Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545257
incense and black wrap in the bottom of the cup to fake steam. Overall, it looked like a hot cup of coffee, and neither the pig nor Mr. Oz was in any danger. There are many cases where a prop with a special action has helped the performance of the character. When Pepe the King Prawn wanted to pick up some poker chips, and drop them before tossing them into the pot, we had to figure out how to build the prop poker chips for the action. Pepe's hands are small. They are just a bit larger than poker chips. Pepe also has rodded hands, so there is no dexterity whatsoever as the puppet existed. We decided to keep the rig as simple as possible and went with a 14" length of monofilament. Three poker chips were strung like beads on a string with the first chip glued to the string. This line was sewed through Pepe's hand so that by pulling the string, the chips would stay in his hand. By letting the string go, the chips could be dropped back to the table or tossed into the pot. The camerawoman sitting three feet away couldn't figure out how we did it! Sometimes props help keep the puppet "alive" in addition to aiding in their dexterity. Nowhere is this more evident than when the props help the puppet breathe. In a scene from ABC's The Muppets, Scooter was breathing into a paper bag while hyperventilating. As Scooter has no lungs, we needed a prop bag that would inflate and deflate in the rodded hands. We found a paper bag and glued an oval bit of plastic where Scooter would be holding it. An air line was run through his arm and hand and through the oval. Once the bag was securely sealed to that plastic oval, blowing into the tube would inflate the bag, and pulling air back through the tube deflated it. A simple fireplace bellows (with the one-way valve disabled) served to both inflate and deflate the bag. The puppeteers did the rest and made it look like Scooter could breathe. This invisible magic wouldn't be possible without close coordination between the puppeteers, the director, and the prop team. When Kermit is riding his bike, not only does the bike have to be made to fit the frog, but it needs special rigging. Kermit's bike-riding legs are made with unidirectional ankle and knee joints. His feet are secured to the pedals, and the bike is rigged so that the forward motion on the bike moves the pedals. An RC puppet from the brilliant minds of people like Tom Newby, Larry Jameson, and Faz Fazakas is bolted to the seat of the bike. The hands are connected to the handlebars, and then the whole thing needs to be suspended from a marionette rig and moved invisibly from above. When the audience never questions the mechanics, when the props disappear into the performance, and when every object behaves exactly as the character needs it to, the illusion is complete. It is a constant balance of engineering, artistry, and restraint, where the best solutions are often the simplest and the least noticeable. In the end, the success of puppet props is not measured by how clever they are, but by how completely they allow the characters to live, breathe, and tell their stories. When it's done right, it's just a frog riding a bike. THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER