Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 15:31:24 -0500
To: puptcrit-AT-lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Rubbery Figures


Just to follow up/clarify Jamie's post re: Noreen Young, while it's
certainly true that Noreen was one of the first people to do political
satire on television with puppets, I believe Spitting Image developed
completely independent of her influence. In fact, Fluck & Law (the series'
creators) were largely ignorant of puppetry in general when they first
started doing the show. I believe they relied a lot on Louise Gold and other
Muppet Show alumni in the UK for guidance.

That's not to take anything away from Noreen Young, who is arguably the most
important figure in the history of Canadian puppetry of course.

This reminds me of the little-known Canadian puppetry fact that John Conway
was supposedly using many of the techincal firsts (no puppet stage,
monitors, simple platformed-up sets) usually credited to Jim Henson on CBC
in Canada prior to Sam & Friends. That in no way diminishes any of Henson's
accomplishments of course (Conway might have technically done it first, but
Henson mastered it and did it better). I'd bet that like Fluck & Law, Henson
had never seen or heard of his predacessor's work when he started. Great
minds tend to think a like.

That and history is usually written by the victor...or the more famous.


- Andrew

--

The PuppetVision Blog
"The web's best source for puppet film and video goodness, delivered fresh
to your computer each day."
http://puppetvision.blogspot.com

Machin-X
"...where pixels meet puppets"
http://machin-x.blogspot.com
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