There is "a soft toy called the Monster Wolf Mini that is intended to scare off Japan’s increasingly aggressive bears and can be carried by hikers."

"The plushie, which can be attached to a bag or clothing, has glowing eyes and a built-in speaker that plays growling sounds at an adjustable volume.... That robot looks like a cross between Beelzebub and Basil Brush, with shaggy fur, a grotesque fanged face and glowing red eyes. When its sensors detect an approaching animal it flashes LED lights and makes a sound, played at random from 50 different recorded noises, including a car horn, barks, blood-curdling howls, the sounds of hunting rifles and human voices. Although it cannot walk, four piston-like legs add another level of unpredictability by moving the Monster Wolf’s body...."

I'm reading "The soft, fluffy toy designed to scare off killer bears/The Monster Wolf Mini will keep hikers safe with flashing lights and a built-in growl" (London Times).

That's from last February, but it was one of the clickable "related articles" accompanying a new article titled "Four injured as bear rampages through office complex/The attack in Fukushima is the latest incident in a part of Japan where animals and humans compete for space" (video of the attack at the link).

Here's Monster Wolf Mini:

One question remains. Who's Basil Brush?

"In 1981, David Bowie attended an Uncle Floyd performance at the Bottom Line nightclub in Greenwich Village..."

"... and later met Mr. Vivino backstage.'I said to him, 'How did you hear about the show?"' Mr. Gordon recalled. 'And he said, "Everybody talks about it," and that he and John Lennon and Iggy Pop used to sit and watch the show.' Mr. Gordon said that Mr. Lennon, who had been killed just a month earlier, had wanted to attend the performance. After meeting Mr. Bowie and his producer, Tony Visconti, 'Floyd says, "Jimmy get these guys outta here. We got a show to do!"' Jimmy Vivino said. Two decades later, Mr. Bowie wrote and recorded 'Slip Away,' a moody song about Uncle Floyd.... Twinkle twinkle Uncle Floyd/We were dumb/But you were fun, boy..."

From "Floyd Vivino, Throwback Comedian Known as Uncle Floyd, Dies at 74/His silly, vaudeville-style variety show was filled with his piano playing, skits, puppets and guest stars like Cyndi Lauper and Bon Jovi" (NYT).

If the game is scored by the quality of the guys about whom you said "get these guys outta here," Uncle Floyd wins.

Am I the only one who remembers Willie the Worm?

That is a puppet show — on WCAU Philadelphia — that got started in 1950. I myself got started in 1950, in Texas, of all places, but I emerged in January 1951, in the Philadelphia television market, so I had the great good fortune to encounter this simple worm character when I was young enough to get the sense that he was important and well-loved.

It must have been more than a half century since Willie the Worm crossed my mind, but my memory was jogged yesterday as I was walking through the neighborhood with Meade, and we stopped to look at an elaborate yard display that had a sign with the lyric "Whisper words of wisdom" from the Beatles' song "Let It Be." The painted letters were a bit blobby and misshapen, and Meade read it as "Whisper worms of wisdom." My memory whispered the name of that worm of wisdom: "Willie."

I'm so touched to find video of my long-lost childhood friend, the puppet Willie the Worm. But let me acknowledge 2 other Willies the Worm:

"The new job is not quite the same role that has made Wintour one of the most recognisable women in the world with her signature blow-dried bob and sunglasses and just-as-famous froideur."

"Instead, the title is 'head of editorial content, US'.... Over three decades, Wintour has transformed fashion from a mainly trade-facing industry to a billion-dollar celebrity and pop culture vehicle.She has turned Vogue from a monthly print magazine into an omnichannel digital brand.... 'Anna is basically the CEO of fashion and this new job isn’t that,' says a fashion veteran who did not want to be named. 'As we’ve seen at the other editions, these heads of content aren’t mini editors-in-chief — they’re quite muted figures. This person might be seen as ‘the new Anna’ from the outside, but Anna is still very much in control.'...There are those who say that, rather than marking a new era, this job indicates the end of one. As one industry stalwart puts it: 'This is very much an assistant position. Vogue dies with Anna.'"

From "Chloe Malle steps into Anna Wintour’s shoes at US Vogue/The fashion doyenne has stepped back from the day-to-day US Vogue editorship. Chloe Malle, the daughter of Candice Bergen and Louis Malle, has been confirmed as her replacement" (London Times).

The headline on the home page of The Times calls Chloe Malle "the daughter of Hollywood Royalty." Imagine having such parents!

"All I had to do was pretend to be entertained by their lewd gestures, and when Andrew cupped my breast with a doll made in his image, I only giggled away."

Wrote Virginia Giuffre, quoted in "Virginia Giuffre’s memoir ‘contains Prince Andrew puppet assault claim’/Posthumous memoir by victim of Jeffrey Epstein will be released in late October" (London Times).

