Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Mary?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: Do you know? One of the most famous French puppets
Speaker 1: in history was created by a nineteenth century dentist as
Speaker 1: a way to distract his patients from their toothpain.
Speaker 2: Did he also treat their toothpaint or what? Did he
Speaker 2: just put on a puppet show and send them on
Speaker 2: their way? That's unstandable.
Speaker 1: That part's unclear. The dentist puppeteer in question was this
Speaker 1: man named Louren Morga, and he lived in Leone in
Speaker 1: the early nineteenth century. And Morgay worked a series of
Speaker 1: odd jobs before becoming a dentist. And he almost certainly
Speaker 1: didn't have any formal medical training because back then dentistry
Speaker 1: mostly just involved pulling teeth, which I guess anyone could do.
Speaker 1: It wasn't considered a full fledged medical practice.
Speaker 2: Wow, you know, I do love the diy, but not
Speaker 2: when it comes to dentistry. That must have hurt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. But in eighteen oh eight, more
Speaker 1: Gay created a puppet named Guinyall. And this is a
Speaker 1: working class every man. It was loosely based on himself,
Speaker 1: and he performed for his patients and he used Guenal
Speaker 1: to drum up new business, so I guess it was
Speaker 1: great marketing. At some point Morgay must have realized he
Speaker 1: was a way better puppeteer than dentist, so in the
Speaker 1: eighteen twenties he quit dentistry to focus on puppetry full time,
Speaker 1: and it actually became this family affair. Morgay had sixteen
Speaker 1: children who helped spread Guenioll puppetry across France and these
Speaker 1: shows became a sensation. Other puppeteers started putting on Guiniall
Speaker 1: shows and at one point the French police even tried
Speaker 1: to put a stop to them.
Speaker 2: Why what was the problem.
Speaker 1: I think I had something to do with all the
Speaker 1: slapstick violence the show's featured, but also gen y'all lampooned
Speaker 1: authority figures and the wealthy, or you know, maybe the
Speaker 1: police just hated puppetry. It could have been that too.
Speaker 1: Either way, the censorship didn't work and gin y'all survived,
Speaker 1: and if you go to France today, especially the young,
Speaker 1: you can still see gin y'all puppet shows to this day,
Speaker 1: and you have one mediocre dentist to thank for it all.
Speaker 1: But we've got eight more surprising puppet facts waiting backstage,
Speaker 1: so let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, Welcome to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius. I'm Mongus Articular and today I'm joined
Speaker 1: by producer extra Ordinaire Mary Philip Sandy. And over there
Speaker 1: in the booth is the man who literally pulls the
Speaker 1: strings on this show. It's our pal and producer Dylan Fagan. Hey, Dylan,
Speaker 1: maybe you can make me stop waving at you now?
Speaker 1: My arm is getting tired.
Speaker 2: Dylan. Well, speaking of getting tired, my gosh, have you
Speaker 2: ever heard of wyang kul It? It is a type
Speaker 2: of Indonesian shadow puppetry whose performances can go all night. Traditionally,
Speaker 2: these shows start at midnight and they run until dawn.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it requires quite an attention span.
Speaker 2: Well, fortunately, it's not considered impolite for the audience to
Speaker 2: come and go as they please. It's kind of like
Speaker 2: a festival atmosphere. It's not like you're sitting at the
Speaker 2: opera and you can't get up and move around. But
Speaker 2: what's really impressive is that during the whole performance, the
Speaker 2: puppeteer never takes a break.
Speaker 1: Wait, that's insane, So it's not even like an intermission.
