DO you know Kermit the frog, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Grover or Bert? Some saying ‘yes’ and some ‘no’. Okay, these puppets have earned great fame since they first appeared, years ago, in TV series such as Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock.

And around the same time we had amazing local children’s programmes like Kalyaan and Uncle Sargam that also featured puppets in them to convey humorous, serious or educational messages to their audience.

This art of manipulating puppets is called puppetry. But do you have any idea about how these puppets are handled? Or the mechanics involved behind these cute and smart looking puppets?

There are many kinds of puppets and there is much to discover about them, so let’s begin with how puppetry started. Puppetry is believed to have originated about 3000 years ago. There is evidence that they were used in Egypt as early as 2000BC, as wire-controlled, articulated puppets made by clay and ivory have been found in Egyptian tombs.

While puppet theatre is mentioned in both Aristotle and Plato’s writings, no specific details are given regarding the art.

Thus puppets have been a part of history and gained fame primarily because it is a visual art and can be used to communicate with the people who cannot read or write. Thus this easy entertainment involving manipulation of puppets started to be used as a way to provide entertainment as well as education. Even today, many organisations use it as a tool to deliver spiritual, educational and basic awareness messages across the world, especially in unprivileged regions.

However, puppetry is not as easy art as it seems. It involves full concentration and controlled movements by the puppeteers so that the message or the story is conveyed to the spectators perfectly.

Over the centuries many new forms and variations in major puppet types have emerged however, we are exploring some very commonly used types of puppets around the world.

Finger puppet

THESE little cute puppets fit onto finger. They are made from either fabric or paper. These puppets have facial features, which are a mouth, eyes, pinned or painted ears and could have a tiny cap. These puppets have limited movement, which is restricted to a finger of the hand.

Sock puppet

THEY are particularly simple type of hand puppets made from a sock and they are operated by inserting the hand inside the sock; then one can move his hand up and down to give the of the movement of the mouth (speaking). Sock puppets are very common because they are easy to make and require little skill to manipulate.

Like finger, sock puppets also have little scope of movement so they are not professional and are mostly used in satirical or childish works at home or school.

Hand or glove puppet

THERE are many variations to a hand puppet or glove puppet. If the puppet does not have a movable mouth, three fingers on one hand become the neck while the thumb and the pinkie (little finger) become two arms of the puppet. This type of puppet is often called a glove puppet.

Human arm puppet

IT is also called a “two-man puppet” or a “live-hand puppet”; it is similar to a hand puppet but is larger and requires two puppeteers. One puppeteer places a hand inside the puppet’s head and operates its head and mouth, while the other puppeteer wears gloves and special sleeves attached to the puppet in order to become the puppet’s arms, so that the puppet can perform arbitrary hand gestures.

The two puppeteers work the puppet simultaneously, offering a wider scope of movement and a lot more realism, arm puppets are very popular and entertaining over the world.

Marionette or string puppet

ONE of the most difficult forms of puppetry to manipulate effectively is marionettes; controlled from above using strings or wires. Usually there are eight basic strings to a well-designed marionette. However, some marionettes can have thirty or more strings; sometimes there is a central rod attached to a control bar held from above by the puppeteer. The control bar can be either a horizontal or vertical one.

The basic strings for operation are usually attached to the head, back, hands (to control the arms) and just above the knee (to control the legs) for lifelike movement. This form of puppetry is complex and requires greater manipulative control than a finger, glove or rod puppets.

Rod puppets

THE puppet is constructed around a central rod secured to the head. A large glove covers the rod and is attached to the neck of the puppet and two rods for the hands. The puppeteer moves the metal rods attached to the hands and turns the central rod secured to the head to give it a movement.

Shadow puppet

THEY are mostly rod puppets, but are flat. They cast a shadow when the puppeteer manipulates them between a source of light and translucent screen. Shadow puppets can form solid silhouettes or be decorated with various amounts of cut-out details. Sometimes colour is introduced into the cut-out shapes to provide a different dimension and different effects.

