside Down puppets and how they
came to be, and in the end, the story of
the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Day parade. Here on our American
(20:16):
Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Everyone's in New
Yorker on Thanksgiving Day, when young and old rise early
to see what giant new balloons will fill the skies
for Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Our next story is about
the man who first invented these upside down puppets. His
(00:31):
name Tony Sarg. Here to tell the story is Deborah Sorensen,
curator of Exhibitions at the Nantucket Historical Association, where their
exhibition Tony sarg Genius at Play is the first comprehensive
exhibition exploring his life. Let's take a listen to the story.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Tony Sarg is a really remarkable early twentieth century commercial
artist and entrepreneur who was born in Guatemala to a
family that was a German father an English mother. In
eighteen eighty and whenever he was around seven years old,
they moved back to Germany and where he could attend
(01:14):
military school. He inherited a number of toys from his grandmother,
who was also an artist, quite well known Mary Ellen Best.
She is a remarkable watercolorist and so as a child
he loved playing with her marionettes and mechanical toys and
always just had a fascination with how things worked and
(01:37):
were put together. Had a very mechanical mind, but was
also very artistic, so he kind of blended these two
halves of kind of the right and left brain, of
being very technical but also very creative. Whenever he was
a teen and actually was commissioned as a lieutenant in
the German Army, he was always sketching. He was self taught.
(01:58):
This is something that people are always prized by when
they come through the exhibition because the quality of his work,
even just as a child, the early sketches he did,
but then definitely as he was growing into adulthood, are
very skillful and very sophisticated. And so he resigned his
commission against his father's wishes by all accounts, and moved
(02:18):
himself to London to pursue a career as a professional artist.
And it was really the golden age of commercial illustration.
You had print media circulating that needed visuals. You had
artists working sketching, visiting theater productions, which is what something
that Tony sarg did documenting those events. So this is
(02:40):
nineteen oh five, he's in London. He watched other artists
that were more well established and saw that they had
ways of promoting themselves that were indirect, that they were
not able, or it was considered, as he put it,
quote unethical to self promote as an artist, to try
to go out and seek for yourself. But if you
(03:02):
could have a party trick, or invite people to your salon,
or have ways to get your name in the air,
as he described it, you could make good connections and
you would solicit new commissions. And he looked about for
something that might work for him, saying that he was
a shy individual, which I find very hard to believe.
(03:24):
But he turned to puppetry and the kind of inspiring
situation or the thing that actually launched this was on assignment.
He went to a performance by Thomas Holden's Marionettes and
was completely fascinated, and it revived kind of this childhood
fascination with puppets and toys, and he returned again and again.
(03:46):
After being rebuffed by the performers who would not share
their secrets with him, he's like, well, I guess I
will just watch the show as many times as I can,
and he figured it out for himself, went back to
his studio and started to experiment. He invents a new
controller that can hold up to twenty four strings. Prior
to that, you might have one controller that has just
(04:09):
a few strings on either side, that has a limited
range of movement, and that his innovation was to have
more points of contact, more ability for more subtle movements.
But I do know that that controller, that T shaped controller,
that he airplane shaped controller, is something that's still used today.
(04:30):
It was not in use before his creation of it.
And as he gains the skills, he starts to invite
people to his studio put on small performances, realizes that
puppetry could be his hook, his way of gathering new
contacts and promoting himself, and does really well and basically
(04:52):
would have continued along those lines as an illustrator doing
a side hustle, if you will, of marionettes, if not
for World War One, and being of German heritage an
anti German sentiment that is of course spreading at this time,
he decides to relocate himself as well as by now
he has a wife and a young daughter to New
(05:14):
York and they in nineteen fifteen immigrate to the United States,
and once he's there, he's now a ten year veteran
of kind of commercial art and illustration. He's fairly well known.
He starts doing illustrations for popular humorists like Irvin Cobb,
settles in Greenwich Village and the city gets to know
(05:37):
everybody in that kind of artistic bohemian community. In the
late teens, now establishes a studio in the Flat Iron Building.
He brings people into his studio. He puts on impromptu
marionette performances, delighting all sorts of publishers. Newspapermen are there
are a number of publications that were headquartered in the
(05:58):
Flatirn at the time. So a theatrical producer wants to
invest in him. Launches the Tony sarg Marionettes Company, starts
performing in theaters in the city, but then eventually makes
his way to Broadway. Is all the while receiving really
incredible press for his tricks that he puts on stage.
(06:18):
You have marionettes that are smoking, you have marionettes that
are juggling, playing piano, spinning on stools, really remarkable feats
that people can't figure out, are very humorous and very original.
So unlike in London, as soon as he starts to
establish something in New York, his name is the brand,
(06:39):
he becomes the brand, so it's Tony Sarg's Marionettes is
the company that leads to a touring company in nineteen
twenty one. He takes that success and that name recognition
and starts a series of short films animated cartoons that
between nineteen twenty one and twenty three take his name
(07:02):
to all of the city locations where his company is
now traveling and puts them in lights with a new
cartoon series, which is the Tony Sarks Almanac series. So
he went from New York theaters to national theaters to
national movie theaters and it's Tony Sarks Marionettes Tony Sarks Almanac.
