TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Puppet Shows

Go To

Puppet Shows

A very old form of spectacle, Puppet Shows use some kind of puppetry to feature their characters in real-time (setting it apart from animation, including Puppet Stop Motion). Mostly seen within children's entertainment, but also used for satirical parodies, with puppets caricaturing real-life people.

There are two main categories of such shows:

Other possible types include:

  • Animatronic puppets, a modern development of Muppets. These often involve servo motors, cables and other mechanical components.
  • People in Rubber Suits, a.k.a. Suitmation, which can appear alongside either type (on the same scale with hand puppets, or as giants with marionettes).

An otherwise human-centric show using a few puppet characters doesn't belong here. However, some Puppet Shows, while using mainly hand puppets or animatronics, may also involve some human characters or feature one or more puppets in a prominent role and thus tread the line. Often these techniques can overlap— for example a costume might have animatronic components or a hand hand puppet might have a marionette assist. Marionette shows can also make use of live animals to figure monsters. For the people who perform them, see Puppeteers.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Animatronic Puppets 

Advertising

  • Budweiser Frogs (The titular characters and the lizards. Numerous other Budweiser spots also use animatronic animals as prominent characters)
  • The Crash Dummies (a mix of both animatronic puppets and costumes are used for the titular characters)
  • Energizer Bunny (The bunny and a few of his adversaries like King Kong were accomplished with animatronic puppets)

Films
TV Series

    Hand Puppets 

Advertising


Comedy
Fan Works
Films
Music
  • Doctor Steel's rare live shows feature one, which include both hand and stick puppets.
  • The videos for "Sing" and "Happier" by Ed Sheeran feature a puppet based on him.

TV Series
Stage Shows
Web Original
Web Videos

    Marionettes 

Films


Theatre
Web Videos
TV Series

    Suitmation 

    Other 

Films

  • Oranges: Revenge of the Eggplant: The film is entirely composed of actual fruits and vegetables used as puppets, though almost none of the fruit puppets are articulated. They move and turn in place via sticks inserted underneath and manipulated by puppeteers below the scene floor.

Top