I don't know why, but grotesque, even evil, puppet designs have been a staple of childrens media ever since Punch and Judy.
When I was a little kid I used to watch the Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney show (above) and at least once I got a terrible nightmare from thinking about the creepy way Jerry used to roll his eyes to the side.
A digression: Mike has a film showing Paul Winchell with a puppet version of himself. The body is one of the best I've ever seen on a ventriloquist's dummy.
Back on topic: one of the scariest kids show puppets of all time might have been Foodini from a kids show called (I'm guessing) "Pinhead and Foodini."
I've never seen the show...maybe it didn't play in my town. Was this character (above) a regular? He looks like a burn victim in the throws of great pain...something out of Dante's Inferno.
Above, another evil Foodini character.
Even the compositions in that show sometimes came off as evil...or am I imagining that?
Stories like the ones told by The Brothers Grimm are full of creepy ideas and yet my strong intuition is that these tales are good for kids. So where do you draw the line? I wish I knew.
11 comments:
Oh Uncle Eddie, we seem to have shared the same childhood. I recall the creep factor of Jerry M. and Knucklehead Smith. I even thought Farfel the dog was a little threatening always baring his teeth like that and the snap of his jaws after he said ‘chaaawwwcklet’ in those Nestle commercials got my attention, but then I was such a delicate flower back then. Have you seen any of the movies Edgar Bergen did where Charlie McCarthy was shown moving around and talking without Edgar? Creepy! We have a term in animation called the ‘uncanny valley’ where something has that unnatural quality that’s a little off putting. I think that can apply to marionettes (Howdy Doody, Bill Baird puppets) and hand puppets and ventriloquist dummies too. I still love a cheap thrill.
Joel: "The Uncanny Valley?" That's a useful expression! I think I'll start using it. Thanks for the tip!
An unfortunate consequence of the underground comics movement has been the proliferation of grotesque drawing styles. I'm all for weird and scary but but that doesn't relieve the artist from the need for appeal.
I understand the cartoonist's valuing appeal. I've enjoyed John K.'s blog posts on the importance of appeal and the cartoonist's ability to distill and exploit the essence of appeal, perhaps better than any other form of art. It seems inevitable, then, that cartoonists would challenge the supremacy of appeal in their art form. I know you've talked about r.crumb before, but I think you should expand on your previous opinions (which seem mixed), since I find it really interesting (I'm sure others would too) and I take it that's who you're talking about when you say "underground comics." Or do you mean to say amateur or bad drawing when you say grotesque? I was just reading Camille Paglia's Glittering Images and saw Donatello's Mary Magdalene, which is grotesque to the point that you forget appeal exists. What if the grotesque is appealing in its ability to deliver some truth about the time people are living in (like crumb's drawings, like hendrix's Star-Spangled Banner) or the human condition? Doesn't it have a place in art? -justin
Why are you perpetuating the myth that the Winchell-Mahoney Show was "creepy," instead of writing about how original and imaginative the show was, and how talented Paul Winchell was?
Anon: You got me wrong. I love Crumb's work and he's not who I had in mind when I mentioned grotesque underground art.
Mike: I only said that Jerry Mahoney's eye roll was creepy, which it is. It's still entertaining, though. I like Paul Winchell.
I followed that with crediting Winchell for the best ventroliquist puppet body ever.
Who'd you have in mind?
I only said that Jerry Mahoney's eye roll was creepy, which it is… I followed that with crediting Winchell for the best ventroliquist puppet body ever.
?? -- I have no idea what you're talking about, and I suspect you don't either. What does the dummy's body have to do with anything??
We already live in a world where pop-cultural illiteracy is rampant. Dismissing the innovative Winchell-Mahoney Show as "creepy" is simply sowing more ignorance. You do a disservice to your readers when you publish subjective, uninformed nonsense like that.
Mark Evanier wrote an excellent, knowledgeable, researched appreciation of Winchell a few years back. It was more than just hazy, off-the-cuff armchair opinions:
Here it is.
Mike: Yikes!
Anon: Good Lord! I'd rather not name names. Besides, I'm in no position to vehemently criticize since my own Worm cartoon had its share of unintentionally creepy moments.
I like that film, and I think it has many redeeming qualities, but I felt bad when numbers of people, even people who liked it, said they wouldn't show it to their kids.
Wow, I’m taken aback by some responses on this particular posting. I think in context of the images in this posting, the mention of Jerry Mahoney’s eyes, (and all ventriloquist dummies for that matter), are a little creepy. It in no way diminishes Paul Winchell as a performer anymore than Edgar Bergen’s lips moving diminished him. Both created characters we loved and that is the sign of a good artist. As far as ugly design goes, that’s pretty subjective and what I consider ugly may be the very thing that appeals to another.
Joel: True!
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