Why did Andrew have a puppet of himself? Was this sex paraphernalia that he brought to the encounter? No. Epstein and Maxwell gave Andrew a puppet — a very ugly caricature of himself — from TV show "Spitting Image."

"I feel like people younger than I am have an idea of what [the] 90s were like that increasingly has little to do with..."

"... my actual lived experience of being a teenager/twenty-some[t]hing in the 90s. This clip in all of its awkward, heartbreaking, briefly, inexplicably lovely 'how did all of these people end up here together?' energy is exactly it for me"/"It’s remarkable how the vibe of everyone on-set changes when Elliott Smith starts playing the song, they all seem like people who’ve all fled their god’s command to seek truth and beauty, and then that song rises from the deep and swallows them all, even the puppet."

2 comments at Metafilter, reacting to this 1995 clip from the FX show "Breakfast Time."

Hosting the show are: 1. Tom Bergeron (later of "America’s Funniest Home Videos" and "Dancing With The Stars"), 2. Laurie Hibberd (AKA Laurie Gelman, who published a 2022 novel titled "Smells Like Tween Spirit"), and 3. Bob (a puppet):

Elliott Smith died, in 2003, of 2 stab wounds to the chest. He left a note: "I'm so sorry—love, Elliott. God forgive me.

"Weirdest thing you had to ban and why?"/"A puppet show where the puppets were made out of weed."

From "I’m a content moderator for a very famous short video social media"/"Ask Me Anything" (Reddit).

"The problem is here they want... White supremacy by ventriloquist effect. There is a Black mouth moving but a White idea through the running on the runway of the tongue..."

"... of a figure who justifies and legitimates the White supremacist practices. We know that we can internalize in our own minds, in our own subconscious, in our own bodies the very principles that are undoing us. So to have a Black face speaking in behalf of a White supremacist legacy is nothing new. And it is to the chagrin of those of us who study race that the White folk on the other side and the right wingers the other side don’t understand."

Said Michael Eric Dyson, talking about Winsome Sears, quoted in "‘A Black Mouth Moving’ That ‘Justifies and Legitimates’ White Supremacy: MSNBC Guest Says Winsome Sears Win Doesn’t Make GOP Racially Progressive" (Mediaite).

Do you know when you are speaking your own true thoughts and are not channeling someone's else's? Are you sure? Do you know when somebody else is speaking their own true thoughts and are not channeling someone's else's? I could see being eternally skeptical about whether anyone is ever truly speaking their own mind, 100% originality, but I'm just going to be skeptical of the people who choose to pronounce some and only some people to be the puppets of others. The selective puppet accusation itself might be channeling what somebody else is launching off the runway of your tongue.

When puppet accusations fly, I feel compelled — by my own true motivation of the heart — to post this video clip:

 

ADDED: Video of Dyson:

MSNBC guest on @WinsomeSears:

“There is a black mouth moving but a white idea running on the runway of the tongue of a figure who justifies and legitimates the white supremacist practices.” pic.twitter.com/P3O8ciTveG

— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) November 5, 2021

"In Athens... the puppet will befriend a minotaur and they will explore the city together. In Naples she is tired, has had enough..."

"... and will have a tantrum which, Vesuvius-like, releases energy, which will bring hundreds of dancers and musicians to join her. In Cologne, Amal will share apple pie with elderly people and hear their stories of growing up after the second world war."

From "Puppet of refugee girl to ‘walk’ across Europe along 12-week arts festival trail/Three teams of four puppeteers will accompany Little Amal from Turkey to Manchester to celebrate refugees" (The Guardian).

The "Muppet Show" disclaimer "This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures."

"Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together. Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe." 

The NY Post reports, adding "It’s unstated precisely what Disney considers to be offensive on the show, but some characters depict Native American, Middle Eastern and Asian people. And in season five, legendary country singer Johnny Cash is seen performing in front of a Confederate flag." 

"Native American, Middle Eastern and Asian people"? The ethnic group I remember getting poked fun at was the Swedish... 

 

But who cares about the feelings of the Swedish these days? 

As for Johnny Cash, he took his mark within some set designer's complicated notion of what "country and western" must mean and it had a Confederate flag and a U.S. flag as wall hangings:

These shows were made between 1976 and 1981. Basically, during the Carter administration. Disney wants to be able to keep showing them and has — clunkily but wisely — slapped on a warning to fend off demands that the show be taken off the air. I'd like to give Disney some support here. They have a big old archive and they ought to make it available, not replace it all with paternalistic... maternalistic pablum. 

I'm seeing some criticism like: "Nothing screams offensive like fury puppets. When I think of a cultural danger to society, it’s obviously Jim Henson’s Muppets." 

