The Highs and Lows of Puppet Shows

By C.J. Hirschfield

Our puppet-theater director, Randal Metz, is also a respected historian of puppets and puppetry. Recently, while researching the history of puppeteers in California, he came across an article in the Puppetry Journal – the quarterly magazine of the Puppeteers of America – that caught his eye. It wasn’t about puppets or puppeteers: It was about shoes. And not just any shoes: the special footwear used by some height-challenged puppeteers to make them tall enough to do their job.

Puppeteers' shoes suggested by Nick LeFeuvre, via the Puppetry Journal

Fairyland's Munchkins

By C.J. Hirschfield

Last month, the last remaining Munchkin – of the more than 100 little people who performed in the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz – died.

He was Jerry Maren, the leader of the Lollipop Guild, and he was 98.

Most of the Munchkins, who sang “We’re Off to See the Wizard” and “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead,” went on to lead non-Hollywood lives. Maren, however, spent his life as a performer – in television, in movies and even as an Oscar Meyer spokesman in the 1950s.

You may not know that another Munchkin from the Oz movie — Victor Wetter – was, with his wife Edna, Children’s Fairyland’s very first “Ambassadors of Goodwill.” In that role they gave tours to thousands of delighted youngsters during Fairyland’s first two years of operation, 1950 to 1952. They ultimately left the park amid a political controversy that was taken all the way to the mayor’s office.

From Cut Paper to Fairyland Stage

By C.J. Hirschfield

So many classic, best-selling children’s books are illustrated with collage that you may assume the technique – sticking various materials such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric onto a backing – has always been associated with children’s literature. What would The Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle), Tar Beach (Faith Ringgold), Swimmy (Leo Lionni) and The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats) be without their playful and vibrant collage illustrations?

In fact, though, the first American children’s book illustrated with collage, Caps for Sale, wasn’t published until 1940. The story of its author/illustrator, Esphyr Slobodkina, itself reads like a novel – and a version of the book is now being adapted into a magical, musical production exclusively for Children’s Fairyland. “Circus Caps for Sale,” our co-production with the talented folks at San Francisco’s Circus Center, opens in our Aesop’s Playhouse on July 7 and continues on weekends through July 29.