All About Muppets

Hakan Odabaşı is a Turkish ballet dancer and puppeteer who has performed Minik Kus on the Turkish co-production of Sesame Street, Susam Sokağı. The only other Turkish puppeteer he worked with was Erdinc Dogan who played Kirpik while Ozgen Eldek did the right hand. It's a pity the co-production only lasted for three years (1989-1991), then Hakan would have met more Turkish puppeteers, if there were any. At least Odabaşı gave puppetry a chance for a while before pursuing his ballet career. Apart from Susam Sokağı, he is mostly a ballet dancer who has performed in many shows, with his career beginning with the Ankara State Opera and Ballet. As a featured soloist, some of his performances have included Hamlet, Count Dracula, Cinderella, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Romeo and Juliet, to name a few. In addition to performing ballet dances, Hakan Odabaşı is also the artistic ballet director for the Kulis Sanat theater school. He is probably the only Turkish ballet dancer to puppe...

Lesja Liber is a British designer who is known for working on various Creature Shop projects during the 1980s. Her projects include The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, TMNT, and The Storyteller, while for Dreamchild, she also operated creature cable controls. Lesja is also the wife of former Creature Shop vice-president and creative supervisor John Stephenson, who also assisted on Dreamchild. Liber only did two outside projects; Return to Oz and Link, the former involved Brian Henson as a voice actor for one of the characters. It's a shame she doesn't have a solo picture of herself, the one above has her in the front right with five more Creature Shop designers (including Cas Willing). At least for Dreamchild, she got to work with a few Muppet performers on the cable controls; Mike Quinn, Melissa Whitmire, and William Todd-Jones (uncredited). I wonder if Lesja Liber is still alive today for nobody has heard from her since Living with Dinosaurs finished production. Let's hope that ...

Ronnie Burkett is a Canadian puppeteer who is perhaps well known by adults for his original theatrical marionette plays. An OC performer, he puppeteered on Harriet's Magic Hats (replacing Frank C. Turner as Ralph), Under the Umbrella Tree, Chicken Minute, and Little Star. But Ronnie's most well known work was a theatre play called Tinka's New Dress, which became his international breakthrough. Over the years, Burkett did countless marionette performances for adults such as Provenance, Old Friends, 10 Days on Earth, and many more. It's a shame though that he never did a Henson Company project in his life, however he has worked with several Canadian puppeteers who have. Puppeteers like Trish Leeper, Frank Meschkuleit, Jani Lauzon, Robert Mills, and Gordon Robertson, to name a few. Ronnie Burkett seems to be more popular with adults than he is with kids since he performed for the former more than the latter. In some of his shows, he toured the world from Canada to the UK t...

Pons Maar is a puppeteer, suit performer, actor, artist, and filmmaker who is best known for performing numerous suit roles for the entire series of Dinosaurs. He mainly played Roy Hess, characters voiced by Thom Sharp, and also Fran's body in early-Season 2 (before Tony Sabin Prince took over). Pons also did a suit role in Nissin Cup Noodles commercials and puppeteered faces of the gorillas on George of the Jungle. Outside of the Creature Shop, Maar began acting and arranging mime movement in Return to Oz before doing roles on other films like The Golden Child, Masters of the Universe, Theodore Rex, and more. During the 1980s, he served as the voice and performance model for Noid in the stop-motion Domino's Pizza commercials before times changed. As for puppetry credits, he puppeteered on Don't Eat the Neighbors, Phantoms, Can of Worms, and Team America: World Police (uncredited). Pons Maar only has one filmmaking credit at the moment and that is the dark comedy, The Job, ...

Jamie Bradley is a Canadian puppeteer, puppet builder, actor, writer, and director who has done various projects for both television and theatre. He puppeteered on Blizzard Island, The Mighty Jungle, and You & Me, all of which he performed various characters. Jamie also acted within numerous productions for both stage and screen, the latter includes Lexx, Sex & the Single Mom, Pure, and Trudeau II: Maverick in the Making, to name a few. As for stage, Bradley acted on many shows for different theatres such as Great Harbor, Reader Be Thou Also Ready, Uncomfortable Christmas, and more. In addition to acting, he also wrote many stage shows, fringe festivals, and CBC Radio/TV dramas, just to name a few. Some of the plays he wrote include Before the Leaves Turn, Jamboree, Titanic: The Fated Voyage, and Jukie & Her Dad. It would appear that theatre is something Jamie Bradley is more familiar with throughout his career though he does television as often as that. Some of the puppete...