Speaker 2: Nope. And the whole show is performed by one puppeteer
Speaker 2: called a DeLong, and the DeLong sits in front of
Speaker 2: a screen manipulating all the puppets, which are usually made
Speaker 2: from water buffalo hide and mounted on sticks. A single
Speaker 2: performance might involve hundreds of them. Now, Wyanmkulit is an
Speaker 2: ancient art form. It dates back to the eight hundreds,
Speaker 2: not the eighteen hundreds, the eight hundreds, but it's evolved
Speaker 2: a bit to cater to modern taste. These days. Some
Speaker 2: of the shows are just a few hours long, you know,
Speaker 2: because our attention spans are shorter, and to appeal to
Speaker 2: younger audiences, delongs have begun to mix in some pop
Speaker 2: culture references like Superman, or they'll dress the characters in
Speaker 2: modern clothes, you know, like sneakers and beanies.
Speaker 1: I love that beanies are like modern clothes, well.
Speaker 2: Compared to the eight hundreds. My gosh, the beanies in
Speaker 2: Indonesia in the eight hundreds, so you know, they're bringing
Speaker 2: it up to modern times. In one DeLong even did
Speaker 2: a show where he added a Barack Obama character. This
Speaker 2: was in twenty twelve, and of course that's because Obama
Speaker 2: spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, and you know,
Speaker 2: so the DeLong wanted to celebrate that, but he also
Speaker 2: took the op opportunity to poke fun at some of
Speaker 2: Obama's policies in the show. He suggested that the president
Speaker 2: should be spending less on the US military and more
Speaker 2: on the arts, of which puppetree, of course is one.
Speaker 1: So a lot of puppet traditions incorporate really topical political
Speaker 1: commentary and satire and something I hadn't really picked up
Speaker 1: on until we started this episode. But in Nigeria, the
Speaker 1: a Bibio people practice a highly satirical form of pop
Speaker 1: tree known as ekon or ekng. Ekon was huge during
Speaker 1: the country's colonial era. So if you're thinking about like
Speaker 1: from the eighteen nineties through the nineteen sixties, and the
Speaker 1: puppeteers skewed everyone from local criminals and neighboring ethnic groups
Speaker 1: to Catholic missionaries and British colonial officials, and they really
Speaker 1: did not hold back. There's a mid century econ puppet
Speaker 1: at the Smithsonian that depicts King George of England wearing
Speaker 1: a crown and holding his arms out to the audience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well God isn't really making fun of him though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he's also completely naked from the waist down.
Speaker 2: Okay, there it is, there it is, I gotcha.
Speaker 1: So during the British occupation, Econ performances attracted crowds of
Speaker 1: up to one thousand people at a time. Their popularity,
Speaker 1: combined with their controversial subject matter, meant that being a
Speaker 1: puppeteer could be dangerous. In fact, it was so dangerous
Speaker 1: that the identities of puppeteers were generally kept secret to
Speaker 1: protect them from backlash, which is pretty amazing. But in
Speaker 1: a way, this could explain why puppets are so perfect
Speaker 1: for political speech. The puppet provides anonymity. It's a buffer
Speaker 1: between the performer and the audience, so you can kind
Speaker 1: of be whoever you want to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense, And actually that is the exact
Speaker 2: principle behind my next fact. Because puppets aren't just for
Speaker 2: theater and storytelling anymore. They're used in classrooms, therapy, and
Speaker 2: even wildlife conservation.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: There's a wildlife center in Wisconsin called the International Crane Foundation,
Speaker 2: and it's using puppets to help the endangered whooping crane.
Speaker 1: Are they putting on political theater for these birds? No?
Speaker 2: No, that would be amazing. No. So what it is
Speaker 2: is the ICF breeds whooping cranes, right, they raise the
Speaker 2: chicks and then they release them back into the wild
Speaker 2: to help the population grow. But there's a problem. Baby
Speaker 2: whooping cranes imprint on whoever is raising them, which in
Speaker 2: this case is humans, and if that happens, basically they
Speaker 2: won't know they're a crane and then they won't know
Speaker 2: how to function in the wild. So employees at the
Speaker 2: ICF started wearing these big white suits that completely cover
Speaker 2: their bodies, and they use hand puppets that look like
Speaker 2: cranes to interact with the chicks. Oh wow, And they
Speaker 2: take the puppeteering part of this job really seriously, Like
Speaker 2: if they hear a loud noise, they'll cock the puppet's
Speaker 2: head toward it in a crane like way, or if
Speaker 2: they see something, you know that could be a threat,
Speaker 2: the puppet will freeze. And as a result of this,
Speaker 2: the chicks actually learn how to be brains.
