Walking Talking Puppets

Kiddo got seasons 1 and 2 of Dinosaurs for her birthday and the past few days we've been watching a LOT of them. Hubby was amused to find that Robbie's friend Spike (who seems almost certainly to be based on Mike Damone from Fast Times at Ridgemont High) was voiced by Christopher Meloni, known best for his work on Law & Order SVU and Oz. My eureka moment was figuring out that Kevin Clash (a.k.a. Elmo) voiced the Baby. Once I put that together it was hard not to see/hear a furry red monster in place of the little yellow dinosaur.

Dinosaurs lasted 4 seasons, from 1991-94. It was aimed at adults, not unlike the Flintstones were in the 1960s, but for those of us raised on puppet-filled shows -- Sesame Street, The Great Space Coaster, the many Sid and Marty Krofft Saturday morning shows, the Muppet Show (OMG -- A Muppet Wiki!!), and more -- it was target marketed to the 18-35 demographic. Suffice to say, I'm happy this show is in my house right now, and I am waiting for seasons 3 and 4. Kiddo loves it too.

Now... in searching for some of the links up there I found some really really funny things:

1. The song Mah Na Mah Na (to which I refered on Friday) debuted in a softcore porn movie. Really.

2. Sid and Marty Krofft successfully sued McDonalds' Corp. for copyrigt infringement -- charging them with ripping off H.R. Pufnstuff characters to create Mayor McCheese, et. al.

...I also found an interesting Wikipedia article on Adult Pupeteering that reminded me of other great puppet shows -- most notably Spitting Image. Damn that was a funny show, but mostly I think of the puppets being used in Genesis' video for Land of Confusion [it's on YouTube!].

Yeah. Puppets rock.



tags: puppets (duh), television.