Thanks Dave for clarafying things up from a professional point of view.

As much as I love robots and appreciate the art of animatronics (I own some robots and one that is a very high end one)....I find it really hard to replace such a specific art of puppetry with a robot....to this day I have not seen a puppet brought to as much life as a human can bring to a puppet.....but maybe some day in the far future I may be eating my words and be unemployed as far as a puppet maker and performer...lol.

Daryl H

Hi Daryl -

Actually I agree with you completely.  Animatronics will never replace puppetry.  The combination of movements that an expert puppeteer can bring to a puppet far exceeds anything that can be done with motors and gears.  I watched one performer at a tradeshow for fairs in Las Vegas last year performing across the aisle with his marionnettes.  Not only were they unique in design, but every move he made proved his artistry.  He combined standard movements with watching the speed at which parts of the marionnette moved or fell and adapted his performance.  He made them swing across the stage and move limbs directly and by influence from others.  Doing half that with animatronics would require a hundred microscopic motors, years of study and months of programming.  It was wonderful to watch and it kind of made me feel good to be able to understand the level of craft he displayed in part because I could see how totally impossible it would be to do mechanically. 

I think the strengths of puppetry vs. animatronics are in the reactions and integration of audience response into the performance, the ability of a puppeteer to manipulate multiple areas of the puppet by moving his hands or body inside the puppet, the strength and speed of the human arm, the leverage and weight a person can bring to bear and the flexibility that all gives to designing a performance.  Animatronics benefit from being able to do exactly the same thing time after time, being able to reach into and move places that humans can't and in movements that might be impossible for humans to do unaided.

Net-net I think they're different arts that can build on each other but are not replacements for each other.  You've got nothing to be worried about, even in the far future.