Speaker 1: That is both really cute and a little unsettling, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, how would you feel you found out one
Speaker 1: of your parents was a puppet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe teenage whooping cranes have
Speaker 2: to go to therapy. I don't know. That could be,
Speaker 2: that could be part of the part of what they're
Speaker 2: working on. But apparently crane puppets make really good parents.
Speaker 2: It actually works, and this helps prepare the babies for
Speaker 2: living independently in the wild and surviving.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love the idea of someone going
Speaker 1: to school to become a wildlife biologist and then they
Speaker 1: ended up running around with a crane puppet.
Speaker 2: Right. I did not get a PhD for this.
Speaker 1: But speaking of weird puppet careers, Mary, how familiar are
Speaker 1: you with emo music?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I never wore eyeliner, if that is
Speaker 2: what you're asking. But uh, you know I had a
Speaker 2: couple Jets to Brazil CDs in college. I mean didn't
Speaker 2: we all right?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: No, you were cool, you liked hip hop?
Speaker 1: You did not.
Speaker 2: You were not dealing with this sort of thing, were you.
Speaker 1: You know, my cousin produced the US to Brazil album.
Speaker 2: Sorry okay man.
Speaker 1: But in twenty fourteen, this comedian named Brentley Hilbrun formed
Speaker 1: an all puppet emo band called Fragile Rock Finno is
Speaker 1: kind of based off of fraggle Rock of course. Of course.
Speaker 2: Wow, you know that's one of those puns where I
Speaker 2: hear it and I just kind of get mad because
Speaker 2: why didn't I think of that when I was in college?
Speaker 1: Brizill, that's really funny. Anyway, Hilbrun was going through a
Speaker 1: rough to Wars at the time, and he decided he
Speaker 1: needed a musical outlet, so he teamed up with a
Speaker 1: group of musicians and puppeteers to bring Fragile Rock to life.
Speaker 1: The band is made up of five puppets and their
Speaker 1: respective puppeteers who sing songs with titles like wake Up
Speaker 1: to the Breakup and I Am Sad and so Am I.
Speaker 1: The band has played at music festivals. They even had
Speaker 1: their own NPR Time Desk concert, which I did not
Speaker 1: see but I need to go back and look at now.
Speaker 1: And at one point they tried their luck on America's
Speaker 1: Got Talent, but apparently they were bowed off stage and
Speaker 1: the segment never aired, which only feeds into their emo
Speaker 1: NEAs I think you but Brentley wrote about the experience
Speaker 1: on the band's website in a post titled I was
Speaker 1: an emo puppet failure on America's Got Talent.
Speaker 2: You know what, that doesn't need to be a blog post.
Speaker 2: I would watch an hour long like TV documentary just
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. I would too. But my favorite thing
Speaker 1: about Fragile Rock is that its members have developed complex
Speaker 1: backstories for each of their puppets, and their backstories are
Speaker 1: pretty quirky. They mostly involved dramatic romances and breakups between
Speaker 1: the band members. There's even a whole love triangle involving
Speaker 1: the actor Elijah.
Speaker 2: Sure you know what. I take it back. I did
Speaker 2: not mean TV episode or documentary. I mean series. I
Speaker 2: mean a limited run Netflix. Please get on this right now.
Speaker 2: It is so wonderful and bizarre. I love it. And
Speaker 2: you know, like you were saying, I think getting booed
Speaker 2: off stage is a lot more emo than winning America's
Speaker 2: Got Talent.
