Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545257
8 PROP CULTURE I SUMMER 2026 Henson and the team at the Muppet Workshop, you really helped redefine what puppetry could be for modern audiences. Looking back on all that, what first drew you to puppetry, and can you remember the moment you realized it might become your life's work? How did that journey really begin for you? DAVE: When I was 5 years old, I fell in love with Howdy Doody and Beany and Cecil. For a year or two, I was with them, and my parents bought me marionettes and puppets. My mom even made me a Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent, because the one you could buy wasn't very good. I was obsessed at that point, and even though I moved onto other things, as you do as a kid, I always loved puppets and ventriloquist dummies. Here's a confession … even to this day, and I'm almost 80. PROP CULTURE: So, that fascination never really left you. Even after all these years and such a remarkable career in puppetry, that original love is still there, isn't it? DAVE: Whenever I go into a toy store, I still look to see if they have a dummy with a stick down inside the body, not a pull string in the back of the neck, but a stick. And they never do. What's weird about it is, I don't need a dummy. I wouldn't use it, I don't actually want one, but it's like it's built into me. When I was a kid, I had a Howdy Doody with a string, and you could see your finger in the back. What I really wanted was to have my hand inside the dummy with a stick and more controls. Now I'm grown up, I've got money saved up, I could have a ventriloquist dummy made for DAVE GOELZ WITH JIM HENSON AND CHARLIE McCARTHY