I make that comment despite his probable near 70-year age, not “FOR his age!” His felt is still vaguely a cross between pink and orange, but the color is faded from what it was when he left Giengen. Jocko is in good condition, showing signs of wear, but nothing terrible. Finally, I succeeded, but it was no easy task. That is because even my fingers, as tiny as they are, are really too big to fit comfortably inside Jocko’s head. In fact, I think the way the original tube disappeared was because an adult with much too big a hand tried to make Jocko come to life, and when she realized this was not going to happen, she withdrew her finger from its partially-inserted position in Jocko’s head-and took the tube with her! More than once, as I was trying to fit a tube of precisely the right circumference into Jocko’s head, I did the same thing. I am telling you this, since I want to be honest, but there would really be no way for you to know. He is just tooooooo tiny!Īs it happens, Jocko was missing his original cardboard finger tube when he arrived, and I fashioned a new one for him, which is indistinguishable in feel and fit from the one he lost. I usually say something like “He would be lost in an adult palm.” I believe that any adult, even a woman, with “normal” sized hands, would be unable to bring this Jocko to life for a child. I bring this up because the way a toy looks when I am holding it could mislead people about its actual size, i.e., making them believe it is bigger than it actually is. I often mention my tiny hands when I am holding a toy for display to potential buyers. This brings me back to the topic of Jocko’s finger tube. In contrast to the usual current parenting philosophy, I believe this Jocko was designed to be USED by the child to entertain himself.
These days, parents are much more cautious about letting young children play with certain toys, and a toy like a puppet would be handled by the parent to entertain a child who looks on and perhaps interacts with the puppet, but the puppet is controlled by the adult. Their heads and faces are smaller, with commensurate smallness in their finger tubes, and their ears are larger in proportion to their heads. I guess the best way to describe the difference is that these early post-war models are smaller, and they have a baby-like presentation. The Jocko puppet who lives in my vitrine is this one, so that would not help. He looks a little different from the later models, and I am sorry that I can’t show him side by side with a later one. “But now he’s just more - more of everything.I have offered a number of Jocko puppets over the years, but only once before did I have this earliest post-WWII model. “Totte started out shyer and younger,” Ustav says. Even so, allow your puppet’s character the freedom and space to evolve, just as you let your understanding of yourself change over time. “It’s an illusion,” says Ustav, who keeps Totte in a bag in her closet when she’s not performing. Don’t forget that the puppet is inanimate in the end, the relationship is all you, talking to yourself. In 2008, at a convention in Kentucky - some 450 ventriloquists all staying in the same hotel - Ustav was taken aback by how many people pushed their puppets in strollers, or otherwise coddled them as if they were real children.
“You want the ventriloquism part to disappear,” she says. It is this lifelike affinity, and not your mouth mechanics, that will hold people’s attention. Once you’re familiar with your puppet’s persona, improvise dialogue. Totte is a cheeky, know-it-all 3-year-old who makes Ustav laugh. When delivering its lines, look inquisitively in its direction, as if you’re unaware of what might be said next - your facial expressions should be those of the listener, not the speaker. To make particularly tricky sounds like B, P and M, use your tongue and the back of your throat rather than pressing your lips together as you normally would. You will need to learn new ways to articulate what emanates from your larynx. At 18, she won Sweden’s version of the “Got Talent” franchise which led to fame, television shows and a busy performing schedule, sometimes in front of as many as 15,000 people. It took her five years of regular practice to master it. Ustav, now 29, went to a weekend ventriloquism workshop when she was 12. Practice saying the same sentences over and over, until any movement in the jaw and lips becomes undetectable. Still, that’s where you should start: in front of a mirror, with your mouth slightly open in a smile, teeth close but not touching.
#CHIMPANZEE HAND PUPPET HOW TO#
“Ventriloquism is more than just knowing how to speak without moving your lips,” says Cecilia Ustav, a Swede who performs as Zillah and appears with a two-foot-tall chimpanzee puppet named Totte.
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