Speaker 1: You know what, You are absolutely right. If the Fragile
Speaker 1: Rock folks are listening, I hope they take comfort in that. Okay,
Speaker 1: we have to take a quick break, but when we
Speaker 1: get back, we've got an Indian puppet tradition that goes
Speaker 1: back centuries and puppets in water. Please don't go anywhere
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're answering all
Speaker 1: the questions you didn't know you had about puppets. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you have any questions about other things
Speaker 1: or a fun rabbit hole you think we should be down,
Speaker 1: send us an email at high Geniuses at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com. You can even
Speaker 1: send us a voice memo if you'd like, and we
Speaker 1: might use it in an upcoming episode. So, Mary, I
Speaker 1: know we've got to go back to puppetown in a second.
Speaker 1: But are you a fan of puppets?
Speaker 2: I am, and you know, I think I've mentioned this
Speaker 2: on the show before. I have a deep dark history
Speaker 2: as a theater kid. And that first category of puppetree
Speaker 2: we spoke about the Indonesian shadow puppetree. I have a
Speaker 2: little experience about. My college actually had a gamal on.
Speaker 2: Of course, the really the Indonesian orchestra that typically performs
Speaker 2: with the Indonesian shadow puppetry, and so we did actually
Speaker 2: some performances that incorporated principles of Indonesian shadow puppetry. So
Speaker 2: this is not my first go round. I know I
Speaker 2: made it sound like this was new to me because
Speaker 2: I wanted the audience to feel like I was not
Speaker 2: as big a nerve as I am. I'll tell you now,
Speaker 2: in the second half after the ad break, I knew
Speaker 2: all about it.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. I had no idea. I feel like
Speaker 1: my puppetry understanding really like ends. So I have a
Speaker 1: little bit of marionettes and muppets, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: I've always been like fascinated with puppets, but it's not
Speaker 1: something I've ever really played around much with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you were cool and listening to cool music
Speaker 2: with your cool producer cousin while I was being a
Speaker 2: theater That's why I don't feel that you should feel
Speaker 2: good about this.
Speaker 1: But you know, I did see I saw the pee
Speaker 1: Wee Herman documentary on HBO this weekend, and one it's
Speaker 1: really good and fascinating his whole career and how ambitious
Speaker 1: he is, the way he had these identities that he
Speaker 1: lived in. But they also showed how the puppet cherry worked,
Speaker 1: you know, that chair and like how there was like
Speaker 1: a little monitor in there, and how the puppeteer was
Speaker 1: working in it was like, it's kind of amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, it really combines all of
Speaker 2: these things that are great about puppetry. There's art, there's craft,
Speaker 2: there's a little bit of subversiveness a lot of the time,
Speaker 2: and it can create something really magical. But we do
Speaker 2: take it for granted because we grow up with this
Speaker 2: stuff on TV, and so it seems silly or childish.
Speaker 2: But I mean there's actually a lot of really complicated
Speaker 2: and rich history to puppets, which is why we wanted
Speaker 2: to do this episode. And there's also some really novel
Speaker 2: ways of approaching puppetry. Right, it's not all happening on
Speaker 2: a stage. For example, I want to tell you about
Speaker 2: this next fact, which is Vietnamese water puppetry. It takes
Speaker 2: place in a pool of water.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited about this, Yeah, tell me more so.
Speaker 2: I know you might be thinking that this would be
Speaker 2: a feat of incredible physical strength, right, Like if the
Speaker 2: puppeteers had to be treading water the whole time, that
Speaker 2: would be very difficult. That would be more like water
Speaker 2: polo puppetry.
Speaker 1: That's not what this is.