A shadow puppeteer learns to move the puppet in and out of the light so its shadow grows and shrinks and goes in and out of sharp focus.

Water puppet

WATER puppets originated in the Vietnamese rice fields and are entrenched in the culture and traditions of the people. The puppets are very interesting and they act out various social, cultural and economic themes giving life to their art form.

These puppets are made out of wood and they are supported by stick or rod under the water which gives them their graceful movement and stability, the depth of the water theatre usually does not exceed four feet, which gives the puppeteer enough room to manipulate the puppets.

Stop-action /Stop-motion puppet

ARTICULATED dolls with movable joints, stop-action puppets are as old as filmmaking. Still very popular today, stop motion puppets are everywhere. Willis O’Brien, George Pal, Ray Harryhausen and many others made them an important part of motion picture history.

Today, animators like Wil Vinton and Nick Parks continue making magic by moving puppets frame by frame. The animation only can be seen when the sequence is run. This form of puppetry takes a lot of patience and a willingness to redo. Stop-motion artists prefer the title ‘animator’ to ‘puppeteer.’

Black light puppet

THESE puppets are operated on a stage lit only with ultraviolet lighting, which both hides the puppeteer and accentuates the colours of the puppet. The puppeteers perform while dressed in black against a black background, with the background and costume normally made of black velvet.

Bunraku puppetry

IT developed in Japan over a thousand years ago and formalised and combined with music at the end of the 16th century. It covers supernatural themes. Each puppet requires three puppeteers to bring it to life. The main puppeteer uses his or her right hand to control the right hand of the puppet. While the left puppeteer, depending of the tradition of the troupe, manipulates the left hand of the puppet and the third puppeteer operates the feet and legs.

Bunraku is called the most highly developed puppet theatre art in the world because the manipulators (puppeteers) appear openly, in full view of the audience.

Carnival or body puppet

THESE puppets are designed to be part of a large spectacle. So they are mostly used on traditional days or often used in parades or local celebrations and demonstrations.

They are at least the size of a human and often much larger. Therefore, they require two or more performers to move the body and limbs.

Light curtain puppet

THE light curtain puppet presentations use specifically focused light to highlight small areas of a performance, allowing the puppet to be seen while the manipulators remain invisible. The puppets stand on a stage divided into an unlit background and a well-lit foreground, meeting to form a ‘curtain’ of light. The puppeteer dresses in black and remains hidden in the unlit background of the stage while the puppet is held across the light curtain in the lit foreground of the stage.

Pull string puppet

A PUPPET consisting of a clothed body where in the puppeteer puts his/her arm into a slot in the back and pulls rings on strings that do certain tasks such as waving or moving the mouth.

Push puppet

IT consists of a segmented character on a base which is kept under tension until the button on the bottom is pressed. The puppet wiggles, slumps and then collapses, and is usually used as a novelty toy.

Toy theatre

IT is a puppet cut out of paper and is fixed at its base to a stick and operated by pushing it in from the side of the puppet theatre. The background scenery can be changed scene-wise.

Hand and Rod puppet

THIS style is used more by Jim Henson’s for his Muppets (the term his coined for his specially designed puppets). In this, a puppeteer uses his hand to move the puppet’s mouth while rods attached to the puppet’s hands animate the arms. You can see them in Sesame Street as well as in the movie The Muppets.

Quick facts

• Sesame Street puppets are ‘Muppets’, which is what Jim Henson called them.

• Big Bird and Snuffleupagus are body puppets. These are just mascot-style costumes that people wear. Well for the smaller ones like Kermit or Elmo, they are hand puppets with rods to move the hands.

• The original Kermit was made out of an old coat that once belonged to Jim Henson’s mother and the eyes were made from ping-pong balls.

• World Puppetry Day has been celebrated on March 21, by the International Puppetry Association, UNIMA, since 2003.