This week, your favorite former puppeteers blast off to the Tau Ceti system to talk about the true breakout star of Project Hail Mary—the lovable, five-legged alien engineer known simply as Rocky. In an age when Hollywood can render just about anything with a mouse click, the filmmakers made a delightfully old-school decision: they put a puppet on set. Working with creature effects legend Neil Scanlan's team, a squad of puppeteers led by James Ortiz brought Rocky to life through a combination...

This week, your favorite former puppeteers trade foam and fleece for wood, steel, and centuries of tradition as they journey into the spectacular world of Opera dei Pupi—Sicily's legendary marionette theater where every performance is packed with clashing swords, heroic knights, treacherous villains, and enough melodrama to make Miss Piggy seem subtle. Long before superheroes dominated the box office, Sicilian audiences flocked to see the adventures of Charlemagne's paladins, inspired by medi...

This week, your favorite former puppeteers revisit The Muppet Show episode featuring comedy legend Gilda Radner, where the biggest scene-stealer isn't Kermit, Miss Piggy, or even Gonzo—it's a bottle of Muppet Labs Super Adhesive. What starts as another "perfectly safe" demonstration from Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker quickly spirals into one of the show's funniest running gags, as the adhesive proves remarkably good at one thing: sticking absolutely everything to absolutely everything else. ...

This week, your favorite fake puppeteers sit down with real puppeteer Kevin Carlson to pull back the strings on one of the most ambitious—and gloriously outrageous—marionette productions ever put on film: Team America: World Police. From precision facial manipulation and explosive action sequences to the unique challenge of making silicone actors deliver Oscar-worthy melodrama (or at least convincingly vomit in an alley), Kevin shares what it was really like behind the scenes of the cult clas...

This week, your favorite former puppeteers blast off into the strange, slimy, and spectacular universe of Farscape—the cult sci-fi show that boldly asked the question: what if space opera had more puppets… and weirder ones? Created by Rockne S. O’Bannon and brought gloriously to life by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, Farscape filled its galaxy with unforgettable alien characters—like the towering warrior "definitely-not-a-Klingon" Ka D'Argo and the delightfully grumpy Dominar puppet Ry...

In this episode of Puppet Masters of None, your two former puppeteers return to the felt-lined battlefield to tackle one of the strangest creature features ever unleashed on an unsuspecting audience: Gremlins 2. But this isn’t just a casual chat about mogwai mayhem — it’s a wager. Will boldly insists that Gremlins 2 is a misunderstood masterpiece of practical effects chaos, while Ben is convinced it’s just a cinematic sugar rush that should’ve been locked in a Gremlin-proof vault. With reputa...

This week, your favorite former puppeteers climb aboard one of the strangest stops in The Muppet Show canon: episode #308 featuring country icon Loretta Lynn, staged not in the familiar Muppet Theater… but on an abandoned train platform. Yes, really. Through a series of very Muppet-y mishaps, the gang finds themselves putting on the show trackside — surrounded by luggage, questionable infrastructure, and the lingering possibility that the 3:15 to nowhere might actually arrive. Loretta, cool a...

This week, your favorite former puppeteers grab their sunscreen and head to the sandy shores of 90s children’s television to revisit Gullah Gullah Island — the Nickelodeon gem that gave us catchy songs, cultural celebration, and one of the most joyfully chaotic frog puppets ever committed to broadcast. We dive into how the show blended music, storytelling, and Gullah Geechee culture into something genuinely groundbreaking for preschool TV — all while Binya Binya (yes, that bright yellow frog)...

This week, your favorite ex-puppeteers crack open a heart-shaped box of early-’80s television weirdness and revisit the 1982 holiday special The Valentine’s Day That Almost Wasn’t—a delightfully scrappy, foam-and-felt fairy tale that asks the eternal question: what if Valentine’s Day… just didn’t happen? When the wickedly evil villain, Rubella Slime, concocts a plan to replace all the Valentine's love potion with Hostile, Arrogant, and Terribly Evil (H.A.T.E....Get it?...) potion, it’s ...

They're back! You know they couldn't miss this one! This week, your favorite former puppeteers step back into the beloved chaos of The Muppet Show — but not the one that aired in the 1970s. Nope, it’s the glammed-up, vaudeville-meets-pop-star spectacle of the 2026 Muppet Show special featuring guest star Sabrina Carpenter, live from the Muppet Theater and streaming on Disney+ and ABC. We unpack how this 50th-anniversary celebration revives the classic variety format with all your favori...