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For you Bil Baird Fans Out there

Check Out www.flexitoons.blogspot.com for a great post on Bil Baird's Alice in Wonderland. How many other Hubbers are Bil Baird fans? There are many of us older folks whose early inspiration came from Baird. In my opinion [ and please remember younger folks Baird was one of Hensons inspirations] Baird had the greatest sense of line in sculpture of any 20th century puppeteer. In movement look and style Baird was completly unique and was one of the great pioneers of puppetry in film and TV. For those of you who may not be familiar with Baird he did the Lonley Goatherd sequence in the sound of music.

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Permalink Reply by Steven Widerman on May 4, 2009 at 9:53pm

Dave,

I own the Belly Dancer Bil called "Farida," about 1 foot taller and a quite a bit clunkier than the orginal. You can find photos of her on my Puppet Hub page. There were actually three versions of the dancer built by Bil. The original "Scheherazade" depicted in Bil's book is owned by Mavis Baird and the duplicate is owned by Pady Blackwood. Remarkably, (you're gonna love this) you can see this puppet manipulated by members of Bil's troupe along with some other wonderful characters in an old commercial viewable on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1kXzF44vN8

Flamenco Boy is nearly 3 feet tall, beautifully designed with hollowed out weighted wooden boots intended to make a sound when his feet hit the floor. He is a real prize. Many of Bil's dancers were faceless to keep the focus on the dance movement and off the facial expression.

-Steven->

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Permalink Reply by David C. Herzog on May 4, 2009 at 11:59pm

Wow Great link Thanks Steve. It's amazing the way advertising has changed over the years. That is a great shot of the Belly Dancer. I always thought that was one of Baird's gretest designs.

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Permalink Reply by David Syrotiak on February 17, 2010 at 12:33am

Wow Steven,

I just stumbled across this thread and It's great to see Bil's puppets in action. I think that it had to be Sully manipulating Captain hook. I don't recognize Bil's voice, but whoever is on Hook sounds a little like Davy Jones! From what I remember, Sully also was the master of the Bunny-huggers. I wish I could have seen the original company at work. I hear their shows were really great!