Archive for the ‘puppet’ Category

Monday, March 10th, 2025

Theory: Cartooning’s Cousin- Puppetry

Punch and Judy puppets

This article has been translated into Spanish by David Alejandro Lopez Portillo.

For the past few months, I’ve been researching the roots of cartooning, tracing the history back long before Gertie the Dinosaur and the Yellow Kid appeared on the scene. I’ve discovered some wonderful things which will be appearing here in the blog soon. But one of the most exciting things I’ve discovered in cartooning’s “family tree” is the existence of “kissing cousins”… related art forms that developed along with cartooning in roughly the same time and place. Chief among these related arts is puppetry, and in particular, the tradition of Punch and Judy.

We all know Punch and Judy, but few of us today have actually seen a show performed. But the tradition isn’t dead. It’s being carried on by a small group of dedicated puppeteers around the world. They continue to perform in pretty much the same manner as it’s been performed for the past three centuries.

Cartooning and Punch and Judy share a common ancestor, George Cruikshank

Punch and Judy puppets

Cruikshank was a British cartoonist who illustrated one of the earliest documented Punch and Judy scripts in 1828, The Comical Tragedy or Tragic Comedy of Punch and Judy. Based on the performance by Piccini, the puppeteer who created a sensation with the puppet play in Britain in the early 1820s, this same basic story outline has continued to form the plot of just about every Punch and Judy show to this day.

The traditional show is usually performed by a “Professor”, the puppeteer inside the booth, and a “Bottler”, an assistant outside the booth who corrals the audience, introduces the puppets and plays musical accents and sound effects on a drum or guitar. The audience is encouraged to participate, calling out to the characters on the stage to warn them of danger or clue them into what’s going on behind their back.

Punch and Judy puppets

The cast of characters has been passed down from Professor to Professor over the generations, with some falling away and some being added as time went by and tastes changed. This beautiful set of puppets was created for me by artist/puppeteer Christopher van der Craats in Melbourne, Australia.

Punch and Judy puppets

In the early days, a live trained dog named Toby sat on the edge of the stage and helped with the show. Later, the live dog was replaced by a puppet, and eventually faded out of common use. But some Professors still occasionally use the Toby character in their act to this day.

Punch and Judy puppets

The show begins with the audience calling out to wake Mr. Punch, a carefree “trickster” character with a buzzy voice created by means of a “swazzle” a kazoo like device hidden in the Professor’s mouth…

Punch and Judy puppets

Next, Punch’s wife Judy is introduced. She is a bossy personality who orders Mr. Punch around. She instructs Mr. Punch to mind the baby while she goes to the kitchen to make sausages…

Punch and Judy puppets

Punch begins to play with the baby, teaching him to walk. But the action turns rough and the baby starts crying. Punch begins to frantically fling the baby about trying to silence it, eventually tossing it out the window. Judy finds out and a fight breaks out between her and Punch. Judy is beaten to death by Punch’s slapstick.

Punch and Judy puppets

Judy comes back as a ghost to frighten Mr. Punch, who is terrified and cowers in fear, unable to speak.

Punch and Judy puppets

The Doctor arrives to treat the stricken Mr. Punch, but he is nothing but a quack. He asks where it hurts, then hits Mr. Punch to give him pain to help forget his fear. Punch quickly dispatches the Doctor with his slapstick.

Punch and Judy puppets

As the bodies of the puppets Mr. Punch has killed pile up on the edge of the stage, Punch’s friend Joey the Clown shows up and enters into a game with Punch trying to confuse him as he counts the bodies. In some older versions, Joey helps Mr. Punch turn the bodies into sausages! Punch gets frustrated with Joey’s friendly taunting and hits him over the head with his slapstick. Joey plays dead.

Punch and Judy puppets

Next, the law arrives… in the early days this character was represented by “The Beadle”. There weren’t civil governments at that time, so criminal disturbances were policed by the church. The Beadle was the officer of the church who acted as a policeman.

Punch and Judy puppets

Later on, the character was replaced by the traditional British “Constable”, with his trademark lines, “‘Ello! ‘Ello! ‘Ello! What’s all this then?” The bumbling constable investigates the murders and Punch promptly makes him a victim as well. The body count rises by one more.

