the.com/puppets
performers who never break character, never demand a raise, and never upstage you—on purpose.
means Figures—of cloth, wood, or sock—moved and voiced by a hidden operator to mimic life, or, figuratively, people controlled by someone pulling the strings.
from From Middle English 'popet,' a small doll or little figure, borrowed from Old French 'poupette,' a diminutive of 'poupée' (doll), all tracing back to Latin 'pup(p)a,' meaning a girl or a doll. The same Latin root quietly fathered 'puppy' (a little dog-doll) and 'pupil' (the little figure of yourself reflected in someone's eye). 'Puppet' as a strung-up performer arrived a bit later, with the figurative sense—a person worked by unseen hands—following naturally once everyone could picture the strings.
- ancient craft
- Puppetry predates written history by thousands of years
- war casualty
- Sicilian puppet shows once staged Crusade battles for illiterate crowds
- bunraku precision
- Three puppeteers operate one Japanese figure in silence
- jim henson
- Muppets started as a 1955 local TV ad gig
- uncanny line
- Marionettes have thirteen-plus strings for lifelike collapse and walk
wayang kulit — indonesian shadow puppets dating back to 11th century, performed in java with leather figures and gamelan music
bunraku — japanese puppet theater from osaka, uses life-sized wooden puppets operated by three visible puppeteers
czech marionettes — prague's tradition of wooden marionette theaters, especially don juan puppet shows performed since 1700s
sicilian pupi — palermo's traditional armor-clad wooden puppets performing stories of charlemagne's knights