Daily post &Puppet Animation 03 Oct 2008 08:00 am
Lost head
I received this email from NY animator, Willy Hartland. He’d bought a Puppetoon head and is trying to locate the film it comes from.
- I need help authenticating that it’s in fact a Puppetoon head.
It’s clearly a chef character, from perhaps a TV commercial, because
I have yet to find the character on my various George Pal DVDS.
Hopefully someone will be able to identify the character from some obscure short or TV spot.
Underneath the head, is written, “#5 smile.”
(Click any image to enlarge.)
Chef with hat off.
View from below.
When Willy described it to me in Ottawa, I clearly remembered a chef character from one of the shorts, though I couldn’t remember which one. This is definitely the character I remembered, and I still can’t remember the film.
It doesn’t seem to be on the dvd The Puppetoon Movie, though there are a number of shorts not included on that such as: many of the Jasper shorts, or the musical shorts Dipsy Gypsy (a great one), Rhapsody in Wood, or the excellent Dr. Seuss shorts, 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins and And To Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street.
Unfortunately, most of these films are out of our reach and impossible to view.
This face doesn’t look unlike the incidental characters from Tom Thumb, the 1958 live-action/animation film starring Russ Tamblyn. In that movie, there’s an Asian character with an almost identical head.
If anyone has a clue as to which film the head appeared in, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment.
on 03 Oct 2008 at 8:44 am 1.Mark Mayerson said …
I have no idea which film this is from but I’m curious to know how tall the head and hat are.
on 03 Oct 2008 at 11:18 am 2.StephenMacquignon said …
http://www.awn.com/heaven_and_hell/index.htm
Maybe this link can give you some answers.
on 03 Oct 2008 at 1:22 pm 3.Stephen Worth said …
This sort of thing is rare as hen’s teeth. I saw a John Henry head once, and I own a couple of TV commercial puppets. The John Henry head was smaller than the TV puppets I’ve seen. I bet this is theatrical, not TV.
See ya
Steve
on 03 Oct 2008 at 1:55 pm 4.Michael said …
Hi Mark, Willie says that “the head is 2.5 inches high. The hat is 1.5 inches high.
Total 4 inches high.” That’s about the size of the puppets I’ve seen in production.
on 03 Oct 2008 at 2:37 pm 5.Willy said …
Hey Guys,
Thanks for the comments. There’s also a round hole under the head. I wonder if that’s consistent with Pal’s process for connecting heads.
best,
Willy
on 03 Oct 2008 at 3:47 pm 6.Jenny Lerew said …
Bet Joe Dante would know. In lieu of that I’ll ask around.
There are so many Puppetoons that this might have been part of…I saw a fantastic long program of shorts(some very very rare)at UCLA about 15 years ago.
on 03 Oct 2008 at 3:59 pm 7.willy said …
Thanks Jenny. If you have the time to investigate.
cheers,
willy
on 04 Oct 2008 at 12:32 am 8.Stephen Worth said …
A round hole for a rod would be to attach something that might shift side to side in animation. A square brass rod would be used for things that would be fixed in position.
See ya
Steve
on 04 Oct 2008 at 4:44 am 9.slowtiger said …
Walking on thin ice here: two weeks ago there was a documentary by Philippe Truffaut on “arte TV” under the title of “Cliposaurus Rex”, which showcased early “music clips”. The last one was an amazing dancehall and all-singing number by George Pal from 1938, in colour, and if I remember correctly, in the last scenes, on a kind of “Harlem streets” set, a character like this one showed up.
on 04 Oct 2008 at 10:16 pm 10.willy said …
Thanks Slowtiger.
I’m familiar with that puppetoon. It’s available on DVD.
But I think you’re mistaken….. this chef character does not appear in it.
thanks anyway!
willy