I made this puppet for a health-care advocacy group. In a short video, the puppet will wreck hospitals, clinics, and maybe even get to eat some ambulances and doctors. I’ll be doing the puppeteering today, so I’ll post a link as soon as it is available. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that fire will be breathed.

The puppet is made from urethane foam covered with liquid latex and acrylic paints. I also added UVA foam teeth and claws, and some red LED lamps for eyes. Steel rods inside the puppet can be used to move the arms, and there are two dowels that fit into sockets located at the back of the puppet’s knees so that the puppet can be “walked” without a puppeteer’s arm inside.

Of course this isn’t THE Godzilla. Godzilla has powerful lawyers with radioactive law breath. Let’s just say he’s a Destroyosaurus. Or possibly a Destructiodon.

 

One of the things I make at Sesame Street is graphics for some of the packages and labels that appear on the show. (And sometimes a sign for the dressing room of a guest too.)

 

These drawings were made to look as if they were drawn by Elmo. But they weren’t!

 

This bicycle was rebuilt from a machine that was used the previous season. I only ended up using a few pieces from the original machine since it functioned in a very different way – the contestants needed to be hit in the face instead of the groin, so the new machine needed to be completely re-designed.

A big challenge was designing the wheel to carry the tennis balls into the tennis ball launcher, since they needed to be metered out one-by-one without binding.

 

I had fun making a system of wooden gears to operate this mini-catapult. The mechanism tightens slingshot rubber bands, and a pull-cord releases the catapult arm.

 

I’m working in the Art Department of Sesame Street, and I made plenty of letters and numbers for the 41st season. Most were made out of foamcore or blue foam, but I did make some “7’s” that I scored so that they would break apart easily when Cookie Monster chomped on them.

 

I made this out of an old exercise bike, a right angle drive, PVC pipe, steel pipe, gears, chain, and four giant flyswatters. When the bike is pedalled, the wheel of flyswatters spins to hit a contestant in the face.

 

I made a crane designed to look like an engine hoist using some square tubing, simple hardware and casters. The pink claw was made out of some PVC pipe and fittings (with some clips added to the ends so that they would pull on a contestant’s hair.)

 

Anchor and Arrow both begin with the letter “A!” I made these out of blue foam and acrylic paint for a guest on the show.

 

I worked on this skill crane’s new head-sized claw and pneumatic setup. It could be kinda scary. Jason Singleton and Courtland Premo did lots of work on this machine – it was pretty rickety when it first arrived.