Let me introduce you to Brandon. His friends online call him “Darklord” and he’s going to get it legally changed some day. Brandon looks at the floor and crosses his arms a lot. He shops at Hot Topic, but spends most of his time in the parking lot behind the mall smoking cloves with his friends. Brandon doesn’t like school. His favorite subject is “I Don’t Frickin’ Care.” When high school is over, he’s going to steal my car and move to Toronto where his “girlfriend” lives. (I’ve never seen a picture!) Until then, Brandon is my puppet.
I made Brandon at a puppet “cloning” (building) class in Los Angeles run by Ragmop & Goose, a puppet maker / puppeteer duo with a workshop and a propensity for creating viral videos. I’ve been trying to take puppetry classes in LA, but it’s surprisingly hard to find them. You would think there are readily-available classes for all types of performing arts here, from improv comedy to chainsaw juggling to the thing where you balance a spoon on your nose, which Gonzo and Beverly Sills elevated to high art in the 1970s. I became a member of the LA Puppetry Guild to subscribe to their paid newsletter of puppet happenings in LA, but most of the listings are for shows. The first listing for an LA-based class on puppetry I saw was the one taught by Ragmop & Goose and I signed up. I took a virtual puppetry class from Puppet Pie, and while Stacey Gordon is an excellent teacher, I want tactile, in-person experiences when it comes to learning the art of puppetry. I want to get my hands fuzzy.
As you may recall, my core fandom is The Muppets. I dragged Amanda into the fowl humidity of Florida’s former swampland to experience my beloved MuppetVision one last time. For much of my career, it was my dream to write for The Muppets. There were many failed attempts, from pitching ideas to Boom! Studios for The Muppet Show comic to pitching a sketch comedy podcast to Disney, Stitcher, and CAA that came jaw-droppingly close to a green light. I did get to write for Sesame Street comics, and I briefly worked for Sesame Workshop in their music department, both of which were wonderful experiences. Carol Spinney gave me a Big Bird feather, which I gave to my mom! But something about Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo and Miss Piggy has a hold on me spiritually, creatively, and Muppetationally. While I’ve let go of the dream to write for them, I still want to make puppet stuff on my own terms. But first, I need to learn more about the artform.
The class was an all-day intensive. I arrived at MUD, a special effects make-up studio in Burbank, a little before 9 am. I wasn’t 100% certain I was in the right place, until friendly folks holding Bob Baker tote bags began showing up. One student noted that puppetry people often look like puppets themselves. I was wearing a brightly colored button down shirt and a big smile and felt very read.
Heh. “Felt.”
The class began with introductions. Ragmop (aka Jessie) and Goose (aka Gus) are a charming millennial couple who’ve run their company for over ten years. I first became aware of them when they created a stir on the floor of WonderCon with their puppet show. Security guards had to break up the traffic in the aisle in front of their booth. Jessie asked everyone in class to say who their favorite Muppet was. Someone ahead of me said Gonzo, so I said my favorite obscure Muppet, which is Digit, the Kramer-like android character from The Jim Henson Hour. (I believe I own the only piece of Digit merchandise, a plastic lunch box. Thank you, eBay!) I think the older class members knew the Muppet I was talking about. If this group didn’t know Digit, then no one will.
Their puppets begin as patterns. In the first half of class, we picked out the felts and furs we wanted to use for our puppets, then on the netting side of the fabric we traced cardboard patterns for the puppet body and head with sharpie. They’re symmetrical patterns, creating two sides to be sewn together. We cut along the outlines with sharp X-Acto knives, then put the rest of our fabric rolls away. In doing this work, I became covered with fuzz, as though a magical bright green cat crawled all over me. Luckily, Goose was prepared. He broke out a vacuum and one of those lint brushes.
Then came the part of the class I dreaded. The description said no sewing experience was necessary, and aside from needlepoint in grade school, I didn’t know squat about sewing beyond licking the thread to get it through the eye of the needle. They demonstrated step-by-step, multiple times, how to use a sewing machine for the arms by creating backstitches, and how to sew the body by hand using a whipstitch.
I was the student who asked the most questions. Mostly “like this?” over and over again. Jessie and Gus were very patient with me. By the end, I felt like I was getting into a pretty decent groove with hand sewing. I could’ve gone into a meditative state with the repetitive motions, if it weren’t for all the loud conversations and circus music playing in the background. (They put on a very silly, very Bob Baker-y playlist for us.) The sewing machine is so fast by comparison! If I wanted to become a puppet pro (not my ambition), I’d get good at the sewing machine. Unlike hand sewing, it was easier for me to mess up by pushing the gas a little too hard or by not turning the fabric quickly enough along the curve of the arms. So there was more pressure with the machine, but it’s a lot more efficient.
All the elements were sewn inside out, so the puppets don’t end up looking like a bunch of Frankensteins with visible stitching. Since they were inside out most of the class, the netting was the puppet’s exterior, giving them a mummy-like quality. But our puppets would not be cursed to an undead life for long. When we were finished sewing our bodies and arms, we turned our puppets right side out by pushing the bunched up cloth against a stick. It was so much fun to see all our puppets come to life together! Or rather, turn from hand-mummies into faceless almost-friends!
The final stage of puppet building was making the face, the most fun part. With our puppet bodies on stands, we used hot glue to attach eyeballs, noses, tongues, hair, and jewelry from their wide array of foam balls, pieces of felt, pipe cleaners, and other craft store goodies. Before Jessie began her lecture on shaving puppet fur and glueing on accessories, she warned us that this was the part of the process where a whole puppet can be permanently ruined! High stakes!
I did mess up Brandon a bit. To attach the flat fabric pupils to the round foam eyeballs, they suggested cutting a tiny piece out of the pupils before attaching them, so they flatten into a circle. Mine were almost right, but they had a tiny bit of white. I used a sharpie to fill in the gap, but my hand went a little too far and I hit the eyeball. So there’s a dot on Brandon’s eye, which I’m sure he’ll never forgive me for. Jessie suggested rubbing it with alcohol, but I’m concerned about ruining it further, lol. He has an eye freckle. It gives him… personality. No puppet is perfect!
A tiny mistake aside, I’m proud of how Brandon came out. I got a lot of compliments on his black-and-neon color palette. When I played him as a sullen teen – crossing the arm rods to fold his arms, refraining from making eye contact, and alternating between mumbles and shouts – I got a lot of laughs from the class. We took portraits of ourselves and our puppets together, then got a crash course in puppetry. Gus has a way of using one folded index finger to move the entire left arm that I found impressive and difficult to replicate. I got very into lip syncing Queen songs with Brandon. I imagined him alone in his bedroom, cutting loose, away from the poseurs and parents of the world, belting out “Don’t Stop Me Now” at the top of his lungs.
I don’t have any formal ambitions with puppetry, but I would like to keep exploring it. This was a class I was compelled to take and I’m really glad I did. I had a fantastic time and I learned a lot, as you can see from their Instagram video about the class! (I’m very visible in my popsicle-looking shirt.) There was something about spending a whole day learning how to make a puppet that fed my inner child. And I created an outer child. Please don’t tell Brandon I called him my “outer child.” He already hates me.
🎲 Your Turn: Have you taken a good class recently? Or learned something really cool on YouTube? What was it? What’s your favorite arts and crafts type thing? I want to hear from you. Reply to this email or hit the orange button below to leave a comment for the whole world to see.
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