By then, he publishes his Tony Sarks Marionette Book, revealing
(07:25):
all of his secrets of how he produces all of
the marionettes that people are seeing when they're able to
go visit in their own towns. Now they have that
kind of behind the scenes inside scoop and instead of
it being a limiting factor or keeping people from coming out,
they're more interested and intrigued in actually seeing the work
(07:46):
he's doing. So the very savvy businessman and also just
a believer in spreading his knowledge. So by nineteen twenty three,
it's not terribly surprising that the RHAC company you would
approach him to then design mechanical or puppets for their
display windows. So in nineteen twenty three, they've built this
(08:08):
new the world's largest department store in New York. They
have all of this window real estate, and they go
to kind of the master showman himself and they said, Okay,
we want Tony Sarg window displays, like that's going to
open our brand new store. It's going to kick off
the holiday season. And so in nineteen twenty three he
(08:29):
does this spectacular fairy tale inspired I don't remember how
many windows it is. It's like sixty six feet long
or something like that, full of moving mechanical puppets. It
was like a revolving platform and all sorts of mechanical
components with this fairy tale setting.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And you've been listening to Debora Saarns and tell the
story of Tony Sarg and like so many stories about
people who are pioneers in their field on this show,
from the Right Brothers to Irving Berlin, Sarg was self taught.
And when we come back, we're going to learn about
how that initial visit with Macy's to help with their
(09:10):
store windows turned into those upside down puppets we've all
come to know and love. On the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
The story continues Tony Sarg's story that is here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(09:41):
and Tony Sarg's story. In nineteen twenty three, Macy's in
New York City, their flagship store is still today, commissioned
puppeteer Tony Sarg to create an animated holiday window display
for their brand new department store. Let's continue with the
story from Deborah and she's the curator of exhibitions at
(10:03):
the Nantucket Historical Association.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The following year with Macy's company inaugurates their first Christmas parade,
and the goal of the parade at that time was
to lead you to the display windows. It was basically,
we're going to march to the store, reveal the windows,
and then you can come inside. Right So the function
of the parade was literally just to guide you to
(10:29):
the display. It was a circus theme. That first year
they had animals from the Central Park Zoo. Actual animals
included didn't go very well there weren't balloons yet, but
Tony Sarg did designed floats and all sorts of very
strange figures like giant heads and costumes. They were called
(10:51):
almost from the very beginning hit the grow Tesques. It
was Tony Sarg's grow Tesques for some reason. So nineteen
twenty four you have this parade, You have Sar designing
materials for the parade and also the windows, so his
role is now expanding. There's a bit of a hiatus
with other individuals kind of coming in to do work
for the parade. But by the time you get to
(11:13):
nineteen twenty seven, Sarg is back and he takes kind
of control of it again and introduces his first balloon characters.
But at this time they're held up on poles, so
they're inflated rubber figures, but they are not helium filled,
they're not floating on ropes and strings. They're just sort
(11:33):
of they're heavy, they're being carried. The story that you
hear is that the balloons, because they were lowered to
the ground, were hard to see. I find that not
so accurate because they're still very big and it's no
different than a float, right, So, but that's the excuse
or a justification for the following year working to produce
(11:56):
a larger inflated helium filled that uses rubberized silk, and
beginning in then nineteen twenty seven. The partnership the Sarg
forms is actually with the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
in Akron, Ohio, and they're the ones who are producing
the balloons. So Sarg would do the designs, the rubber
would be designed these kind of spherical forms that then
(12:18):
are turned into patterns cut out on these huge scale
pasted together. It's like rubber cement that's putting them together. Painted.
They were assembled at the Goodyear Airship of air dock
where they're building zeppelins, is also where they're building these
balloon figures. So nineteen twenty seven they bring the figures.
(12:41):
They're popular, but weird because at the time they were
not copyrighted figures like today that are coming from branded things.
They were imaginary. So they are all sorts of storybook
characters more than anything that Sarg is creating, which is
in keeping with the types of plays that his Mary
company is doing. They're doing lots of traditional folk tales
(13:03):
and stories, and so he's building upon characters that are
in those very popular, but there's only a few of
these large balloons in the parade at first. It's not
as though the entire parade is filled with balloons like
we see more today. The thing to know about early parades,
this is about nineteen twenty eight to nineteen thirty two,
(13:23):
is they actually released the balloons after the parade, so
they would let them go untether them fly up in
the air. There's great photographs showing these balloons up by
the Empire State Building, and they would have tags attached
to them offering a reward freed by the Macy store
for people who would let them know where they were found.