Punch and Judy puppets

Jack Ketch, the hangman, whose name commemorates a real executioner from the early 19th century, arrives to punish Mr. Punch for being “very naughty”. Punch pretends not to know how to put his head through the noose, so the hangman demonstrates for him… Zip! The hangman is hung in his own noose, and Mr. Punch dances in triumph.

Punch and Judy puppets

Mr. Punch next faces off with a Crocodile, who eats his sausages and slapstick, effectively disarming him. The Croc bites Mr. Punch on the nose.

Punch and Judy puppets

The Devil himself arrives to escort Mr. Punch down to hell to pay for his misdeeds. But Punch outwits the Devil and he and Joey return to the stage to wave goodbye to the audience.

Punch and Judy puppets

Other characters include Hector the Hobby Horse, Punch’s neighbor Mr. Scaramouch (who gets his head knocked off), Pretty Polly the Chambermaid, and the Servant/Blind Begger.

As you can see, the basic plot is pretty threadbare, and Professors regularly elaborate on some sections and cut other ones. The fun isn’t in the story, it’s how it’s performed. Each Professor has his own way of putting across the continuity of action. Like cartoons, Punch and Judy has come under attack by censors who claim that the superficial level of violence depicted isn’t appropriate for children. This criticism goes all the way back to the origin of the show. Here is a great quote from a great writer on this topic…

In my opinion street Punch is one of those extravagant reliefs from the realties of life which would lose its hold upon the people if it were made moral and instructive. I regard it as quite harmless in its influence, and as an outrageous joke which no one in existence would think of regarding as an incentive to any kind of action or as a model for any kind of conduct.

It is possible, I think, that one secret source of pleasure very generally derived from this performance… is the satisfaction the spectator feels in the circumstances that likenesses of men and women can be so knocked about without any pain or suffering. -Charles Dickens

Punch and Judy puppets

That same defense could be applied to cartoon violence like Tom and Jerry and the Coyote and Roadrunner. That isn’t the only thing Punch and Judy have in common with animation. I asked a professional Punch and Judy Professor for advice for aspiring puppeteers to keep in mind when performing. He suggested the following…

Each movement should be clear and precise. Don’t move the puppet at random.

The movement should have a sense of weight.

If someone bumps the puppet, it must react.

Stop and hold a pose occasionally for dramatic effect.

Use the old rule of three. Repeat a gag twice to set up an expectation, then do something different and surprising on the third time.

Punch and Judy puppets

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that animation and puppetry are very closely related. At its most basic level, Punch and Judy is about a trickster outwitting authority figures out to get him. How different is that from Bugs Bunny popping out of his hole to find Elmer Fudd holding a shotgun up to his nose?

As you look at the following clip, analyze the action the way you would analyze an animated film. Look for rhythmic timing, strong expressive poses, clear silhouettes, well staged action and contrasts in pacing and mood. You’ll be amazed at how many parallels with animation you can find in puppetry.

Pulcinella by Salvatore Gatto

I don’t know about you, but that clip above made my jaw hit the floor. Punch and Judy is pure, raw entertainment, stripped of all of the superfluous details we tend to heap upon it when we create animation. With Punch and Judy, the story isn’t important. It’s the same story that has been told for three hundred years. The design isn’t important. It’s the same design too. Snappy dialogue isn’t necessary. The puppets were speaking Italian in that clip and I bet you didn’t even notice. Fancy backgrounds, snappy jokes, flying camera moves, rapid fire cutting… none of that matters at all.

What does matter? Personality, rhythm, movement, fun situations, contrasts, and surprises. Punch and Judy is the distilled essence of entertainment. The same show could be performed for young or old, Eskimos or Aborigines and the delight and laughter would be the same. This form of entertainment goes straight to the core of what entertainment is. It probably goes even deeper than that- to the universal idea of what it is to be human.

Punch and Judy puppets

Arguably, animation’s history can be viewed as a progression of complexity. We have added layer after layer of overlapping action and tons of inbetweens to make lots of fluid and smooth movement. We place the characters over elaborate backgrounds inspired by Monument Valley or epic scenes from Lawrence of Arabia. We spend millions of dollars on crews of Harvard educated writers coming up with reams of script pages. We assemble massive computing horsepower to simulate convincing water splashes and other kinds of particle effects. And we polish and refine timing over and over in passes until the characters move just like reality- and every character ends up moving the same.

…and none of that has anything to do with why people love to watch animated cartoons.

