Last year (and possibly earlier?) Beck shows featured puppet performances. There’s a nice description of a concert at Cup of Coffey.  Youtuber jeffreyharrell got a good shot of the show they did at Bonnaroo:

There’s a number of different performances posted on YouTube.  Here are some more…

This one is labeled by fockinpauly as “2006-10-21 Jersey City, NJ”

This next video is not as great quality, but still okay.  ok4mymemory has noted that the show was in Dublin.

And here’s a music video featuring the puppets:

By popular demand, the new Muppet of the Month is (drum roll): The Swedish Chef!

The Swedish Chef’s Video Cookbook

Videos of Puppets hopes your kitchen benefits from this unofficial video guide to Swedish cooking. You may or may not want to try these recipes at home.

Not Swedish Chili

Ingredients

• The spicy spicy
• The hotsy totsy
• Pepper sauce

Combine and serve on finger. (May asplode head.)

Squirrel Stew

Ingredients

• One tree full of squirrels
• One crazy Swede with a meat cleaver

Chop, taking care to avoid other wildlife.

Cake

Ingredients

• One talking cake
• One irritable chef

Give the chef a baseball bat, and stand back.

Banana Split

Ingredients

• One bananananana na
• One crazy dance troupe

Spaghetti

Ingredients

• Spaghetti noodles
• One spoon

Keep noodles in line by whacking with spoon.

I’ve been a bit slacking lately, but I have seen some updates in a couple of wonderful shows.  Since I last mentioned Showbeast, there have been four new videos posted, including two ads for an exciting national tour (!!!), and this episode called “Baltimore Beastwork:”

 I think that show is getting weirder.  I don’t know how you can measure that kind of thing, but it’s definitely weirder.  In a beautiful kind of way.  And then, let’s not forget about the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre.

The Socks got to sing a song with Dean Friedman about a week ago:

Oh, and next is a tour of Edinburgh with the very knowledgeable Socks. It isn’t so new, but it’s hilarious. 

Teaser for my next post: There needs to be a new muppet of the month perhaps?

This Greg the Bunny show sounds vaguely familiar, but I think I just totally missed it. Apparently, according to Wikipedia, it was a cable access show in NYC, and Fox tried to turn it into a series, which failed terribly because the creators weren’t allowed to be as edgy as usual, and it was diluted into a corny sitcom. That’s a real-life story that sounds like the puppet version of Wayne’s World! I was pleasantly surprised to find a post by lu terceiro pointing to a page on the Independent Film Channel (who picked up Greg the Bunny), where you can watch all kinds of recent, hilarious “webisodes.” Here is the first episode of the less-than-it-could-have-been Fox series:

It looks like the IFC has done a lot more with the show.  At least, that’s the impression I get on YouTube…

Here’s Greg the Bunny going to a rave, on the IFC.  A great bit of semi-reality tv!

I’m a fan.  So much cooler than that “for-me-to-poop-on” dog on Connan.

Thistledown Puppets has a great series of skits on YouTube. It’s really funny. And the creator, Philip Hatter, has made a ton of really awesome puppets.

In this first clip, Big B. Wolf sells his DVD on how to get the ladies. I didn’t notice at first, but as pointed out elsewhere Wolf has a gold tooth, which is totally pimp.

Then, in this next one a neurotic pig interviews the puppeteer:

Goat reads Leonard Nemoy. This is my favorite–it appeals to the geek in me, in just the right way.

Gustavo Thomas recently had a great post on Chinese shadow puppet theatre. His site has a video showing behind-the-scenes how the shadow puppets are operated (at the end of long, skinny sticks). Here’s a view from the audience of the show Thomas vlogged featuring the Monkey King, a character who can change form (6 1/2 minutes, Wuzhen Dongzha, China).

Next is a clip from a documentary film A Life in Shadows.

This looks like a really interesting film! It’s still in production.

They also just recently posted a new trailer:

On to other shadow-puppety stuff. Jim Weiner put together an interesting version of the Hansel and Gretel story. In addition to the nice visual effect, there is a really fabulous use of music and sound.

Phil Collins, Genesis, Land of Confusion. How could I, up until now, have forgotten about this video? I have a blog featuring puppet videos, and I neglected to post The Land of Confusion. The singularly most disturbing musical incorporation of on-screen puppetry ever. My reference list is a little convoluted for this one: a post at Puppetbuzz referenced a post at PuppetVision which referenced the original post at Culture Bully that featured the Top Five Music Videos to Ever Feature Puppets. I love all those websites so I had to give them creds. Srsly, though, here’s the video:

I didn’t realize how closely Phil Collins resembles a potato until he was so deftly represented in puppet form.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the first place award went to Mr. Oiso’s Flat Beat video.

Check out Lejo. Thay are hilarious puppets made with nothing more than two eyeballs and a rubberband. And they are really wonderfully performed! An awesome post at Fort Awesome recently turned me on to this silly awesomeness. Here’s a sample. You can view many more videos and learn about Lejo’s workshops and shows on the website.

Okay okay, just one more!!  This next one is one of my favorites, cuz there’s song and dance!

 These things are great.