(13:45):
And there's some photographs of Tony sarg in the newspaper
handing one hundred dollars check to a young man who
found a particular balloon in a field in New Jersey.
So it's hard to imagine that happening today. Even at
the time it was not safe. There were balloons that
caught fire in power lines. There was a balloon that
(14:07):
was visible by airplanes, and in nineteen thirty one actually
collided with an airplane, which is what prompted them to
stop doing this practice. The plane nosedive, but they were
able to recover was a student pilot, so they even
had to release statements ahead of that saying pilots don't
try to catch the balloons for the reward, because they
(14:30):
thought that might happen, and it did. So it's kind
of crazy to think about these early years of the
Macy's Parade and Tony Sark's involvement. He was very much
the celebrity at the helm of creating these spectacles and
led them for the rest of his life. He was
involved in designing balloons, in particular with one of his colleagues,
(14:52):
a puppeteer named Bill Baird, who was kind of a
primary point of contact and colleague working with the Goodyear Company.
Is known for the sound of music Lonely Goatherd marionette scene.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Hi on the Hill was a Lone Lingo hand lay
of the Lone Lingo.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Head lay, those are from Bill Baird. So, but he
got his beginning with Tony sarg and specifically with the
Macy's Parade, developing and designing these huge balloons, and he's
also credited with the notion of them as quote unquote
upside down marionettes. When you see them in motion, there
(15:37):
is something really magical about it, just like he had
done with marionettes. So I could add more tethers and strings.
There are that many more points of movement and the
illusion of life that could be manifest So let's have
(15:57):
more points of attachment, Let's have longer lines. Let's create
a system in which the pieces themselves are bigger and
there's more surface area to move around to create that
sense of life. And I think it's amazing to think
of how much he accomplished in his own life. And
I always liken him to a Walt Disney before Walt Disney,
and there were a lot of points of contact between
(16:19):
Sarg and Disney, starting very early in the nineteen twenties,
going all the way through the thirties. Sarg's development of
a name brand and putting the Tony Sarg this and
Tony Sarg that above. Everything he did is very much
what you see happening with Walt Disney. Later you get
the Walt Disney's X or Walt Disney's Pinocchio, Walt Disney's
(16:40):
what have You, and it's very much along the same lines.
And in the nineteen thirties you even have Tony Sarg
producing marionettes for the Madame Alexander Dahl Company, and they're successful,
and immediately it goes to Walt Disney after that, and
they become Walt Disney characters, and that shift towards DID characters,
(17:02):
which Disney represents versus the brand of the creator of
Tony Sarg. That's the transition you start to see, even
within their lifetime, because Tony Sarg is involved in creating
the first Walt Disney balloons for the Macy's Day Parade.
There were books published of Mickey and Minny go to
Macy's in the early thirties, and they go and they
(17:22):
meet Tony Sarg who's creating their own balloons for the parade.
So you have the Disney characters meeting their maker, but
it's not Walt Disney. It's Tony Sark making the balloons.
And beyond the Macy's book, in some instances, they're immediately
following the success of what Sarg produced turns to Walt Disney.
(17:45):
The Marionette book that Sarg published in nineteen twenty one
and had sample plays at the back. Snow White is
one of the plays that's in the back of that
particular book. The degree to which Walt Disney looked to
store that were familiar, folk tales that were familiar. Most
of them had also, for the past fifteen years, been
(18:07):
touring the country with Tony Sark's marionette company, so they
weren't un known stories. They had been appearing in his books,
in his marionette companies, in his wallpaper designs Alice in Wonderland.
You have all sorts of stories that then become Walt
Disney classics. Not to say they were pre existing properties.
(18:27):
It's not like Tony sarg invented them, but he popularized them.
And it was only natural then that you would have
an individual who's themselves trying to popularize something. Take, well,
this is familiar. It's been touring the country with Tony
sargs marionettes for the last ten years. So there's all
these sorts of amazing points of connection between the two
(18:48):
of them. And then as the years go on and
you get into the post war years of television in particular,
that's when Disney is able to transform this approach to
popular culture and really become the person we know. And
I think had Tony Sarg lived beyond nineteen forty two,
whenever he passed away following a surgery for a ruptured appendix.
(19:12):
Had he lived beyond the World War two kind of era,
everybody would know who he is. There is no doubt
he was a popular for year on radio shows of
the day. He would have been so on television, no question.
Extremely charismatic individual who really left a remarkable legacy that
I hope more people can learn about.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Had a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to
Deborah Sorenson. She's the curator of exhibitions at the Nantucket
Historical Association. Whether exhibition Tony Sarg Genius at Play is
the first comprehensive exhibition exploring his life and what a
(19:53):
life story to go from well just amateur puppeteer to
creating the most iconic puppa of all time. And let's
face it, that's what these are. The story of Tony Sarg,
the story of the Upside Down puppets and how they
came to be, and in the end, the story of
the Macy's Day Thanksgiving Day parade. Here on our American
(20:16):
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!