All About Muppets

Hashim Haider is an Indian puppeteer, writer, and actor who is best known for playing Akshar Kumar on the Indian co-production of Sesame Street, Galli Galli Sim Sim. When he joined the show in 2006, he was initially a puppet wrangler before given the character during the second season. Hashim even got to help make Akshar Kumar one of the most prominent Muppets on Galli, though during the 6th season he was a constant character under the name Hero. Haider got to work alongside other Indian puppeteers on Sim Sim such as Ghazal Javid, Sangya Ojha, and Babita Kurdiya Rachoya, to name a few. Outside, he works as a freelance puppetry artist across Mumbai, India, as well as being co-founder of the Indian puppet company The Puppetarians alongside Sanya Ojha. I'll bet the two developed a co-worker thing while on Galli prior to founding the company. It must have been an honor for Hashim Haider to work on an international co-production of Sesame Street and be trained to puppeteer by Martin P. ...

Jay Tyson is a puppeteer, filmmaker, and puppet designer/builder who only did one Muppet production, the feature film Muppets from Space as an additional performer. He is more well known for doing his own puppet projects for screen and web. Jay could have also performed on The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland as both films were shot in North Carolina at the same production facility. Tyson probably was more interested in doing his own thing and working solo most of the time. Outside, he created the puppet films Coffee Impossible, PODS, The Story of One, and many other puppet shorts, all of which can be found online. He also wrote and produced several stage plays involving puppetry like The Time Machine and a version of the classic Frankenstein. Jay Tyson also designs and builds puppets for films such as The Mill, not to mention several television pilots. Other puppet related independent films and web series he made have included Royal Follies, 99 Acre Woods, and fan parodies like Off Tr...

Larry Reed (also known as Charles Lawson Reed III) was a puppeteer, designer, director, and producer who was best known for his work with shadow puppets. In fact, he was one of the first Western artists to train in traditional Indonesian shadow theatre during the 1970s when he traveled to Bali. Larry was best known by people for being the founder of ShadowLight Productions, a company that showcases shadow puppetry to wider audiences. Reed's major projects within the company have included Shadow Master, The Wild Party, In Xanadu, Coyote's Journey, and many more. The company even got to provide guest shadow puppets for the Kapiti Plain story during the second season of Between the Lions. In a lot of the productions mentioned above, he was either the designer, director, and/or producer of each show, which consisted of live music and an ensemble of puppeteers, actors, designers, composers, etc. Larry Reed really outdid himself when he introduced shadow puppetry to wider audiences, ...

Beth Hathaway is a puppeteer, fabricator, makeup artist, and costumer who is known for her work in films and some television shows. As a puppeteer, some of the films she did have included Jurassic Park (and its first sequel), Spy Kids 1 and 4, Inspector Gadget, and Cursed. As a fabricator, Beth did Austin Powers, The Chronicles of Narnia, Abominable, Sharkboy & Lavagirl, and numerous other films. In addition to working in the art department, Hathaway also appeared as herself on the Henson Company game show Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge as well as on other productions. It must have been an honor for her to appear alongside Brian Henson on that show. As a costumer, she worked on TMNT: Out of the Shadows, The Hateful Eight, and even on The Masked Singer from 2023-2025. There just doesn't seem to be anything Beth Hathaway can't do when it comes to films, even though she didn't do any Muppet projects (yet). Though it must be exhausting for her to work on numerous ...

Noriko Nishimoto was a Japanese-Australian puppeteer, puppet artist, writer, and director best known for doing freelance work throughout her career. Her career started out in Japan, spending 16 years as a performer, writer, and director for Osaka's La Clarte Puppet Theatre before going freelance. Noriko was soon discovered by Australian puppetry director Peter Wilson in 1980, who invited her to Australia to perform at the Festival of Perth in a performance of Faust. A year later, Nishimoto was invited again to join Wilson's company, Spare Parts Puppet Theatre as a puppet master. After a three-year tenure down under, she relinquished her Japanese citizenship to take up Australian citizenship. Nobody can blame her for doing that, because that was a huge opportunity that impacted her career over the years. After a time as being puppet master of Spare Parts, Noriko Nishimoto became assistant artistic director in 1987 then ten years later became the artistic director. She soon stepp...

Doug Kincaid is a performer, writer, and artist best known for working with both puppetry and mascot costumes throughout his career. In 1977 at age 15, he co-founded The Kincaid Karacter Company with his brother William Kincaid, which eventually became one of the greatest known national producers of mascot costumes. It's amazing that Doug managed to form a company when he was only a teenager, a company that later developed and manufactured iconic mascots in America. From 1978-1981, Kincaid and his brother worked at Six Flags Theme Park in Missouri, playing costumed characters, performing in the puppet theater, and creating sets/characters for the haunted attractions and commercials. The two brothers were also a team on television within two children shows, D.B.'s Delight and Gator Tales, even though William left the company to pursue other careers in 1989. It's too bad he never met one Muppet performer in his career, but he was probably busy. In the summer of 1993, Doug Kin...