Out of sheer curiosity, does anyone know how the head is worn?

Thought Muppet Wiki might have some info. It's not exactly helpful, but maybe you'd like to read it anyway:
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Barkley

The head just appears to be worn like a hat, where the performer basically straps themselves into a helmet as the dog seems to have full movement of the head, its just a guess, but the head doesn't appear to have any real movement (like open-close mouth, blinking eyes, raising ears, etc..) so there would be no real need for a shoulder mount head as there isn't any animatronic movement, therefore I would assume it is actually pretty light and easy enough to wear, but I could be wrong and even if the head had a few mechanisms, they wouldn't be massively heavy anyway.

I Performed years ago in the touring version of the Tweenies as 'Doodles' the dog (and other characters) he is pretty much the same as Barkley, but the head was fitted with eye movement, blinking eyelids, raising eyebrows, raising ears and a moving mouth, the animatronics where all quite light in the head, but they where remote controlled and I had to wear a fairly heavy backpack with the rest of the mechanics on my back, so the head was worn as you would assume and I would think that 'Barkley' would be the same?!

From the Muppet Wiki, and what I have seen, I think only the mouth moves.  During your time as Doodles, did you ever see the "guts" of the head?  Curious what type of skeletal structure it might have.  I am debating on tackling something like this for an October convention.  White fur, Superman cape, and Superman shield on the chest.  Might just give me some incentive to work out :D  

And for those who have seen many of my costume threads, Robin Big Bird is still on the back burner, need to work on making the beak and feet smooth.  The robot needs some tweeking, but hopefully will also make an appearance in October.  Doctor Oscar is on hold until I can figure out a better harness system.  The box I carried around this weekend worked, but very poorly.  This project seems like it would be a good excercise in full body construction.  And I do have to start excercising :D

It turns out that the puppeteer inside barkley pulls a trigger on one front leg arm 'stilt't open the mouth and then turns his head to the side to close the mouth!! well that's is cool!! I did see the 'guts' of Doodles head many times and all the head was made of was a very light fibreglass shell with a few L200 struts to attach the inner 'helmet' to (the sort of helmet that I wore to transfer all my head and neck movements to the dogs head) and then all the animatronics where simply applied to the right places using what I can only describe as the little clips that attach an ice hockey mask cage to the front of the ice hockey helmet and fibreglass purpose made units, so not at all difficult to remake or copy, I have made tons of these sort of puppet costumes in the past and there aren't any hard rules, its really whatever works!! I do like the idea that Barkleys mouth movement was controlled directly by the puppeteer wearing the costume, this is what I usually do, but didn't realise that sesame street where utilising such simple methods, I always thought that things like that where very technical!!

I wonder if a book on The Lion King would help. They did a lot of trigger pulls via the hand for the masks on their heads - re: the lions. Zazu was a rod-controlled puppet too, and I bet there would be lots of other things they did with the costumes that you might find useful.

Great idea Na!  Wouldn't have thought of that.  Will put this here for future reference:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lion-King-Pride-Broadway/dp/0786863420/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1400595945&sr=8-2&keywords=lion+king+broadway

I do have a plan B already in place, because this project scares me a bit :D  Especially at my skill level.  But it is one I will move toward.  Jeezbo, may have many questions in the coming months if thats ok

Great idea Na!  Wouldn't have thought of that.  Will put this here for future reference:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Lion-King-Pride-Broadway/dp/0786863420/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1400595945&sr=8-2&keywords=lion+king+broadway

I do have a plan B already in place, because this project scares me a bit :D  Especially at my skill level.  But it is one I will move toward.  Jeezbo, may have many questions in the coming months if thats ok

I did have a browse through the book years ago and didn't think it was up to much via insights - but then I was in a bookstore and didn't look at it for long. I'm thinking actually that you might have some luck - cheaper luck - searching through online interviews for designers for the show. As I recall there were a few that had a lot of detail about how things worked.

Ahem, of course I happen to have some bookmarked...

http://www.adn.com/2009/09/04/924245/whats-behind-those-wild-lion-king.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/05/01/tem_thulede01.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20100117125337/http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/A_look_at_how_Lion_King_bird_takes_off.html

oooohhh...thanks Na!

oooohhh...thanks Na!

You're welcome. If you ever need it, you can always browse and download my bookmarks:
http://www.schoolofpuppetry.com.au/media/puppetrybookmarks.html

There's a LOT of random puppet stuff bookmarked. - Don't forget to search for videos too, as video interviews often showcase the puppets close up.