I object... and not just because that critic wrote "fury" for "furry." I object because that criticism is offensive to puppets.

Puppets can excel at delivering offense. Here's an example of striving to use puppets to offend:

 

From the clip: "[Puppets are] human enough to be believable, but imaginary enough to be convincing when they're doing things that are crazy."

Read about "Spitting Image" and its U.S. counterpart "D.C. Follies." There are deliberately offensive puppets — real satire. I'd like to see more of that — satire of specific individuals.

But many things done with puppets are just stereotypes. I know I had some marionettes when I was a child circa 1960. One was a clown. One was a cowboy. And one was a Chinese person. It was blatant stereotyping, similar to the idea of the Chinese seen in "Fantasia": 

 

"Fantasia" is, of course, one of the gems of the Disney archive. There are people today who would demand that no one be allowed to see that film — that film and many other works of art. Disney seems to be trying to manage the pressure. I wouldn't just laugh at Disney for taking its problem seriously and putting up a warning. 

"This program includes negative depictions" — ha ha. How can you do comedy without negative depictions? Isn't that the whole idea?

ADDED: "Gary, I hate to break it to you, but the world is on the brink of disaster...."

 

AND: Speaking of "South Park" and disclaimers, "South Park" has always — or it seems like always — begun with this disclaimer (which is also a parody of disclaimers):

"Maria Perego, an Italian puppeteer and the creator of Topo Gigio, the lovable mouse who became famous to American audiences..."

"... as a frequent guest on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' in the 1960s and early ’70s and was known worldwide, died on Thursday in Milan. She was 95.... Topo Gigio was a sort of cross between a puppet and a marionette; three puppeteers, hidden in a black background, moved various body parts with rods.... Ms. Perego and two other puppeteers were on hand to impart the movements, and a fourth provided Topo Gigio’s voice — but... Mr. Sullivan had not realized that someone would also have to serve as the puppet’s straight man. Mr. Sullivan, who was famously wooden on camera, stepped into that task for the initial appearance, figuring he would arrange for a professional comic to take over for later ones if the bit caught on. 'It was evident from the very first appearance, however, that the chemistry between Sullivan and Topo Gigio worked extremely well... The exchanges between Sullivan and the mouselike puppet revealed another side of the host, a warm and humanizing element.'... The appearances often ended with the mouse saying, in a thick Italian accent, 'Eddie, kiss me good night.' 'The line became famous... and it was not unusual for passers-by to call out, "Eddie, keees-a-me goood night" as Sullivan walked the streets of New York.'"

From the NYT obituary.

"It turns out that a surprising number of Axios AM readers are sticklers that the wildfire-prevention icon is properly 'Smokey Bear' — not 'Smokey the Bear,' as I blasphemously posited..."

"... in a 75th birthday note yesterday. The U.S. Forest Service says you're right. Alexander Great and Attila Hun tip their broad-brimmed hats."

Writes Mike Allen at Axios.

Similarly, it's Teddy Bear, not Teddy the Bear. And it's Mickey Mouse, not Mickey the Mouse. It's Bugs Bunny, not Bugs the Bunny. It is, however, Kermit the Frog. And yet...



... it's Fozzie Bear. It's also Yogi Bear, not Yogi the Bear. You can count on it, with bears there is no "the"... unless the bear is a pooh. I mean the pooh. Or... I have to concede... a panda (yes, a panda is really a bear). I'm thinking of Peetie the Sexual Harassment Panda.

"Before opening night, more than 12,000 people signed a petition calling for the theater to cancel the show."

"They argued that using a puppet to portray [the autistic character] Laurence 'dehumanizes autistic children' and promotes the harmful 'common misconceptions that we lack feelings and empathy.' They also slammed the play for focusing on the parents’ experience over Laurence’s perspective. These critics adopted the hashtag '#puppetgate' to spread the word on Twitter; many included another hashtag, #ActuallyAutistic, widely used by people on the spectrum.... The backlash took playwright Alex Oates by surprise. He wrote the script based on his years of experience as a care worker for a severely autistic child. He sought input from people on the spectrum and the parents of the child who had inspired the story. As for the puppet, it seemed more sensitive to him to use a 'creative medium' than to ask an actor to mimic the condition. The controversy over Oates’s play is just one example of a deep divide in the autism community: On one side are parents of autistic children with severe traits — including intellectual disability, limited language ability and self-harm — who say autism is a medical condition that needs often-intense treatment. On the other side are supporters of 'neurodiversity,' who maintain that the condition represents a neurological difference and a disability — one that society should accept and accommodate rather than try to prevent or cure."

From "A medical condition or just a difference? The question roils autism community" (WaPo).

