Peppy The Clown Lives!

I was so delighted to find another one of the coin operated machines that made such an impact on my as a little kid. When I was a youngin' I loved me some puppets. I was obsessed with puppets and hoped to one day become a professional puppetter. Well, that didn't happen - but I've always had a special place in my heart for puppets. One of my favorite things to stumble upon in an arcade back in my youth was a machine that let you push buttons and opperate a marionette. Marionettes were like the cadalac of puppets to a kid with no money. It wasn't until I was in the fourth grade that I ever laid my hands on a marionette, but before then the coin-op puppet machine was just about the next best thing.

The machine consisted of a puppet on a stage, his mouth was controlled automatically to lip synch with a song, but through four buttons you could control the left and right hands and feet. I found one of these machines recently in my off-beat travels. I was thrilled that it still worked. My kids thought I was crazy for being so obsessed with such a simple concept, but 15 seconds after I dropped the quarter in the slot, the kids were pushing me out of the way to have a go at it. I was glad to see it brought good old fashioned smiles to their faces.

One of the feet didn't work but it was still great to see the machine again, Here's a video I took:


There were several different versions of this idea floating around arcades back in the day. I remember this one most vividly along with one only found at Walt Disney World (and I assume Disneyland) which featured a marionette of one of the bears from The Country Bear Jamboree. Good times!

Best Friends

This one is on the PG-13 side:

Trailer Tuesday - Charlie McCarthy, Detective (1939)

Seven Shows I'd Like To See On Broadway

Last week when I was putting together my list of Vegas shows that I'd like to see, I got to thinking...it takes me less time to drive to New York City than it does to fly to Las Vegas! I should really get up to New York more often, especially since I enjoys me some live theatre. I've only ever been to one, actually honest-to-goodness Broadway performance. When I was a senior in high school we took a bus trip up to see Les Miserables. I didn't understand a second of it. Years later, Debbie Gibson took over one of the lead roles and I would have been delighted to see her in it but all I got out of it was somebody stealing a piece of bread, a spinning stage and the French Revolution! I also saw the touring company production of Disney's Beauty & The Beast, which was one of the earlier dates my wife and I went on. That was a memorable evening.

I really, really wanted to see the stage version of The Little Mermaid, and had every intention of doing so but then it closed so quickly! Sadness. Anywho...here's some stuff that's playing now on The Great White Way that I'd love to see:

The Book of Mormon - Eugine O'Neill Theatre All I need to know about this show (and just about all I really know) is it was written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the guys behind South Park. I pretty much don't pay much attention to South Park anymore, but Parker and Stone are two brilliant and funny guys. You might not be able to get past their obsession with obscenity, but they are masterful when it comes to parody. The South Park movie blows me away every time I see it. They are also responsible for a hilarious marionette action film Team America World Police which is painfully funny in so many directions. Their Broadway debut takes aim at religion in this country and as with all their work, it backed by what I'm sure is some fantastic music.

The Lion King - Minskoff Theatre It seems everybody has seen a production of this Disney hit but me. If Disney is setting up shop somewhere, I'm in. I'd love to see this show which is just about as critically acclaimed as a show can get yet I still haven't seen it. It's also running in Las Vegas, but this kind of a thing doesn't really feel like a Vegas type show. I'll stick to comedy and boobs out there and hopefully make a concerted effort to catch Simba & Co. next time the touring company comes around.

Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark - Foxwoods Theatre I don't care what the media has been shoving down our throats for the last couple of months, I think this show looks awesome. I'd pay some big bucks to see a fight take place above my head. I'd also really love to take my older son to see this, I think he'd think it was awesome too. I'm not sure his appreciation for the show would match the ticket prices. I'd probably be better off just waiting for Spidey to make an appearance at a car show.

Mary Poppins - New Amsterdam Theatre I know what you're thinking - Ed, you'll go see anything with the Disney name slapped on it. Well, not necessarily true as I wasn't really hankering to ever catch a glimpse of Disney's Broadway version of Tarzan. But when it does come to Disney, Mary Poppins is at the core of everything that is great about the Wonderful World of Walt Disney. I'm sure this would be as spectacular as an evening in one of their theme parks.

The Addams Family - Lunt Fontanne Theatre I'm not a huge Addams Family fan, but I bet this would be a fun show. The stage show is more inspired by the original comic strip than the popular television series, but it still has the good sense to retain the TV show's theme song. A simple step that shows they're doing something right. I've heard Broadway Addams is alot of fun!

