Pablo answers your questions!

We bought Doowop when he came out as a new puppet and I was wondering how do you keep his hair straight up? Should I use Hairspray or is there something else?

There are many ways to keep Señor DooWop's hair standing straight up. You could scare him very badly just before a show. Or you perform upside down (I think maybe that would keep his hair straight down, no?). Or, si, you can just put some hairspray on it. Be sure to cover his eyes when you spray because it hurts muy to get hairspray in your eyes. Also, it is a muy bueno idea to brush out the old spray before you put any new spray on. That way it doesn't build up into Aztec ruins.

I have been looking for scripts that would celebrate the USA. You know July 4th and that type of stuff. Would you know of the whereabouts of such stuff? We have hosted you guys before at Fairlawn in Parkersburg and I just loveeeee your puppets. Very good quality. OK, now when can we really expect the new ideas that you took the year off to work on? Or are you stalling?

Mr. Deny

Dear Mr Deny, (It is pronounced like "denny" - not like "deny" as in "refuse to accept," si?)

It is funny you should ask for such a program, since Puppet Productions DOES have some.

Now, depending on whether you want live or Memorex™ -- a little joke there for people who are Pablo's age -- we have the following choices:

Say Something Good About America - this is a 12½ minute musical production in the shape of neighborhood kids putting together a show. It has comedy as well as several familiar patriotic songs and an original "wave the flag" kind of song entitled, "Say Something Good About America." This pre-recorded program can be found on the Entertainment CD.

Seasonal 2 CD has mucho shorter shows that are also muy bueno for 4th of July programs. One is called "If My People;" a very funny show centering on God's people getting their spiritual lives in order to improve America. The other, "Stars and Stripes" explains the meaning of the American flag.

As far as live shows go... we have nothing. Perhaps one of our readers will like to write something muy fantastico and submit it for possible publication. If it is good enough and we print it, they win a free puppet! CLICK HERE for details on that.

Thank you for loving our puppets, Mr Deny. Oh, and in regard to your question about the new ideas... you'll just have to wait and see like everybody else.

I have been asked to speak at Boys and Girls Camp this year. I want to be sure all my ducks are in a row so I am planning early. I will be taking my son along to work a single puppet that I will talk to. The strollingstage looks like just what I need. My question is this, it's says that the puppeteer "wears" the stage. Is it free standing? How does it work?

You can keep ducks in a row? You are muy talented. The highest number of ducks I have ever been able to keep in a row is one. But that is another story.

As far as the Strolling Stage goes, the puppeteer does, in fact, actually "wear" the stage. It works like a backpack and only weighs 11 lbs, so even the wimpiest puppeteers can handle it. I'm not suggesting that your son is wimpy; I'm just saying how easy it is to use. Your son could be like Popeye. I don't know. But whether the wearer is like Popeye or like Wimpy, he sees out through the black curtain, while the audience cannot see in. Visibility is quite good, considering the person inside is looking through fabric. And, since it is worn (and not free standing), the puppeteer is able to move the stage around any way he wants and perform at the same time! Caramba! How cool is that?

Now, depending on the tallness of your son -- you didn't mention his age, so I'm just covering all the bases -- you may have to "pin up" the lowest part of the striped curtain, so he will not be stepping on it, si? We have used it with puppeteers ranging from 4'11" to 6' 3" without modification. It is muy bien!

What is the name of the stage paneling that was used in the last training events? Where can you buy it?

The material we used to create the muy bonita set for last year's School of Puppetry is called "Ultra Board." You can find out where to purchase it by visiting the following link: http://www.ultraboard.com/ultraboard.html Click on the text link at the top that reads "How to Purchase," then follow the links to get the info you need. We used the ½ " black Ultra Board but you may not need that much thickness. Ours had to travel for 4 months and be set up and taken down 5 times a week by our clever and highly skilled Training Team who are known for their muy especial talent of destroying expensive equipment very slowly. We used ½" Ultra Board because we wanted to be sure the set could last the whole trip. It did.

Did I say that right?? I am reading about how others "hang up" their puppets. Someone mentioned puppet rails? No comprendo... but I'll show you my "puppet tree"! It stands about 6 feet high! My little family says adios for now!

Your Español is muy good for a person from a state that doesn't border any spanish speaking country! I have sent your pictures over to the news editor who sent them back and wanted to know why you were dressed as a giant cockroach and riding a unicycle? Then I sent him your real pictures and he has published them in the News Section. We still have many questions, though, so stop teasing us and send some more specific información about how to build and use this thing you have made.

I am using the strolling stage for a nursing home ministry. I want to play a guitar number but I am having difficulty on trying to attatch the guitar to the rod arm puppet. I use my right hand for mouth movement. Any suggestions?

Caramba! So, sorry for the delay. Those responsible have been sacked.

Without seeing la guitara in question, it is muy difficult to be very specific. However, we have attached guitars using straps over the shoulder and a piece of Velcro to stick the guitar to the front of the puppet. If your guitar does not have a strap, you can make one using decorative ribbon from a fabric store. We also stitched the "chord hand" fingers of the puppet together around the neck of the guitar so the puppet seems to be holding it. See? Si. Since you are right-handed, you most likely will want to have the puppet play left-handed so you can use the puppet's left rod. That may make la guitara look upside down depending on the kind of guitar you have. In performance, though, not too many people will notice.

