Date: Sat, 11 Feb 2006 16:20:52 -0500
From: Andrew <puppetvision-AT-gmail.com>
To: puptcrit-driftline.org-AT-lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Nanalan'


Just some more info, following up on Mathieu's recent post about
Nanalan; the show is produced by the Grogs, a Toronto-based company
founded by Jamie Shannon and Jason Hopley. They started out maybe 15
years or more ago on Canada's YTV network doing puppets ("Grogs") that
interacted with YTV's on-air hosts. At some point they parted ways
with YTV over ownership of their characters (YTV wanted to own the
characters, the Grogs wouldn't give up ownership).

Nanalan' started out as a series of 3 minute interstials on YTV about
10 years ago, the DVDs of the YTV series are available in stores in
Canada and if you do some searching online. CBC picked up the show a
couple years ago and expanded it to a half-hour. They've declined to
renew the series for a third season, but it may be coming to PBS soon.

The puppets are not actually polyfoam, they're cast in foam latex and
then flocked. Mathieu was asking about Mona's eyes, they're just black
buttons that are very relfective; I use them for puppet eyes too and
pick them up at a shop on Queen St. West in Toronto. I visited the
Grog shop in Toronto a few years ago when they were about to shoot a
Nick series called "Michael's Island" (anyone ever seen it?) and their
puppets, sets and props are really amazing, fantastically detailed and
lots of fun. I think they're one of the most imaginative puppetry
companies out there right now. The Grogs have a new show on CBC (in
Canada) and Nickelodeon (in the U.S.) called Mr. Meaty.

I recently did a few Grog-related posts on my blog which anyone who's
interested may want to check out for a little more info:

http://puppetvision.blogspot.com/2006/01/nanalan.html
http://puppetvision.blogspot.com/2006/01/napoleons-history-of-world.html

I'll also be posting a little bit about Mr. Meaty in an hour or so on
the blog's main page at http://puppetvision.blogspot.com


- Andrew


--

The PuppetVision Blog
"The web's best source for puppet film and video goodness, delivered
fresh to your computer each day."
http://puppetvision.blogspot.com

Machin-X
"...where pixels meet puppets"
http://machin-x.blogspot.com
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