Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545257
18 PROP CULTURE I SUMMER 2026 enough to keep grease off the puppets. Cork and ground rubber are easy to blow or vacuum out of puppets. They make a great substitute for dirt, and even mud when mixed with a polysorbate solution. Once dry, it becomes a powder with no lasting stains. The car in The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland was one where clean cars go in and muddy cars come out. We made gallons of puppet-safe mud from ground cork and polysorbate. It was a huge mess, but no grouches were stained in the production of that scene. Untinted, it also makes great snowballs. When it is time to light puppets on fire, special materials are a must, and the Property Department is often called on to find a solution. When Fred Buchholz was working on the "Light the lamp, not the rat" scene from The Muppet Christmas Carol, he was asked to help create a special tail for Rizzo the Rat that could be repeatedly lit on fire without actually burning. A glass cloth cord with a wire inside proved to be the perfect solution. For the second part of the gag, Fred was called on again. To get Rizzo into a barrel of freezing water, a glove was sealed over a hole in the bottom of the barrel, allowing the puppeteer to perform while keeping the water inside. Broken bits of paraffin wax floated on top to simulate ice. When Rizzo came out, he had to be a "ratsicle." Fred made a mold of a frozen Rizzo, slush cast paraffin wax into it, used a hot knife to open the shell and insert the puppet, then sealed it back up. Keeping it in a cooler with dry ice ensured the wax stayed cold and brittle, so it could be smashed on the table, revealing a fully functional Rizzo inside. Keeping puppeteers safe is always a priority. In addition to keeping prop weight down, we often use face shields and helmets and rely on clever prop solutions. While working on Muppets from Space, I was asked to solve a simple but tricky prop: Miss Piggy holding a cup of steaming coffee. Her hands are rod hands, so the cup had to sit at the end of an arm rod, and we still needed to see liquid inside. There was no way I was putting a cup of hot liquid on a stick over the head of Frank Oz. Tom Newby, who, among many things, is behind most of the RC versions of the Muppets, gave me a great idea. I made a clear disk slightly smaller than the top of the cup, painted it coffee color, and glued it to a weighted cone. A nail in the bottom of the cup held the cone in place. As the cup moved, the "coffee" surface moved with it. I used a bit of FRED BUCHHOLZ (LEFT) WITH DAVE GOELZ (RIGHT) ON THE MUPPETS CHRISTMAS CAROL FROZEN RIZZO RESETS