The problem of the puppet and the play is only a small part of what's at the link. I was struck by that part of the article because I just watched "Won't You Be My Neighbor," the documentary about Mr. Rogers, and in a memorable part — I wish I could find a clip — there was analysis of the use of puppets on the show, which also used human actors. It was clear that the purpose served by the puppets was the opposite of dehumanization. Rogers used the tiger puppet to express his own most intimate inner self and to say the things that he as a human actor could not say. The puppet was more revealing, more feeling, more human. Off the show, and meeting children in person, he used the tiger puppet to connect with children. In one clip, using the tiger, he draws a boy into revealing his sadness about the death of his dog. There can be so much humanity in puppetry.

I could say many more things about the linked article. I'd like to say more about the neurodiversity movement, which I think is important and has a downside to it (which is that the less severely affected persons are the ones doing the talking). But in the interest of keeping a blog post short, I simply want to cry out against the disrespect for puppetry!

A beautiful and disturbing photograph.

"Ahmedabad, India/Muslim brides-to-be gather for a mass wedding ceremony" (The Guardian).

From an excellent collection of photographs, here.

ADDED: Here's a completely accidental juxtaposition I caused by dropping another one of those photographs into a message to Meade and then, several minutes later, dropping in this photograph — from Twitter — of an Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher:

I love the chiming colors! And the big pointy beaks are such a neat repetition.

By the way, "Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher" sounds very politically incorrect. They might want to change that. Not only are "oriental" and "dwarf" problematic words, but "Kingfisher" calls to mind the "Amos 'n' Andy" character.

What song beat "The Rainbow Connection" for the Oscar for Best Song in 1979?

As long as we're talking about the Muppets, I felt moved to listen to Kermit singing "The Rainbow Connection" (which, as I've mentioned before, is one of my all-time favorite songs):



That's from "The Muppet Movie," so it was eligible for a Best Song Oscar, and it was nominated. Why didn't it win? What beat it out? Here's Donna Summer in her amazing prime...



"Last Dance" won the Oscar.

IN THE COMMENTS: Mark corrects me. "Last Dance" won the year before. In 1979, the winner was "It Goes Like It Goes," from "Norma Rae," which is irksome.



I could accept "Last Dance" beating "Rainbow Connection," but "It Goes Like It Goes" is awful. And yet, it's fitting. The Best Song Oscar tends to go toward the awful.

"I hope you understand that we're puppets"/"You said we had free will"/"No, I didn't."

"Members of the Tennessee Air National Guard have been removed from their posts after using a dinosaur puppet in a re-enlistment ceremony."

The travails of a puppeteer.

"The White Man Who Was Inside the Black/Rasta/Mammy Puppet at the Fremont Parade Says He Is Not a Racist."

I am the anonymous puppeteer who had the large black puppet in the Solstice Parade, and got such a public drubbing for being racist.... I fully intended for my puppet to portray in the most positive and upful way the contribution of people of color to the celebratory spirit of humanity.

One lady (white) came up at parade beginning and said that because I was white my puppet was racist—I was hurt surprised and shocked. I thought she was maybe a little nuts (from that Trump guy being president, all the shootings of black people, and the general rise of open racism recently). I told her I did not share her perspective on my puppet but she was having none of it....

Behind me a bare assed Trump statue was flipping everyone off—was this why people thought I also was disrespecting them? I never felt so misunderstood in my life....

Upful.

"Clinton’s message has been that America is divided by race and gender, and suddenly we see a horrifying uptick in police shootings because it fits that world view."

"That blood is on team Clinton’s hands (my side), in my opinion. My guess is that the genders also have a more negative view of each other than at any time in history. That’s coming from my team as well. Trump, on the other hand, is drawing us a picture of America as one team and everyone else as the competing teams. In terms of persuasion, this is a super-strong message.... Just tell us we’re on the same team, and that we’re in a friendly competition with the rest of the world. I don’t care what gender and ethnicity you are, so long as you’re with me on the American team and helping to compete against the rest of the world. The words 'Team America' would be the strongest persuasion this country has ever seen. That framing loses the xenophobia and hate, and defines us as part of a friendly competition with the world that is good for all. The only downside is that Team America is the name of a hilarious puppet movie. But I think we can get past that. I’m on Team America. If you’re on my team, I don’t need to know anything else about you. We’re good."

Says Scott Adams.

I don't think you really get past the hilarious puppet movie. You plunge more deeply into it until the hilarity evolves — matures, blossoms — into truth.

"Artist Dalton Javier Avalos Ramirez created a piñata of Donald Trump for fellow Mexicans to take their frustrations out on."

Mr “Piñateria” Ramirez said he was inspired by Trump's presidential announcement speech, which included the statement: "They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime... They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting."



NOTE: I'm using my "puppets" tag to avoid tag proliferation and to collect this with other political effigies, only some of which are actual puppets, like this: