Puppets

I remember watching the Muppets on Sesame Street.  My favourite was Bert, whom Bernie was always making a fool of.  And I liked Muppet specials like Hey, Cinderella! which featured Splurge, a twelve-foot purple master who loved radishes.

My favourite scene in The Sound of Music is the "Lonely Goatherd" number where they're putting on a puppet show.  When I was young we had neighbour who was into handicrafts.  She made us several puppets, including one of Pinocchio.

I've read the book Pinocchio.  In the introduction C. Collodi writes, "This is the story of... 'A king!' my young readers will say.  It is not the story of a king, it is the story of a puppet." The original story is pretty cruel, with one scene where the Fox and the Cat beat Pinocchio to get the money he has hidden in his mouth, and leave him hanging from a tree!  And it isn't always consistent:  when he first sees the talking cricket (who's more judgemental here than in the Disney version), Pinocchio flattens him with a hammer, later the cricket appears as a ghost, eventually he's alive again.  But it isn't boring.