One hundred episodes! How time flies! In honor of the hundredth Puppet Masters of None, the PMoN boys recap all the movies and shows that they have placed on the Space to Carol spectrum over the years. Which ones shall stay put, which ones shall be knocked down a peg or two, and which ones shall rise to eternal glory? Who can say? Listen in to hear the boys rehash all the old arguments over again, a little older, a little wiser, and a heck of a lot more pedantically! Join the discussion...

This week, your favorite ex-puppeteers head straight into the uncanny valley to talk about the most homicidal hunk of plastic ever stitched together: Chucky from the Child’s Play franchise. From his humble beginnings as a “Good Guy” doll to his long career of gleeful murder sprees, we’ll explore how a pint-sized puppet became a horror icon. Expect behind-the-scenes tales of animatronics, puppetry wizardry, and the sheer number of people it takes to make one tiny toy look terrifying. (Spo...

This week, your favorite ex-puppeteers once again spin the magical monthly muppet wheel, where it landed on guest star Señor Wences proving that sometimes the funniest puppets are literally on the back of your hand. Armed with his fist-faced friend “Johnny” and the ever-squished “Pedro,” Wences brought his old-school ventriloquism into the Muppet Theatre—and somehow kept a straight face while sharing the stage with comedian bears, diva pigs, and a frog with chronic stress. It was a mashup of ...

This week, your favorite ex-puppeteers grab their popcorn and a bucket of felt as they revisit the 1981 television special The Muppets Go to the Movies. Part clip show, part genre spoof, and all chaotic charm, this special saw Kermit, Piggy, and the gang lampoon Hollywood’s greatest hits—from westerns and silent films to musicals, monster flicks, and even a dash of epic melodrama. Along for the ride were guest stars Lily Tomlin and Dudley Moore, each gleefully throwing themselves into the Mup...

This week, your favorite ex-puppeteers tackle the foam-rubber fiasco known as Mac and Me—the 1988 E.T. knockoff so brazen, it makes you wonder if anyone at the studio had actually seen E.T. (or sobriety). We dig into the wobbly alien puppetry, the animatronics that look like they were powered by a car battery on its last legs, and of course, that infamous McDonald’s dance sequence that plays like a fever dream sponsored by fries. Along the way, we’ll explore how this cult catastrophe came to ...

This week, our two former puppeteers revisit the delightfully bizarre—and terribly provocative—Peter Sellers episode of The Muppet Show. Sellers arrives not as himself, but as every outrageously caricatured persona you can imagine: a fiddle-playing Romani, an overbearing German masseuse channeling Dr. Strangelove, a regal (and bearded) Queen Victoria, and a cryptic cameo as Inspector Clouseau himself. We celebrate Sellers’ chameleon-like genius—but we also confront the problematic stereotypes...

This week, your favorite ex-puppeteers turn up the heat—literally—as they dive into the towering, flame-bound tradition of Zozobra, the giant puppet who goes up in smoke every year at Santa Fe’s legendary Fiestas de Santa Fe. Standing over 50 feet tall and packed with gloom (and a lot of fireworks), Zozobra isn’t your average marionette—he’s a full-blown cultural catharsis. We trace his origins back to 1924, explore how a papier-mâché behemoth became the ultimate community puppet, and share t...

Puppet Masters of None! A podcast where two former puppeteers talk Muppets, puppets, and everything in between. Join us as we kick off season 2! Join the discussion on our discord! https://discord.gg/JDtWJrhPF6 Follow us on twitter @PMoNPodcast and on Instagram and Threads @puppetmastersofnone Find out more about the puppet masters on our website: https://puppetmastersofnone.wixsite.com/puppetmastersofnone Original Music Composed by Taetro. @Taetro https://www.taetro.com/ Send us a t...

This week, on PMoN your favorite ex-puppeteers leap headfirst into The Frog Prince—the 1971 Muppet television special that proved true love’s kiss is even weirder when the smooch involves felt. We revisit Kermit in his pre-Muppet Show side hustle, meet Robin the Frog in his debut role, and marvel at the gloriously oddball supporting cast (looking at you, witchy Taminella Grinderfall). Along the way, we hop through the special’s fairy-tale roots, behind-the-scenes Henson magic, and the slightl...

This week, your favorite retired puppet wranglers stomp into the latex-and-foam wonderland of the 1991 ABC sitcom Dinosaurs—the prehistoric family comedy that was part TGIF hug-fest, part biting social satire, and entirely animatronic absurdity. From Earl Sinclair’s mating dance to Baby’s wooden spoon, we dig into how Jim Henson’s Creature Shop brought the Stone Age to prime time—complete with full-body suits, radio-controlled faces, and enough sweat inside those costumes to fill a tar pit. A...