I am wondering about your workshops for 2007. My daughter attended one of puppeteer workshops in Tulsa this past year and wants to attend another one. It was fabulous! She learned so much and had a great time. Let me know about your plans for Tulsa, Ok.

I am muy glad tu hiha, I mean, your daughter enjoyed our Workshop last Spring. Our team enjoyed being there, too! In 2007, though, we are going to be muy mas busy working on some other projects, so the workshop tour schedule for 2007 is nada. If you are interested, CLICK HERE for the official explanation.

Another one sent to me and it wasn't even a question.

The BEST way to store puppets is on puppet rails. We have ours attached to the walls on our puppet room. Keeps them aired out (no stinky puppets here), their hair doesn't get messed up and they can see what is going on!

TBohannon

The rails can be handy to be sure. We used to use them here at Puppet Productions about 30 años ago. But really, the BEST way to store puppets is whatever is BEST for the people who are doing the storing. If you have a lot of available wall space, then rails might be muy funcional for you. If you don't, then whatever you can do to keep your puppets from being crammed into stinky storage is muy bueno!

WHATS UP WITH THE HORRIBLE FABRIC THAT THEY USE FOR THE CLOTHES THEY SEND THE PUPPETS IN? Where do they get this stuff? Bright is fine, but this polyester/double-knit 1970's stuff is crazy. I love the puppets, but can we get some decent clothes?

(Notice my extravagant greeting.) I seem to get the impression that you are just a tiny bit disappointed with the clothes your puppets came wearing. Apparently, clothes make the puppet, eh? You will notice I do not bother with clothing myself, but for those of us who do, here's how it works.

You probably don't realize it, but Puppet Productions actually makes, in our Texas factory, muchos thousands of puppets every year. It takes muchos, muchos thousands of yards of fabric to do so. Mucho more than we can just go down to JoAnn's fabric store and buy. So we have two choices - go to a fabric broker and take what he has, or purchase special run yardage directly from a mill.

Now, purchasing from a mill mostly guarantees that we will get exactly the fabric we want, but it means we must buy at least 1,000 yards at a time. Purchasing from a broker means we can buy in smaller quantities (still mucho larger amounts than from JoAnn's), but we can only buy what they have available. At last count, we actually use over 50 different styles/patterns/types of shirt fabric because, when customers buy many puppets at the same time, they do not want them all dressed the same. We also use 20 different colors/styles of skin fabrics and 15 faux furs for hair.

You can see that just purchasing fabric is a mucho expensive proposition and that we must cut costs anywhere we can. With that in mind, we have decided we MUST spend the money to guaranty that the puppet skin is the right fabric ALL the time. So we order it directly from the mills. (By the way, sometimes the mills don't get the recipe exactly right for our fabric and that means the stretch is different or the color a little off or even that the surface of the fabric "pills" or wears unevenly.) But we simply can't afford to special order the shirt fabric we use. That means, we must buy it from brokers and we always buy the best they have to offer. It is simply a rare thing for their best to be anything especially nice.

And so, mi amigo meticuloso, this is why the shirt that comes on your puppet is maybe not so "sweet." But you can fix this! Go get something you like better at a thrift store or garage sale or wherever you like.

We have taken our puppets all over the world with us. In fact, this summer they went to Mexico and Bolivia. Our problem is, they are getting stinky. How can we get them smelling good again?

Ah, los puppets muy smelly... the disease with no name. Lauren, do you know why your puppets have gotten smelly? It's because you let sweaty puppeteers handle them. And we must all face facts: sweaty puppeteers stink in many ways. Then, after the stinky puppeteers have sweated all over the poor, defenseless puppets, you pack them away into a closed up trunk or something. I know you have to get them from place to place. I'm not blaming. I'm just saying. But that's the problem. Let's talk about la solución. Si, the answer. .

Of course, the most effective, solución primero would be to clean your puppets inside and out to remove the stale sweat and assorted odors del body embedded by the puppeteers. This is not actually possible because the part that has the most sweat is the part you can't really get to -- inside la boca, I mean... the mouth. And do not even think about running your puppets thorough a washing machine.

No, the first thing you must do is let the puppets air out a while. Get them out of the trunks or bags or boxes or whatever you keep them in and let them breathe. For several weeks. This will stink up the room in which they are breathing, but it is the price you must pay. Then, after they have had a chance to...how do you say... offload some stench, the liberal application of Febreze™ inside the puppets and inside their carrying cases will help muy mucho. Make sure you let them dry out after applying the Febreze™. They will not smell new, but they will not smell like the dumpster behind the China Dynasty Buffet and Mongolian Grill either.

Do you have any suggestions on how to pack the larger puppets such as the Innovas or Characters? Ralph and Elmer get irritated because they're always placed on the bottom of the trunk. And to be honest, I'm tired of coughing up $20 after each gig for Ralph to go to the chiropractor to get his neck straightened out, due to the fact that it's always turned to the side for the 30 minute ride. I'm continuously finding Mr. Crabbe gasping for air due to being smothered in Rufio's long hair, and Felicia and Maggie can't be set next to each other, because Maggie gets jealous that Felicia gets more stage presence than she does, and things can get nasty. So pretty much, what can I do to save space without bringing a second trunk? Can ya help me out?

