Globetrotting Puppets

So...about the project we’ve been working on.....

Rocky and Chloé from our play "Oh! Canada"

Back in 2011 when we took our offshore training with Mahina Tiare III  (http://www.mahina.com)  one of the goals was to always try to have a positive impact upon the places we visited and the people we met. Often crew would be encouraged to bring medical and/or school supplies.

 This got me thinking : What gift could we bring to the places we go ?  What is OUR area of expertise ? Um, well...I am pretty good at making a puppet come to life ?  And....Come to think of it.....Meg is pretty good at story telling ! If we could combine HER creativity and MY immaturity we might just be able to do wonders !!!

We started off by going to look at an old favorite puppet factory online (http://www.living-puppets.de) to see if any of their characters would jump up at us, looking for Canadian ambassadors.

So, this guy immediately made an impression

                  (Love his belly button...)

                                                                                                                      

We named this one Rocky

Then we found out that they were all out of this radical raccoon, and we quickly fell in love with an awesome  grizzly who even comes complete with a hump on his back and giant paws. The only way he could have been any more realistic would of been if he had a couple of australian campers in his jaws...Oh right...this is supposed to be a kid friendly show...

We found our Chloé

Next we found a beautiful girl puppet and we felt she was the PERFECT addition to the cast.

Finding names for our new friends was pretty simple. It was clear to us from the beginning that our goofy grizzly just HAD to be named Rocky and that our girl, well she just looks like a Chloé doesn’t she! 

Next we had to make these guys look a little more.. Canadian eh ? We thought of putting a Molson’s Canadian Beer in Rocky’s hands, or a “ I ♥ Justin Trudeau” Tank Top on Chloe, but again we have to remind ourselves that this is for kids, right. So we went for the painfully obvious Canadian stereotypes; Hockey and Toques.

Now; You may find this hard to believe but when you go shopping for clothe and you casually tell the person behind the counter that; “these are for my puppets”, you get a few raised eyebrows, but then when you take them out of your bag and let the puppets do the explaining to the salesperson, and it ALL works out in the end. No one called security on us or anything !

   It turns out that Chloé’s feet are a kids size 10 !

                                             

                                              

I think that the guy at the jersey store especially got a kick out of the whole thing...

What ??!!!  30 Bucks for a mini Habs jersey ??!!! Well, on the bright side, Rocky won’t be outgrowing it anytime soon.

                                                      

The final look for Chloé

And for Rocky

We are currently working on the script. This will not be completed for a while, as we are quite busy preparing our trip in other ways, but Meg and I sat down one evening and did a quick brainstorming. We had loads of fun bouncing ideas off each other, this is what we’ve come up with: 

Characters: 

Chloé; A sporty, Smart Young Canadian Girl from Aboriginal Descent. She’s bilingual (of course) and has been traveling on board a sailboat with her family for the last five years.

Rocky : A Goofy-Patriotic-Hockey-Loving Grizzly Bear, who is obsessed with Maple Syrup and who is known to spontaneously start singing “Oh Canada!” when ever someone mentions Canada.

Opening scene: 

Chloé is sitting on deck, binoculars in hand, when she suddenly sees a very peculiar sight: An Ice float drifting in the distance, carrying a bear, who is wearing a hockey jersey and frantically waving for help.

Our opening scene.

We later find out that Rocky was stranded on this ice float when he was visiting his cousin ‘Inukshuk’ the polar bear in the Arctic.

The story continues with the new friends reminiscing about all that they love about Canada...friendly banter ensues, yada yada...

What we really hope to achieve with this project is to find a way to build positive relationships with the communities we visit. We figure that kids, no matter where they’re from, love puppets and love to hear about other  countries. We hope to bring them a new outlook on the world, a chance to ask questions and maybe a few laughs too, by visiting their schools. Oh, and it might just fit in nicely in Meg’s school goals too AND it takes care of my puppet addiction.

Before signing off I have to give a shout out to the ‘Minister of Canadian Heritage’s’ office in Ottawa.I wrote to those lovely ladies today and they said that they would gladly help us out with a big bag full of Canadian pins to hand out on our visits to school and such, so nice !  THANK YOU!  Gee, I wonder how much that big bags of pins weighs.