The Fast Life Puppet Company

Our mission here at The Fast Life Puppet Company is to reach middle school and high school students across the country. We preform shows that depict scenarios involving drugs and alcohol. We hope to be able to reach out to young students by showing them in a new way how drugs and alcohol are dangerous and life altering. 

The puppets we use are rod puppets.

 

We set up scenarios of the rod puppets (in a car drinking and driving and being irresponsible). We set the plot up by making the show comical to the teenagers. We use their slang and normal day activities they will relate to. We slowly introduce drugs and alcohol and show the students how the outcome will be for one who denies opposed to those who didn't. Hopefully the students will remember the story they might have related to through this performance during a time they are faced with a decision to abuse drugs or alcohol. 

Our first production will be "Friday Night Fights Back". This is a series of scenes with the puppets enjoying a Friday night football game on a nice fall night. The events of the night turn south fast when the characters decide to partake in abusing drugs and alcohol to celebrate their football victory. 

I found a homemade clip of a "don't drink and drive" puppet show. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7LWyBJj1jI

(gata love the part with the pig in the car) 

Shari Lewis & Lamb Chop

In chapter 9, I of course found Shari Lewis and her sock-puppet “sidekick” Lamb Chop interesting. I slightly remember Lamb Chop from growing up. As soon as I saw her picture during the reading I remembered and said “aw Lamb Chop!” My roommate stared at me like I was nuts and asked who Lamb Chop was. I was surprised she didn't know who that was. So I looked up clips of Lamb Chop and Shari Lewis to show her. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ0hM3HMHEg

Shari Lewis began at a young age. She was taught ventriloquism from the African American puppeteer John W. Cooper.  She created characters Lamb Chop, Charlie Horse, and Hush Puppy who were all a part of one of her programs called Hi Mom.  Shari was most famous for her character Lamb Chop.

Lamb Chop is a sheep with a self-confident spirit accompanied by Shari Lewis, her creator, as her ventriloquist. Lamb Chop once said during a show at the Carnegie Conference, “I am an Icon.” 

She’s also known for her interaction with Kermit the frog from Sesame Street. She appeared in Episode 3525 and was also featured in a celebrity “Alphabet Song” rendition from that season. Shari Said during an interview following Jim Henson’s death in 1990, “He raised puppeteering to an art form beyond people who just jiggle dolls. Lamb Chop and Kermit were very funny together. Kermit would get very rattled whenever she asked, 'So Kermie, how's the pig?’”

Sheri Lewis’s Lamb Chop and the others are an example on how puppets are used in educational purposes for children as well as how puppetry has made its way moving into film and television. Sheri Lewis was offered her own show by NBC called The Shari Lewis Show. The show was eventually turned into Lamb Chop’s Play-Along. This show received several Emmy Awards.

Sheri Lewis passed away in 1998. Her daughter, Mallory Lewis, became the voice of Lamb Chop after her mother’s death. She talked about media and puppetry in an interview for the Carnegie Conference in 2003.

 “Mallory Lewis, Lamb Chop's sidekick, said that for her, taking part in the video was a great opportunity to talk to others in her business because she works solo. What's more, the video was an interesting way to combine two different art forms -- media and puppetry.” 

"Art is a way of looking at things differently…"

 "It's a special way of looking at puppetry." – Mallory Lewis 

Muppets Steal Our Hearts

The Muppets are obviously a known part of American theater and entertainment. As most of us in this class, I would think the Muppets are one of the fist things that went through our minds when we thought about puppets. I know I was thinking that we would be learning about puppets just like them. My friends that I told about me taking this class thought the same thing. "You are taking a class on Kermit the frog?"

I think that the Muppets and Sesame Street are such a big and favorite part to the American culture because of the relationship most people have with them. I know these two shows have been around ever since I was little and for most that is still true. When you are young there is just something about animals that can talk and you always imagine yourself being there with them and believe that these puppets are talking straight to you. The Muppets also take us out of our world and into theirs. For that hour or how ever long the show is, we get to live in their world that is more complex and exciting in some cases than the average American.

I feel as if Americans connect more with the Muppet and Sesame street because they tend to reach out to us. Like the relationship between Kermit and Miss Piggy. There's no possible way that a frog and pig could fall in love in real life here in America. But the idea of love and the relationship they have connects to us as humans. I know I still laugh to this day when I watch them and sometimes even make connections to my own relationships and real life situations which makes the whole experience more comical to me.

Children also take a big role in the love for the Muppets and Sesame Street here in America as well. I think that once a child is watching these shows, like i did, they latch on to the characters and they begin to learn. Once they learn and grow to love these individual characters as if they were their friends, the parents then latch on as well. Everyone likes to see their children love and grow which makes the parents love and grow with them. As our generation progresses, we look back on the Muppets and Sesame Street as a connection to joy and laughter that filled our childhood in those moments when we were sucked into the shows.