P.S.- Vinnie and Sandi are forever fighting over who gets shotty on the way there. I've tried the silent treatment, grounding them from the Christmas program, and even threatened to take them out of the ever popular Sneeze Song. What else can be done?!

Let me get this straight, amigo. You want me to tell you how to put 8 lbs of sugar into a 2 lb bag? It's very simple. Just eat 6 lbs first. ¡Holy Frijole!

It sounds to me like you're doing all that can be done except the obvious and that is to BRING A SECOND TRUNK! And Ralph is a notorious complainer anyway so stop paying a chiropractor. Just tell him to grow up. Tie Rufio's hair in a ponytail. Give Maggie more lead roles. Let Vinnie and Sandi dook it out - last one standing gets to ride shotgun. ¡Ole! I solved your problemas en todas.

Now, tell me the truth, Señor Nueva York. You don't really have the troubles packing, do you? I think you really just wanted to see your silliness published, didn't you?

I recently purchased Wendy and I am having a hard time keeping her hair from getting matted. How do you suggest I store her to keep her hair in good condition? We use many of your puppets in our ministry and they are great!

I have received e-mails from some of my friends that work with you Phil. They love the ministry but they say the living conditions stink. This confirms it. Wendy has bed-head or bag-head or cabeza de la caja or whatever you want to call it. At least you are repenting.

Okay, so you want to store your puppets with grande big hair or long eyelashes or fluffy feathers (like me), in such a way as to not put any pressure on those parts. Wendy has grande hair and long eyelashes. It may not be practical, but the best solution is to make a special stand for her to sit on when she isn't at work or travelling. You can do this easily, by making a base from wood (minimum 1" x 8" lumber) and gluing a dowel (at least ½" dia and 18" long) into it. It would be nice for Wendy if you rounded off the top of the dowel. If you had some microphone stands hanging around not doing anything, you could use them instead.

Basically, any method that allows Wendy to be free from "packing" in her off time will be bueno for her. You can refluff her hair (after travel) by holding her upside down and shaking her head un poco - a little bit.

Our new little people seem to eat their yarn hair...don't pretend you don't know what I mean. When the head moves the yarn hair sticks to the mouth or lip area. Is there a heavier yarn your company might consider using to alleviate this? My puppeteers (right, like I own the kids) are not excessive gestur-ers, so I wonder if we are weird, or does anyone else have this problem. I know, we're weird. Thanks for noticing me.

Look, mi amigo, if you already made up your mind about your "weirdness," who am I to say it is not so? But cereally, I mean seriously, eating the yarn hair is a problem for many pequeño puppets. Puppet Productions either has to use the yarn that is easy to get OR we have to buy something that is not so easy to get and required mucho dinero. That drives the prices up and/or limits the number of puppets of that kind we can make. So, for now at least, the yarn hair is as it is.

Where does this leave you? Amigo, you have choices muchos.

*Braid the hair. Braids don't get eaten so much but maybe they aren't the suave and sophisticated look you prefer. So, do something else.
*Find some fancy or metallic chenille stems at a craft store and gather the hair at the sides winding the showy stems down the hair past the mouth.
*Do some hair styling a'la Princess Leia from Star Wars.
*Let the hair hang naturally and anchor some invisible fishing line around the strands at key points (you could use a dot of hot glue to hold it in place under the hair in back if you don't have pony or pig tails).
*Use of bobby pins and/or barrettes as you might with a real little muchacha. (By the way, no amount of wishing upon a star will transform your puppets into real girls and boys. I think they must be made of wood for this.)
*Hair nets? Forget it. They look muy malo, very bad on everybody.

Those are some ideas. Part of what makes puppetry an art is learning and adapting your craft. Find out how you can defeat those hairy mouthed moments for your puppet singers/actors.

When will the winner of the script competition be announced?

Charlotte ( Wall Heath, United Kingdom)

Muchas gracias for asking! We are beginning to receive many scripts and are very excited about it. Señor Editores tells me that he will make the selection around the end of the month for a script to be published the month following. You see? Si? Bien!

Lucinda "Cindy" Gutierrez (She didn't tell us where she was from or we'd have included that.)

Some of my amigos store each puppet on its own individual stand. Some hang them upside down, individually, in plastic bags from clips on hangers (like regular closet hangers). Some put many in una caja grande. I mean... a large box or tub.

The main thing is you want to keep them protected from dust and heat and water, but you want to be sure they are not sealed in an airtight container because condensation can develop and your puppets will end up with very smelly mildew or worse. You also want to be sure they aren't crushed into the space in which they are stored. They can develop creases in their faces or damage to their eyelashes (if the have them) or noses. Lay them nicely next to and on top of each other like good amigos.

So, generally, it's more or less a question of what's the best way for YOU to store them. Base your choice on your space available and the environment in which they will have their tiny little siestas.