With the Pulcinella routine above, one man was able to take a lump of wood and some rags and bring them to life as a vivid character that moves, sounds and acts in a direct, grippingly expressive way. Not only that. He did it in real time with no retakes! We can learn a lot from puppetry. Instead of focusing on the surface details of entertainment, we should focus on the raw core of fun that lays at the heart of any great performance.

The following is a Punch and Judy show by Professor Whatsit (Christopher van der Craats)…

Punch and Judy Show

LINKS

I hope you find these posts useful. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments.

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

TheoryTheory

This posting is part of a series of articles comprising an online exhibit entitled Theory.

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Thursday, December 14th, 2023

Theory: 3D Design Inspiration- Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

When an artist who animates with drawings looks to reference for stylization techniques, he might look to modern UPA style cartoons. These can often give him ideas for interesting shapes or ways of handling the line. But these sorts of flat designs aren’t much help to a puppet or CGI animator, because 3D characters need to be volumetric so they can inhabit three dimensional space. A flat UPA character won’t translate. So where does a CGI or puppet character designer look for ideas about stylization?

Well… one great source is American Indian Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls
Click to see in 3D!

Kachinas are very important spiritual symbols to the Hopi and Zuni tribes in North Eastern Arizona. They represent natural life forces that are able to provide protection, fertility or healing. There are hundreds of different Kachinas in the Hopi culture, each one with a specific personality and representational meaning. The Kachinas aren’t thought of as gods, but rather as a shadow society, with family relationships and lives of their own. There are Kachinas that embody the wind, the sun, stars, thunderstorms, birds, animals and even ideas, like motherhood or fertility. The most important Kachinas are referred to by the Hopi as Wuya.

Kachina Dolls

The Hopis and Zunis dress up as the Kachinas for planting and harvest festivals. They dance and sing in costume and give the children of the pueblo wooden dolls of the characters as gifts to protect them and teach them about the culture. (The Kachinas are looked upon by the children as a cultural equivalent of Santa Claus because of this custom.)

Kachina Dolls

The Navajo tribe didn’t have Kachinas in their culture, but the proximity of the Hopi and Navajo reservations created a sharing of ideas, and now many Navajos carve Kachina dolls too.

Here are some examples of the masks worn by the Kachina dancers…

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

The word “Kachina” can be used in several contexts… It can be used for the characters representing natural spirit powers, the costumed dancers at the festivals, the dolls given as gifts to the children, or to describe the crude souvenir dolls sold to tourists.

Kachina Dolls
Souvenir Kachinas sold along Route 66 in the 50s and 60s
Kachina Dolls

The simplest way to tell a souvenir Kachina doll from one given to the Hopi children is to look on the feet for a signature. Tourist Kachinas are almost always signed and have the name of the Kachina. Ones given by the Kachina to the Hopi children is never signed, because the children are told that the Kachinas themselves made it for them.

Kachina Dolls

Senator Barry Goldwater had the world’s most significant collection of antique Kachina Dolls, which he willed to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. The collection illustrates the progression that Kachina design went through from the 1890s all the way through the 1950s. If you are ever in the area, it’s well worth a visit.

Kachina Dolls

As you look through this gallery of Kachina dolls, take note of the wild stylization and the variations on a single character. Each Hopi artist has his or her own style and approach to carving the dolls and the designs have changed radically over the past century. Earlier examples are more like outer space creatures, while more recent ones have more realistic human proportions.

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls

It’s easy to get stuck in a stylistic rut, designing characters that look just like other character designs. Instead, step outside of the box for inspiration and you’ll find that the possibilities in design for animation are limitless… and a lot of fun too!

Stephen Worth
Director
Animation Resources

TheoryTheory

This posting is part of a series of articles comprising an online exhibit entitled Theory.

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Friday, September 8th, 2023

Inbetweens: Jiri Trnka

Jiri Trnka was one of the greatest animators who ever worked with puppets. There is a wealth of information on his art and career on the web. Here is just a small sampling…

PHOTOS

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

FILMS

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

ILLUSTRATION

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

Jiri Trnka Puppet Animation

For more information on this great animator and illustrator, see…

Jiri Trnka DVDJiri Trnka DVD




DVD collections of Trnka’s important puppet films have been very hard to come by in the past. Luckily, there is a really good one available right now… The Puppet Films of Jiri Trnka It’s a bit pricey, but well worth it. Recommended.

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