I used to think of puppet-theater as a somewhat yesterdays media. You know: 70’ties like, join hands, sit in circle.
Not anymore.
Take this one, for example. For a month or two, my kids have jokingly – in this very distinct melodious and rythic way, that clearly suggest they are quoting something, somewhere – been saying “Dumbledooore” and “Se- Se- Severus Snape” to each other. The other day I heard it again, not at home, but in the local supermarket. One 13-years (or so) old girl said to another: “Have you heard it? Dumbledooore”.
Back home, I found out what it was all about. A very primitive youtube video with a great tune and a completely naked puppet-theatre, was the source. Simple, but effectfull: When I checked it out, I found it had some 21,5 mio views, making it number 16 on the youtube all-time high. Watch “The Mysterious Ticking Noise”:
But not only lowcost youtube-production embrasses the puppet concept. By the first of December, DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation) airs their Christmas-calender-show Yallahrup Færgeby – a pastiche over the 1974 puppet-production Jullerup Færgeby adressing the multi-etnic Danish society of today. Check out “en krammer til Osama” (“Hugging Osama”) here:
(Thanks to Tinne (no blog, no Google-results – yet:-) for tipping me)
Puppets indeed, are not yesterdays news.