I’m not often jealous of my friends, but in this case… oh yes. Thank heavens, Santa has already come, or I’d wind up on the naughty list for my covetous thoughts.
In the Sunday New York Times, I learned that the original stop-motion Rudolph and Santa puppets are on exhibit at the Center for Puppetry Arts. That gave me an immediate, “ooo! neat!” reaction, and then I read this…
For restoration, he turned to another stop-motion studio, Screen Novelties, in Los Angeles. There, Robin Walsh, a puppet maker, ordered kid mohair for Santa’s beard, consulted museum restoration experts for the best ways to clean painted wood and grimy wool, and discovered, by freezing frames from “Rudolph,†that Santa’s mouth had once been painted. The broken lead wires in the puppets’ arms and legs also needed to be replaced.
The hardest thing, Ms. Walsh said, was getting over her fear of handling the puppets.
“I was holding my childhood in my hands,†she said.
Robin and I were at the Center at the same time. She’s gone on to work with Ray Harryhausen and do other mind-numbingly cool things.
To read the whole article, you have to be logged into the New York Times, but it’s pretty amazing and worth it.