Avenue Q - New World Stages Here's the rub, my brother couldn't basically give two rat's behinds about theatre and he's seen this show! It's an off-color, puppet filled take-off on Sesame Street. Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy the art of puppetry? There's a touring company of this show too. When they scheduled a performance near the WWoB offices I tried to sell my wife on justifying forking over the dough to go see it. I knew going in that it was an uphill battle trying to get her to go to a $50 puppet show...and still I have not seen this show.

Gazillion Bubble Show - New World Stages You're going to do a show where you just blow bubbles? Lots and lots of bubbles? For 90 minutes, you're just going to blow bubbles. Bubbles of all sizes you say? Like a gazillion of them? Who do I make my check out to?

Mad Monster Party

May I recommend Monster Puppets from Made By Me Junior? This is a wonderful arts & crafts kit that Santa Claus brought us (although I've also seen it at Wal-Mart for $10.) What I thought would be a one-time craft project turned out to be more than that. The kit comes with five basic hand puppets and then 75 pieces of different body parts likes eyes, mouths and hair. The really cool part is that the pieces are all backed with velcro so the kids can literally make hundreds of different puppets. They had a blast creating all different kinds of monsters. Elias even took to sketching some designs out before he made the puppets. You don't know how rare it is to spend an entire weekend evening at our house with the kids asking once to turn on the TV or the Wii.

I used to LOVE puppets when I was little. Let me just say that if YouTube had been around when I was their age, there would be 5,000 videos of my puppets online for you to enjoy. Here's the next best thing...my kids doing their own puppet video. (I don't like to brag, but I kind of directed it.)

And yes, there is an episode 1 too.

I Like Puppets

Just got back from a 4-day visit to Sin City USA - Las Vegas to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. Five years ago we ventured out to Vegas for the first time, and tied the knot in a simple ceremony at The Little White Wedding Chapel, the very same chapel (and minister) that would later be a part of Britney Spears' infamous first brief marriage. We had a good time on this recent visit. We ate some great food, won a little on the slots, and saw some wonderful sights and shows. We saw a topless Burlesque review and we even saw Howie Mandel in concert the night of our anniversary. But the highlight of the trip for me was getting tickets to see The Ronn Lucas Show.

I saw the ad for this show when we were in town five years ago. I didn't really have any idea who Ronn Lucas was, but I was familiar with his dragon co-star Scorch. Scorch was the star of a very brief 1992 sit-com. And when I say very brief, I'm talking February 28 to March 13th of the same year. Even though it only ran for three weeks, the show stuck in my head all these years...as you may know I have a thing for puppet-based sit-coms! So anywho, my wife finally caved in and agreed to go to the show this visit.

They have this new thing in Vegas where you can go to these ticket sellers on the strip and get discounted tickets for shows that same day. It's a really good deal, and it you're going to Vegas and seeing some shows you should check them out as an option. We got tickets to three different shows from them and got crazy good prices on seats. The Ronn Lucas Show is an afternoon affair, starting at 3:00pm. We got our tickets at around 12:30 for something like $17.00 a pop. We had awesome seats, 3rd row - dead center. It was great!

The show was fantastic! Ronn and Scorch start things off and are later joined by Billy Bob, a cowboy puppet and Chuck the punk rocker. One part of the show, Ronn got someone out of the audience and made them look like a dummy. Get It! The show closes with Mr. Lucas taking off his sock and slowly transforming it into George the Turtle. There's a couple of other unusual characters that pop us as well throughout the performance. The whole show was great, and I know my wife laughed a lot harder than she thought she would. The really cool part was after the show when we got to meet Mr. Lucas and chat with him for a few minutes. Of course, I brought up the Scorch sit-com which he was surprised I remembered but was happy to reminisce about. We not only got this cool photo taken with Ronn and a plush Scorch ($35) but he also autographed a DVD for me. I'm a sucker for the simpler things in life like puppets and DVDs and having a puppet DVD signed by the puppeteer. The whole experience was really the highlight of my trip.

If you've got plans to go to Vegas anytime soon you should check out The Ronn Lucas Show at the Luxor, afternoons at 3:00pm. And get all your Vegas tickets from Tix 4 Tonight or your paying too much for tickets!