All About Muppets

Andreas Forster is a German puppeteer and actor who performed the AM mother Moni and the German version of Cookie Monster on Sesamstrasse. He also played various episodic characters such as a wolf, a frog, and a blue monster. Andreas has even puppeteered Ernie for the Sesamstrasse 30th Anniversary special, as well as played Mr. Johnson in this photo. Forster has been performing freelance for over 34 years according to his website and still is. Some of his other freelance projects include Kaptn Blaubar, Hurra Deutschland, Vivaldi Show, and numerous advertising contracts. He has also acted on-screen in various television shows across Germany like Lindenstrasse, Stromberg, and Weibsbilder. It seems that anyone who can do freelance like Andreas Forster must be very active and healthy. Other puppeteers he worked with include Iris Schleuss, Andrea Bongers, Martin Paas, and Carsten Morar-Haffke, to name a few. There just doesn't seem to be anything he can't do when it comes to puppetr...

Colin Penman is a Canadian makeup artist, puppeteer, builder, and sculptor who is best known for his makeup effects for television and film projects. As a puppeteer, he performed on Ants in Your Pants (as one of the ants), The Fuzzpaws, and Santa Calls, all projects produced by YTV. Colin has also provided sculptures & animatronics for Ruffus the Dog and Panda Bear Daycare since he got trained by Robert Mills. Penman is more popular with his makeup effects on many different productions. His film credits include Pacific Rim, Total Recall, Hairspray, and the Saw franchise. As for television, he did makeup effects on Monsters (also doing a full-bodied role), Goosebumps, Defiance, and The Killjoys, to name a few. Some of the other puppeteers Colin Penman performed with include Marty Stelnick, Ben Deutsch, Jason Hopley, and Yolanda Yott. He seems to be more well known doing makeup effects on productions within the horror genre like in the ones mentioned above. He even won an award for h...

Brad Williams was a puppeteer, designer, and teacher who was best known for being the co-founder of the Pandemonium Puppet Company. He was also well known for Pinwheel, designing and performing almost all the hand puppets. Brad has even been the main actor and a graphic artist of Hocus Focus in the credits. Williams did not perform in any Muppet project but he did work with Craig Marin and Olga Felgemacher while doing Pinwheel. For freelance work, he toured extensively doing live puppet shows, often with his personal puppet known as Zabar. I've read on Wikipedia that he's named one of the artists whose legacy inspired the National Puppetry Conference, an annual celebration. Brad Williams' life did not last very long, for in 1993 he died from being injured in a car accident. It's too bad he died so soon because he was doing so well puppeteering across America. At least he was never forgotten by those he worked with over the years and Pandemonium Puppet Company is now in ...

Stoney Ripley is a Canadian puppeteer and writer who served as one of the additional puppeteers for the Sesame Park special Basil Hears a Noise. Other than that he is best known for working on Blizzard Island as both a writer and performer. For that show, Stoney was paired with Terry Angus, Tim Gosley, and Jamie Bradley for they all puppeteered characters for the whole series. It's a pity there is no high quality image of Ripley himself except in the picture above. For Basil Hears a Noise, he got to work alongside other puppeteers besides the Blizzard Island ones such as Bob Dermer, John Nolan, Kathy MacLellan, and Bruce Hunter, to name a few. After doing one of the two projects, nobody seems to know what happened to him since, at least I don't think. Stoney Ripley must have done more projects featuring puppetry or maybe he did more on Sesame Park, there just has to be a source for the latter. At least he got to work alongside performers who did Sesame Park as well as other Mup...

Kamela Portuges was a puppeteer, writer, production designer, and builder who was known for being co-founder of Images in Motion, Inc. alongside Lee Armstrong. Before co-founding the company, she worked at Chris Walas studios as a special effects artist for The Fly 2. Kamela did many TV shows and films such as Being John Malkovich, Baby Einstein: World Music, MonkeyBone, and James and the Giant Peach, to name a few. Portuges was also a talented sculptor and created numerous puppets at IIM such as the Malkovich marionettes and toy prototypes for Leapfrog Toys, Simple Wishes, etc. She was even an expert puppet rigger and builds radio/cable controls for puppets. In her later years she entered the 3D world, designing & printing puppets through a 3D printer. Kamela Portuges is probably the first puppeteer ever to make them through a printer. In addition to Armstrong, some of the other puppeteers she worked with include Michael Wick and David Alexander. Sadly her work at Images in Motion...