I have been doing puppet shows for as long as I can remember, but the first puppet show I do remember doing was for my second grade class.[1] I did it with my best friend of the time George Herring. We performed Yogi Bear and the Three Stooges Meet the Mad, Mad, Mad Dr. No-No. This must have been my idea, because this was my favorite record album when I was that age. (I also really liked David Frye’s Richard Nixon Superstar too. Go figure—not because it wasn’t good, but rather: the same kid who liked Dr. No No liked such hip comedy as Frye? Like I said: go figure.) Despite having probably listened to the album hundreds of times, I have no memory of it. Here is the synopsis according to Wikipedia:
I do, however, remember that I was twenty years old before I found out who Dr. (single) No was, and fully understood the joke that Dr. No No was.
Knowing my personality (then and now), I doubt that our performance was much abridged. My only reason for believing that our performance was less than a half hour is the probability that Mrs. Johnston would not have allowed our silliness to go on that long. Or maybe she would have. Of all my grammar school teachers, Mrs. Johnston was by far the most likely to indulge my innate silliness.
I found this nice little video about how to put on a puppet show. It shows just how little is required.
The main thing I would add is that found material often works very well as a script: comedy records, short stories, whatever delights you. Also: an audience is not strictly necessary. Most of the enjoyment is the process itself. And if that doesn’t work for you, you can always film your puppet show and put it on YouTube. As it is, the, the most viewed video I’ve ever seen is a puppet show, Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise.
Update
At some twenty million views, this puppet show is not even near the top of the most watched videos. But then, neither are many of the videos people think of as very popular. Dramatic Chipmunk, for example, has only 32 million views. Keyboard Cat has on 19 million views. What are the most popular? You don’t want to know, but I will tell you: music videos mostly. Justin Bieber has the top 1, 8, and 9 positions. How many views? Baby ft. Ludacris has over 650 million views. I guess Mencken was right, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”
Update II
Just a month after posting this article, carlosvonchang uploaded Yogi Bear & The 3 Stooges Meet The Mad, Mad, Mad Dr. No-No on YouTube. It is presented in two parts—side A (16:01) and Side B (17:00). I’ve put these two videos into a single playlist so it automatically loads Side B after Side A has finished.
[1] My first two years in college, I carried around a puppet mounted on the end of a bamboo stick. The idea was a human skull on the end of a pike. I thought it was incredibly clever.
