Marionette - Television and Film

Television and Film

With the rise in popularity of television and film, marionettes found a rise in popularity especially in children's programming. The story of Pinocchio and its Disney adaptation (Pinocchio), which was released in 1940, is a story about a marionette. In 1947, Howdy Doody introduced marionettes to Saturday morning television, with Howdy Doody (the main character) being a marionette, as well as some other characters.

In the 1950s, Bil Baird and Cora Eisenberg presented a great number of marionette shows for television, and were also responsible for the Lonely Goatherd sequence from the classic film The Sound of Music. Bil Baird also wrote a classic book on his work. In Australia, a program called Mr. Squiggle, using a marionette central character of the same name, ran for just over 40 years (1959–1999). Another program for children using puppetry was the Magic Circle Club featuring puppets Cassius Cuckoo and Leonardo de Funbird.

From the 1940s onwards, the BBC in the United Kingdom, produced a wide series of marionette programmes for children and then created The BBC Television Puppet Theatre based in Lime Grove Studios from 1955–1964, Usually under the title Watch With Mother The various programmes included Whirligig, The Woodentops, Bill and Ben, Muffin The Mule, Rubovia a series created by Gordon Murray and Andy Pandy. Later in the 1960s, Gerry Anderson with his wife, Sylvia Anderson and colleagues made a number of hit series, Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds, which pioneered a technique combining marionettes and electronics. This allowed for radio control moving of the mouth of a marionettes. The technique was patented and called "supermarionation". The programs have been shown all around the world and are now widely distributed on DVD. Anderson also made two films, Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6. During the 1970s in the UK TV series using marionettes include The Adventures of Rupert Bear, Mumfie and Cloppa Castle. Some marionettes appear in Pipkins namely Octavia Ostrich. More recently marionettes are starting to re emerge on the TV screen, Coca Cola Have used marionettes to create a series of adverts based in an office and music videos use them regularly as metaphors.

Team America: World Police is a 2004 movie made by South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker which uses the same style of supermarionation as Thunderbirds. Matt Stone and Trey Parker dubbed their version "Supercrappymation" due to the fact they intentionally left the strings visible, among other reasons.

Also appearing in 2004 was the full-length, award-winning marionette fantasy film Strings, directed by Dane Anders Rønnow Klarlund.

Pixar uses its own proprietary software called Marionette to create its animations but this has nothing to do with puppetry except in name.

Marionettes are featured in the 1999 film, Being John Malkovich. John Cusack played a manipulator who referred to himself as a puppeteer.

An important pioneer in American marionette performances is Anne Marie Gallagher. She has won many awards for her use of utensils and a puppet named Hamilton.

A marionette was also used in the Doctor Who episode "The Shakespeare Code". Marionettes are also starring in adult films that simulate sexual practices. These obscene films are known as marionography. Such films are produced by underground directors and are popular in East Asia.