Maria Happel is a German actress, director, and puppeteer who is mostly known for being the former two while being the latter in her early career. In 1986, she performed Leonie Lowenzahn in her first two appearances on Sesamstrasse before Andrea Bongers took over the role in 1990. Maria also puppeteered on Hallo Spencer from 1984-1985 as Casimir and Karl-Heinz. Happel is probably more known for both acting and directing for the stage (most notably in Vienna) or appearing on camera. Some of her film credits, usually acting, include Die Braut, Berlin '36, The Almost Perfect Man, and Alles inklusive, to name a few. She also made appearances on Grossstadtrevier and Tatort, not to mention being a regular on the crime series SOKO Wien since 2010. I wonder what sort of productions Maria Happel directed since most of her credits involved acting and (early on) puppetry. Some of her latest film acting credits include The Pool, Sachertorte, and Chantal im Marchenland (Chantal in Fairland in E...

Kathy Felker is a puppeteer and flight attendant who is another person who hasn't worked on Muppet or Henson projects but has worked with Muppet performers outside. She is also one of the only puppeteers to be a certified flight attendant as well. Kathy served as an additional puppeteer on The Puzzle Place and has also worked with the San Diego Guild of Puppetry on shows like Very Beary Nutcracker (she also created that one). Felker was even one of the Puppeteers of America for the winter of 2007. If only she would do a Muppet or Henson project out in California, then she would get to meet more Muppet performers than the ones on The Puzzle Place. Some of the performers she met on that show include, Terri Hardin, Bill Strouse, Joe Selph, and Drew Massey, as well as the principal cast. Kathy Felker has also been shown to be work with Pacific Coast Flyers as shown in the picture above and must be proud to do it. She has performed regular puppets and marionettes too so she should have ...

Susi Claus is a German puppeteer and voice actress who is known for her work on the Sesamstrasse series and spin-offs as well. For the spin-offs Pizza Mit Biss and Eine Mohre fur Zwei she performed numerous minor characters for many seasons. Since 2020, Susi has performed Abby Cadabby in new material on the show itself as well as dubbing her voice in the German dub of Mecha Builders. Claus should be proud to do so well on Sesamstrasse for many years whether it's on the series itself or on its spin-offs. She got to work with many German puppeteers on Sesamstrasse such as Martin Paas, Andrea Bongers, Iris Schleuss, and Carsten Morar-Haffke, to name a few. Outside, she performs a duck named Schnatterinchen on Unser Sandmannchen and also does a cat named MiWau on Moppi und MiWau. In addition to performing on children shows, Susi Claus also worked on a German competitive talent show called Puppenstars where she coached contestants and played a puppet named Betsy. I read she has also dir...

Tim Mieville is an Australian puppeteer who is well known for working on Farscape the entire series doing assistance for John Eccleston. He operated Pilot's body and the arms of Rygel, even taking over the role of head puppeteer for the latter when Eccleston left. Tim even got to both operate and voice a character in one first season episode which isn't very common for a Creature Shop puppeteer. Mieville also worked on a few other projects, including the film Babe: Pig in the City, an episode of E Street, and Petals. It's a shame though that there isn't enough information about him online. Some of the other puppeteers he worked with include Graeme Haddon, Sean Masterson, David Collins, and Fiona Gentle, just to name a few. I wonder if it was hard for Tim Mieville to do either complicated puppets or realistic animatronics for the Non-Henson Babe sequel. There doesn't seem to be a lot of puppetry projects he did in his life, some of his projects involved voice acting ...

Gerald Stadden was an English dwarf actor and suit performer who served as one of the performers for the walking/suit versions of characters on The Dark Crystal. Years later, he served as the stand-in for Marvin in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (doubling for Warwick Davis at times). Gerald should have done more Creature Shop projects in between the years of those films, but he was probably too occupied. Stadden has done tons of films and TV appearances outside of the Creature Shop throughout his career, starting with Return of the Jedi (an Ewok). Some of the films he did include Willow, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and History of the World, Part I. As for television, he made appearances on The Goodies, Space: 1999, and The League of the Gentlemen, to name a few. Gerald Stadden didn't appear on screen following production of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which means that the film was his last project ever. Nobody really knew the whereabouts of th...