Annnnnnnnnd WE'RE BACK! And what a triumphant return it is! In this ogre-sized episode, your favorite former-puppeteers-turned-podcast-hosts dive headlong into the swampy world of Shrek the Musical—because nothing says "puppetry" like a talking gingerbread man and a 25-foot-long fire-breathing dragon. This week, the lads welcome not one but two fairy-tale royalty guests Jack O'Connell the director of Shrek the Musical at the Elkhorn Community Theatre and the show’s puppet designer and builder...

It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights, it's time to SPIN THE MUPPET SHOW'S MAGICAL MONTHLY MUPPET SHOW OF THE MONTH! And this time it landed on (drum roll) JOHN CLEESE! Premire member of legendary comedy troupe Monty Python, Mr. Cleese and the Muppets are a match made in heaven! John Cleese not only guest starred, but also wrote the episode as well, so you know it will be a good one! Will this one make it to an 8 on the space to carol? You'll just have to listen in to fin...

**SMASH** **BREAKS GLASS** Well folks, here we are with another emergency pod, reviewing another one of Heather Henson's Handmade Puppet Dreams films. This time we opted to forgo spinning the wheel to just go ahead and watch a film suggested to us by a friend over on the discord! (shout out to L_Troemel!) For the uninitiated, Handmade Puppet Dreams is a series of short films produced by Heather Henson and her puppet company Ibex Puppetry. Founded in 2004, Handmade puppet dreams has prov...

Don't you just love it when you are searching through the endlessly growing maze of streaming titles and stumble upon a puppet movie you've never even heard of before? We here at Puppet Masters of None sure do! This week Ben was fortunate enough to discover the Australian movie, Judy and Punch. Not only does this movie feature some pretty interesting marionettes, but it is a live action telling of the Punch and Judy puppet shows with a refreshing twist. From sausages to crocodiles to babies b...

"The sun is shining it's a lovely day, but you've got lots of bills to pay." Welcome one and all to Puppet Masters of None's second explicit episode! While we try to keep it family friendly on this show, the content we are review today is so adult, so vile, so incredibly depraved, we can't even talk about it without wading around in the muck ourselves, so here we are. This week the boys discuss part 2 of the Tony Award winning musical, Avenue Q! This mature Sesame Street parody has all the cy...

"The sun is shining it's a lovely day, but you've got lots of bills to pay." Welcome one and all to Puppet Masters of None's first explicit episode! While we try to keep it family friendly on this show, the content we are review today is so adult, so vile, so incredibly depraved, we can't even talk about it without wading around in the muck ourselves, so here we are. This week the boys discuss the Tony Award winning musical, Avenue Q! This mature Sesame Street parody has all the cynicism and ...

Love is in the air! This week on PMoN, the boys go back to the Muppet roots with the first Muppet Show pilot episode, The Muppets Valentine Show! For those counting this is ANOTHER pilot separate from the Sex and Violence pilot they discussed in episode 43. This silly holiday romp guest stars the incomparable Mia Farrow, and features some great moments from lesser known characters like Mildred Huxtetter, Crazy Harry ne Crazy Donald, and our big blue loveable friend Thog! Does this p...

**SMASH** **BREAKS GLASS** Well folks, while we promised some puppet history on Chinese dancing dragon puppets, unfortunately, life got in the way. (Now that Ben has a baby, we expect that to happen A LOT.) Since we didn't have time to do proper research, and we want to make sure to do Chinese Puppetry justice, we decided to save puppet history for another time and create a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency pod. To that end we created a brand-new wheel: the Handmade Puppet Dreams wheel! For th...

It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights, it's time to SPIN THE MUPPET SHOW'S MAGICAL MONTHLY MUPPET SHOW OF THE MONTH! And this time it landed on (drum roll) STEVE MARTIN! Once again, the PMoN boys have quite differing opinions on this one! While the boys both appreciate the comedy genius that is the legendary Steve Martin, they have different ideas as to how effective his brand of comedy happens to be in this particular outing with The Muppets. Who's who? You'll just have ...

Welcome back Ben, and welcome back to another installment of Puppet History! In this episode we attempt to answer that age old question: "What the heck even is a puppet anyways?!?" You'd think with a combined 10 years of formal puppet education and an over 30 years combined in the business, we'd have a pretty neat and straight forward answer for you, wouldn't you? Well rest assured folks, the classic cutthroat arguing over stupid semantics and meaningless details that you know and love from t...