Puppet Of The Week - Skelly |
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Tuesday, 09 August 2005
In the winter of 1986 I got my friends together to take part in my latest puppet endeavor Skelly's World. I was working at The Indianapolis Union Station as a singing, dancing, banjo playing, puppeteer when the inspiration hit me to create my own Saturday morning kids show to be performed every week live at the Union Station stage. The premise was a cave kid, his sister, her pet dinosaur, and their guitar playing friend Gary would learn a moral lesson each episode while finding fun cave things to do.
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I only had two weeks to put the show together so I had to work quickly and delegate. I built all the puppets, wrote the script, wrote and recorded the music, and built the stage. Rick Morris, an artist at Union Station, painted the large back drop, provided the voices of the front stage face, Gary, and the pet dinosaur, and puppeteered. Brick Bell was another puppeteer I knew who joined in with Skelly's sister's voice and performed her during the show. Ed Lucas is my best friend from fifth grade who was also singing and dancing with me at Union Station and now is webmaster for this site. He helped out with Gary while on break from his freshman year of college.
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Skelly was a puppet I had created earlier that year to do my strolling puppet work in the mall area of the station. I think the most original thing about Skelly is his hair. I cut long strips of fur and glued them at both ends to his head to create a loop effect. I've found this to be a quick way to add bulk to a puppet's hair and have used it on other puppets since.
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Sadly we only did one show but I learned a lot about producing and directing. This is what the cast of Skelly's World looked like after the big show. (from left to right) Rick Morris, Brick Bell, Ed Lucas, and John Kennedy
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