okay I remember once a long time ago when I was young wathcing nick jr they used to have an hour of muppets,
sometimes it was 2 episodes of the muppet show, sometimes it was the jim henson hour sometimes it was a shorter made for tv muppet movie....all I remember from thsoe movies was sweetums always started as a bad guy, and there was one called the frog prince staring kermits nephew anyways that's not what the message is about.
one of these episodes was a special jim henson hour where he gave a full behind the scenes look(of course all the muppets panicked. One of the scenes was show how they had the arm rod puppets like gonzo pick up items, they would do a special cut and then the next clip would have the item glued to the muppets hand.

My question is this I wont be using my puppet in a way where I could do that, so could I using posible fingers hide a decently strong magnet inside the puppets palm and a similar magnet inside the item I want them to pick up? Since I am going to be using the puppet at a renfair a good example of an item in question might be a flagon or sword or some such.

  glad you took the time to sign up. 

I could see it happen.....just make sure that the item they are picking up is VERY light and you don't swing it around to much for you take the chance that it may fall off.  Is this for camera work or live theatre?

If it is live theatre you are taking a chance that it may not work perfect each time and can become a little uncomfortable during the act.  It is very important that whatever method you use that it works right and consistently without fail.  It makes the procedure less stressful for you and the audience.

Daryl H

Magnets should work fine; just make sure you use 'earth' magnets, which are the really strong ones.

Another option would be to put a rod on the item you want the puppet to pick up.  To have the puppet pick it up simply move the hand rod of the puppet to the item and grab the rod of the item in the same hand.  Presto the puppet has picked up the item!

I would use both and rod and magnets.  the magnets make sure that the item stays in the hand easily and the rod gives you a way of releasing the object from the hand when you're ready to.

wonderfull idea!! I was experimenting with magnets for facial parts!

Magnets are a great way to do stuff like that.  I use them in my puppets' shoes to keep their feet together.  I have also put them in my chimp puppets feet to keep him standing where I want.

Just my two cents here...I work in television puppetry and I would be very careful of anyone trying to use magnets.  You may or may not realzie that Magentes and electronics are not agood mix. 

At school, I've had two monitors destroyed by curious children with magnets in their hands. 

On set you are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of high end equipment.  Imagine what the cost would be every time a puppet acidentally rested against a monitor or (heaven forbid an HD camera).  Then imagine if it were the "strong ones" as has been suggested. Yikes!

This may be a good idea for a live show, but I would not recommend it for any puppets being used for video or television work.  If you ever did, you shuold make sure to warn the producer about the magnets in the puppet.

Again, just my two cents.

Wao, is so true, that sometimes we forgot!

Thanks to remain us!

Miguel!

Thats a good point Kanja