When I was a kid, many of my favorite shows involved puppets. Captain Kangaroo, Mister Rogers, Sesame Street, and Kukla, Fran, and Ollie were all shows that were just plain fun, and a good part of that fun was from the puppets (and Muppets) featured in the show. Now a documentary tracing the evolution and popularity of puppets in America has made its way to DVD: Stories of the American Puppet. The program was originally broadcast on PBS in 2001 and won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing, and while it is a nice introduction to puppet history, its hour running time means that many outstanding and memorable puppet acts had to be omitted.

Puppets have been around for centuries and this documentary starts back in colonial times with reenactments of the types of street shows early settlers would have seen. They move forward in time to Punch and Judy shows, and then even elaborate stage plays intended for adults. In the 19th and early 20th Centuries traveling puppet shows criss-crossed the country and abbreviated shows were part of vaudeville and circuses.

It was in the 1950's however that puppets really became popular in America. With the advent of television, puppet shows became a staple of American life. With TV producers hungry for content to fill their broadcast hours, puppets, which are inherently inexpensive, started coming into people's homes on a daily basis. Programs like Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, and Howdy Doody became big hits and performers like Shari Lewis and Paul Winchell became famous.

This documentary traces this development and focuses on the puppeteers who advanced the art. There are many impressive people, many of whom I had never heard of before, that the creators profile. People like Bill Baird who preformed the puppet sequence in The Sound of Music, The Lanos Family who traveled the country with full theatrical productions, and Tony Sarg's Broadway productions and invention of giant character balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,

While the show does have a lot of information and is a good timeline of puppet history, the omissions are fairly glaring. Many big performers like Edgar Bergen and Jim Henson are discusses, but many shows are left out or barely mentioned. Less than two minutes are devoted to Howdy Doody, arguably the most famous puppet of all time, Captain Kangaroo is only mentioned in passing, and Mister Rogers with his puppet inhabited land of make-believe, is totally ignored. More modern puppet works, such as Jim Henson's work on films like The Dark Crystal are Farscape get passed over too, which is a shame. This would have been a much more impressive documentary if they had expanded it to 90 minutes.

Audio:

This documentary comes with a stereo soundtrack which fits the show. Some of the older TV clips have some background noise and distortion, but that's to be expected. The recent interviews and the narration are clean and clear.

Video:

The video quality is okay overall. The vintage TV and film clips are understandably rough, with very soft almost blurry images, scratches and dirt, and low contrast being the norm on the earliest clips. These segments get better as we move forward in time, and the latest ones look just fin. The interviews with scholars and puppeteer historians which were recently filmed don't have any significant problems.

Extras:

This is one of those rare discs where the extras are more impressive than the feature. The disc has a selection of puppet show clips and excerpts that lasts 41 minutes all together. (Unfortunately there isn't a 'play all' feature.) These are worth the price of the disc. This set includes an early Edison Kinetescope of two "Chinaman" puppets dancing, a pair of Tony Sarg productions; The Arabian Nights and Stonghenge Circus, and clips from famous shows including Sheri Lewis and Lamb Chop, Howdy Doody, and Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. There's also some lesser know shows featured including Foodini the Great and the Rootie Kazootie Club. One of the most impressive bonus items is Burr Tilstrom's The Berlin Wall, an excellent show that is performed with just the puppeteers tow hands.

Final Thoughts:

This was a good documentary, but by expanding it a bit it could have been great. They spent a little too much time tracing the very earliest puppet shows in America, and omitted some popular later TV shows. Partially making up for this is an excellent collection of clips and segments from TV shows and rare films. If you are interested in puppetry or the history of this art form this award winning documentary is a great resource. Recommended.