Week 03

FOODINI GOES A' HUNTIN' and FOODINI'S TRIP TO THE MOON

Week 03

Here are a couple of nice recordings from early television and the late 1940s. These offerings come from an era where television seemed rife with puppet characters, such as "Kukla, Fran and Ollie", "Time for Beany" "Andy's Gang", "Rooty Kazootie" and "Howdy Doody" to name just a fewtie..... eh, a few. Foodini seems to be one of the earlier, forgotten (at least by me) characters in the felt and feathers venue. Interestingly, the Foodini records brought back a lot of memories for me because I had worked with Bunin in New York in the mid 1970s and remember him to be a very creative and imaginative man. He had produced a great deal of puppet work including an "Alice in Wonderland" feature film utilizing animated puppets which, unfortunately, came out right at the same time as Disney's version of the film. Bunin's version was eclipsed by the latter and ended up falling into obscurity. He also did puppet work in the MGM feature "The Ziegfeld Follies" (1946), in which he did a puppet version of Leo the Lion (the MGM logo) roaring at the beginning of the film and, if I recall correctly, some animated puppet work of Fanny Brice and others as a prologue to the film. In the 1950s, created the famous Brylcreem TV commercials with animated puppets and some CBS network spots as well with a Peter Lorrie, Jester character known as "Mr. Lookit."

As for these particular recordings, they are very nicely produced with good performances, fanciful stories and well realized characters. Even the music and sound effects are more than competent and add a great deal to the fun. As I listened I found the relationship between the precocious Pinhead character and flamboyant, boastful Foodini character to be rather similar to the later Jay Ward characters of Peabody and Sherman. In fact, though Foodini is much broader a character than the brilliantly underplayed (by Bill Scott) Peabody, Pinhead is very similar to and actually even sounds somewhat like Walter Tetley as Sherman.

The artwork on the record sleeves realizes the characters rather stiffly and eerily, more puppet-like than actual characters, which is unfortunate in that they could probably have been handled more dramatically in a graphic medium giving them a more expressive and alive quality than what ended up being used. I also noticed that Foodini looks a great deal like Bunin, himself, based on photographs I took while working with him.

In the end, I did not know that Bunin had done these characters nor did I know that the characters even existed until I stumbled across these recordings. And, boy am I glad that I did as it sure brought back a lot of great memories for me. I know you will enjoy the fantastic adventures of "The Great Foodini" as much as he did!

Dave Pruiksma

Foodini Goes A' Huntin'

The Bunin Puppets with Jimmy Carroll's Orchestra

(1) 10" 78RPM record in sleeve

Total Time: 6:10

Foodini's Trip to the Moon

The Bunin Puppets with Jimmy Carroll's Orchestra

(1) 10" 78RPM record in sleeve

Total Time: 5:52

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Foodini Goes A' Huntin'

Foodini's Trip to the Moon

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