Na , I am suprised that there is only one puppet on Australian TV at present. If there was an attempt at making a 'Dark Crystal sequel' in OZ, where are all the puppeteers and production? In Colombia we have maybe three major Kids TV shows with puppets, and an adult political satire. We are the only puppeteers on Christian TV at the moment, but there have been a few groups over the years. Last year I was approached at least three times about getting new puppet programs started, so interest is growing. In a couple weeks I will be attending a puppeteer's conference for the first time.(I just joined the Colombian association of puppeteers) It will be interesting to see who else has been working here long and full time.
Well, it was exaggeration slightly. For kids, there is plenty, even a few locally made shows that use puppets (sadly a lot of them are really doll wiggling, but a couple are quite good). What I meant was that for adults, there is only really one puppet on TV on a regular basis, and that is as a muppet-style performance (
http://heathmcivor.com/) on a few comedy/trivia/current affairs shows. Granted, I don't really watch a lot of home-grown TV so I'm probably missing something... then again, our government mandates that only 2% of all TV time is locally made (excluding news of course), and since American and British TV comes cheaper, the locally made stuff is relegated to reality TV (Australian Idol, etc), cop shows, and family dramas. In other words, not much puppetry opportunities anyway.
Where are all the puppeteers? Well, this is a *very* large country, so they're all over the place. The local puppetry organisation has about 100 members, and I'd guess that either that's the majority and/or plenty of puppeteers have never heard of it. Then you have the fact that most puppeteers absolutely need to tour and/or teach at schools in order to make any money, and you have the majority of them travelling (around Aus, or outside of it) and/or in places like Sydney where most movies are made. And most of the ones hired for Dark Crystal will be the ones already working on movies in special effects.
It's also worth noting that even theatre or film professionals here don't realise puppetry exists in this country, so getting it on TV - where there is a distinct lack of interest for locally made stuff by producers - is almost fighting an uphill battle. Unless of course you can come up with Avenue Q style wit/risqueness.
We too are having a conference soon: and there's another problem. There are very few actual events that get puppeteers together, and on a regular basis. Puppetry festivals are almost random, and there is as far as I'm aware, no one who is actively advocating for puppetry funding nor attention from the public. (Even our local association doesn't seem to do that)
(I should state that this is more of a dearth now than it may have been in the past. A lot of the people from the 60s/70s have died or retired, or may not be seeking to do TV shows. I know from my own childhood there were a lot more locally produced kids shows with puppetry in them - and maybe a couple of adult things too)
To say puppetry is under-represented here is an understatement. We have some pretty amazing stuff here, and lots of talented people, and a penchant for combining various techniques into hybrid forms of puppetry. I think the main issue at least in terms of TV is getting past the producers who don't seem to care about pushing the boundaries and making interesting TV; just cheap TV. Even our government-run TV station which produces the majority of the local programs play it safe.