Speaker 2: No, the pool's only about waste deep. But what it
Speaker 2: does is the water gives the illusion that the puppets
Speaker 2: are moving or swimming on their own. And that's because
Speaker 2: the puppeteers are behind a screen. They're completely hidden from
Speaker 2: the audience, and they control the puppets using polls and
Speaker 2: strings that are attached underwater. And the puppets themselves are
Speaker 2: made of buoyant fig wood, so they float on the water,
Speaker 2: and naturally they tend to be aquatic themes. So you
Speaker 2: got a lot of fish and fishermen and boats, and
Speaker 2: from the audience's perspective, it looks like the puppets are
Speaker 2: swimming and splashing around completely independently. There's all these cool
Speaker 2: effects they do by having the puppets dive down under
Speaker 2: the surface of the water and then re emerging.
Speaker 1: Do you know how they came up with this method
Speaker 1: of performance.
Speaker 2: Of course I do. It was invented by farmers in
Speaker 2: the Red River Delta about a thousand years ago, and
Speaker 2: every year farming villages would hold a big festival at
Speaker 2: the end of the rice harvest, and at some point
Speaker 2: they came up with the idea to hold puppet shows
Speaker 2: in the flooded rice paddies. Right, there was already standing
Speaker 2: water there, so they thought, let's put puppets in it,
Speaker 2: and so water puppetry was originally this really local tradition
Speaker 2: tied to farming and the agricultural cycles. But unsurprisingly something
Speaker 2: that cool it grew in popularity started to spread across Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Today there are specially made water puppetry stages even in
Speaker 2: major cities, so you don't even need to have a
Speaker 2: rice patty anymore.
Speaker 1: That is really really cool. I can't wait to check
Speaker 1: it out. Okay, So for our next fact, we are
Speaker 1: traveling to India, where puppeteer is known as knots or
Speaker 1: bots have carried on a puppetry tradition called Cutwucki, and
Speaker 1: this has happened for nearly four hundred years now. Cut
Speaker 1: puckly puppets look a bit like Marionette's with strings attached
Speaker 1: to their head and arms. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that makes them really unique has to do with the
Speaker 1: way that the puppets communicate. They speak their own puppet language,
Speaker 1: which the puppeteer evokes using a bamboo whistle called a bowlie,
Speaker 1: So none of the dialogue in performance is in language
Speaker 1: the audience can understand. It's a little like adults in
Speaker 1: a Peanuts cartoon.
Speaker 2: So the audience can follow what's going on through the visuals.
Speaker 1: Or what there is a narrator there who helps the
Speaker 1: audience follow the story and translates the puppet language and
Speaker 1: explains what's going on. Traditionally, the bots were semi nomadic,
Speaker 1: so families of puppeteers would travel together during the dry season,
Speaker 1: then return to their own villages during the rainy season
Speaker 1: to farm their crops. Nowadays, some of the bots are
Speaker 1: still nomadic, but others have settled in cities in search
Speaker 1: of bigger crowds. In New Delhi, there's even a neighborhood
Speaker 1: that's home to many of these puppeteers. It's called the
Speaker 1: Cuthputley Colony.
Speaker 2: Wow, I wish there were more puppeteers in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can move to Brooklyn, dear. Really yeah? Wow?
Speaker 2: I mean you know, I do love living Uptown, but
Speaker 2: I can say we do not have a lot of
Speaker 2: puppets unless there's a puppet scene that I just am
Speaker 2: not tapped into, in which case, if you know anything,
Speaker 2: hygeniuses at gmail dot com, tell me Uptown Manhattan's puppets scene. Okay, Mango, Well,
Speaker 2: I told you about water puppetry in Vietnam, but now
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you about something a little differnt
Speaker 2: and that is solid water puppetry.
Speaker 1: Solid water this is this is like ice puppetry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly ice. So in twenty sixteen, a French theater
Speaker 2: company called Teatre de Lantruvert premiered a show called Anywhere,
Speaker 2: starring a puppet made of solid ice.
