Pryor's Place CBS -TV
I was at the right place at the right time
when Richard Pryor decided to do a children's show for Sid
& Marty Krofft in the summer of 84. And was in the middle of finishing
my first project for the Kroffts when Michael Mealiffe, who was the supervising
manager of Sid and Marty's puppet shop, asked me if I could create a couple of
rat characters for their new Saturday morning TV show.
This was the first time my puppet designs
would air on network TV and I was thrilled at the opportunity to create the
puppets for the show. The characters of Al, and Marg Rat had a weekly-featured
segment on the show and lived in the sewers underneath the urban city that
Richard Pryor occupied. With little skits and oversized props there was never a
loss for something to do and things were being built weekly to keep up with the
changing demands of the script .
Along with Al, and Marg, the two principle
rat puppet characters on the show I created a third rat for the show. Of course
there was almost no production time to develop a third puppet but it was done.
Stan, was a droopy-eyed goofy looking character who was supposed to be Al's brother.
The interplay between the puppets themselves was very much a parody on the
Honeymooners, Ralph and Ed Norton characters and I used that as inspiration when
I created the designs.
Each puppet was equipped with side to side
moving eyes and dropping eyelids. Al and Marg also had moving ears and a tail
that wiggled. The design of the
puppets was based on Japanese Bunraku, full body hand and rod puppets and it
helped create the illusion that these characters were very small. The schematic
below will show you how they were operated. The puppeteers used a three-fingers
to manipulate props and set pieces. Visually it was a very clever effect the
resembled stop motion puppet animation. Most people still don't know how it was
done.
At the time the movie
‘Gremlins’ was a big box office hit and Richard and the Kroffts wanted to
create a different kind of puppet for the show with that same kind of appeal.
Twilight, a small alien creature from outer space, was the fourth original
puppet I designed and created for the show. Conscious of the shows urban and
ethnic setting, I felt I had a handle on the character traits this puppet
needed and prepared my design. When my sketch of Twilight was
submitted for Richards’s approval he accepted it immediately. Sid felt he
wanted additional changes made and had me scale back the size of Twilight's head.
He also had me remove the kid’s sweater. In one of my earlier concepts,
Twilight, had a beanie with the propeller attached.
Below you will see my
original concept sketch for Twilight, the way the puppet appeared on the show
and some behind the scenes production photos of Al and Marg Rat in
construction.
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