From: patriot-AT-topcat.mip.net
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 14:46:54 -0400
Subject: Re: Chimp


At 08:13 PM 7/14/96 -0700, you wrote:

>Kewl!  The chimp looks way better in person than in photos. 

I can easily believe THAT ! <grin>

>P.S. we have a darling smaller chimp coming out in the stores for christmas
>this year that is so incredible.  It's about 20% smaller and I just got the
>prototype yesterday from China and made a few adjustments to it and approved
>it.   Ax

Is it the "Banana Buddy" or is it an entirely different "model", I saw a
reference to a "Banana Baby" mentioned as well ?

The one I mentioned was a "one of a kind" original and since this was  AT
LEAST twenty years ago, was made of fur cloth (naturally!), with a fabric
sculpted face (but with very good and espressive glass eyes as I remember)
and hands made from a soft black leather (probably kid as they were very
soft and "mouldable"). It created a sensation being carried around during
the festival.  It's builder had every right to be proud of his work !
Incidentally, Tim Rose was there (as a teenager) and did a great show.
A few "remenesciences" since I find that now =I= have become an old timer
(in puppetry terms at least !) and can go back further in memory that a lot
of the younger ones.  If it's innappropriate, I won't do it again ! <grin>
I seemed to have always had a great interest in puppets and HOW, I can't
imagine as I had never even seen a show, but I was fascinated.  I found
Bessie Ficklin's 
book on Hand Puppets and Edith Ackley's on Cloth Marrionettes.  And THEN I
found at the end of an article in one of the encyclopedias the signature of
"Paul McPharlin, Birmingham, Michigan"  (BTW, I'm not doing this to
deliberately "name drop" but it WILL occur !! <grin.).
With the naievete' of a child (I was in Jr. High at the time) I wrote him a
letter saying, in essence, "will you send me information about puppets".
Well, that did it, he ANSWERED and I have many letters, mostly on "penny
post cards (another thing of the past !), from him as well as some letters.
He pointed me to several books that I consider classics and still have,
Bessie Alexander Ficklin's book on Hand Puppets and Edith Flake Ackley's
"Marionettes, Easy to Make, Fun to Use" as well as sending me LOTS of back
issues of the Puppetry "journal" of the day.
It wasn't CALLED a journal then, I think (without digging them out) that it
may have been called "The Puppetry Yearbook" or something like as it was,
apparently published only once a year and was quite small.  BUT, it had
technical and construction hints and ideas and I was off and running.  Later
they were, or at least ONE was published in a hardback edition.
I also bought a lot of Paul's own publications (published during the war
when it was just "bare boards" for covers with only a cloth hinge !), and
finally got his "magnum opus" when it was published.  He also highly
recommended Marjorie Batchelder's book which I also bought when first
published.  Oh, how I yearned for one of his mass produced wooden
marionettes, but my allowance at the time wouldn't permit it and I think the
price was something like six dollars ! 
I think this was during the "courting days" and before they were married.  I
met her, years later after Paul was long gone and told her my story about
writing to him.  Her comment was that she had heard many similar stories of
how he took the time to answer queries.  He must have been a great person
and I'm sorry that I never met him "in the flesh" so to speak !
Puppets got me an "A" in English Literature that year as I made three
character hand puppets from "A Tale of Two Cities" which was our novel that
year.  Others made tumbrills and guillotines, and there were lots of them,
but my puppets were the only ones ! <grin>  
And, believe me, it wasn't easy with Ficklin's method of sawdust mixed with
flour paste and formaldehyde, with a "skin" of paper mache'.  (shades of the
safety discussion, those formaldehyde fumes were MURDER !)
I "graduated" to marionettes with Ackley's help and produced first her clown
"Wilbur" which was a real hit with family and acquaintances at the time, but
I went on to cloth bodies with moulded heads and discovered (before I saw it
in a book, I think) to wired cloth hands which were more to my liking.  I
think I have only two from those days with cloth heads and Ackley's
"pointed" hands.  I KNOW I still have a character puppet of Al Jolsen ("The
Jolsen Story" and "Jolsen Sings Again" movies were out somewhere along there !)
I had by this time learned to model in clay and apply paper mache' over it,
giving me hollow heads.  Poor Jolsen suffered from moths or beetles,
however, and though still recognizable, is kinda "holey" if not rightgeous !
<grin>
It was YEARS before I had an opportunity to go to a Festival and for many
years I didn't miss one !  Heck, I even became a board member.
That allowed me the rare privilege (and here comes the "name dropping" part
!) to sit and talk, have lunch with and enjoy the company of "luminaries"
the likes of Burr Tilstrom, Martin Stevens, Bil Baird (you should have HEARD
some of his jokes !  Very spicy ! ), Jim Hensen (and various others from the
Muppet gang), Jay Marshall, Margo Rose, Margarit Nicklescu, Vince Anthony,
Bob & Judy Brown, Wayland Flowers, Jim Gamble and even Sergei Obratsov (this
was at the UNIMA convention in Dresden, Germany in 1983) and of course many
others that don't immediately come to mind.  
When I found that the Americans were staying at the same hotel with
Obratsov, I KNEW we had been assigned the BEST that could be offered !
<grin>  We did, however, have to walk the length of the Alte Macht to the
Kulturpalast at the other end.  I often wondered if the Russians were driven
as there were NO taxi's to be had and the Americans and others had to walk !
<grin>
I was a bit dissappointed with the "welcoming" speeches at that convention,
which were HIGHLY "political" in nature.  I was surprised to learn that some
countries had even been denied visas to attend.  I was surprised because I
was on the host committee for the UNIMA convention in D. C. in 1980 which
was completely "a-political" in tone and which, incidentally, due to some
backstage machinations even allowed representatives from countries with whom
the U. S., at the time, did not have diplomatic contact.  I wonder if the
political "conservatives" would allow that NOW !! <grin>
I'm going to stop this as it may be inappropriate here and it's assuming the
proportions of a "memoirs" in any case.  If you want to hear more, just ask
me, I love to talk or write <grin> and I promise not to repeat myself or to
be so wordy here again!
David



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