Speaker 1: Which sounds amazing, But wouldn't that melt?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was the point. The play is based
Speaker 2: on the novel Oedipus on the Road, which tells the
Speaker 2: story of the mythological king Oedipus well on the road
Speaker 2: after he's been exiled from Thebes, and it's all about
Speaker 2: his internal struggle and metamorphosis. And by making the Oedipus
Speaker 2: puppet out of ice, the playwright Elis vig Neuron wanted
Speaker 2: to show those interior transformations happening physically, so the puppet
Speaker 2: changes shape over the course of the play as it
Speaker 2: gradually melts. Of course, this does mean they have to
Speaker 2: make a new puppet every time they perform the show,
Speaker 2: and it is a whole process. Oedipus is a marionette,
Speaker 2: and ice marionette. Think about that. With articulated wrist, elbow,
Speaker 2: and knee joints. Every piece of the body has to
Speaker 2: be frozen in a separate mold and then they put
Speaker 2: it together very very very carefully.
Speaker 1: Wow. That sounds both really beautiful and like so much work.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of glad I'm not a French ice puppet performer,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't you know that was a thing. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be.
Speaker 2: We're all about learning unexpected things on this show. Okay,
Speaker 2: man hit us with our final puppet fact.
Speaker 1: Do you know we have a puppeteer to thank for
Speaker 1: one of our most iconic Thanksgiving traditions?
Speaker 2: And what tradition is that? Over eating, having uncomfortable political
Speaker 2: conversations with those relatives you only see once a year,
Speaker 2: Thank god?
Speaker 1: What what is it? Neither of those? Unfortunately or fortunately,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. So puppeteer
Speaker 1: named Tony sarg designed the original Thanksgiving Day parade balloons.
Speaker 2: Oh I guess those are kind of like skypuppets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exact what they are. So the first parade
Speaker 1: floats didn't even float. They were filled with oxygen instead
Speaker 1: of helium, so Macy's employees had to carry them through
Speaker 1: the streets of New York City. But this guy, Tony
Speaker 1: Sarg was an extremely influential puppeteer. He's actually sometimes referred
Speaker 1: to as the father of modern puppetry in North America.
Speaker 1: But he used his puppetary skills in some really idiosycratic ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like designing parade floats for a department store.
Speaker 1: That's kind of weird, but also pranks. So he once
Speaker 1: orchestrated an elaborate hoax in Nantucket where he tricked locals
Speaker 1: into thinking there was this sea monster on the loose.
Speaker 1: He staged all these fake sea monster sightings and had
Speaker 1: his daughter plant giant footprints in the sand, and in
Speaker 1: the end he revealed that the sea monster was actually
Speaker 1: one of his Thanksgiving Day parade floats.
Speaker 2: I love that he got his daughter in on this too.
Speaker 2: It was like he had to implicate his child.
Speaker 1: And that he's still promoting Thanksgiving Day parades like he's
Speaker 1: really dedicated.
Speaker 2: I love it. It all comes back to that, well
Speaker 2: Tony Sarg, shout out to you, master puppeteer, master prankster Mango.
Speaker 2: I am so thankful you shared that fact that I'm
Speaker 2: going to give this episode trophy to you.
Speaker 1: Well, I am thankful for your thankfulness.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm thankful that you're thankful for my thankfulness.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're gonna get stuck in a gratitude loop.
Speaker 1: We should wrap things up right now. So that is
Speaker 1: it for today. We'll be back next week. Be sure
Speaker 1: to subscribe on your favorite podcast app if you haven't already,
Speaker 1: And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend.
Speaker 1: Nothing says I'm thinking about you like a bunch of
Speaker 1: fun puppet facts. Is that right, Mary?
Speaker 2: That is absolutely right.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by the wonderful Anna Green. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Anna, and from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
Speaker 1: and myself, Thank you so much for listening. Part Time
Speaker 1: Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show
Speaker 1: is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongish Heatikler and
Speaker 1: research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with
Speaker 1: support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for
Speaker 1: iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social media
Speaker 1: support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio, app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.