The old St Paul’s Sunday School hall was packed full of children. Simon Hood
and his brother Andrew were performing a spectacular version of the story of
Noah, or so they thought at the time! Simon, the keen little brother of no more
than eleven years of age, built the props and helped with the puppet theatre
construction. They had thought of everything. At the point in the story where
the heaven’s opened, they had enlisted the assistance of mum’s vacuum cleaner
with paper stuffed down the tube and connected it to the blowing end.
The show was stunning. The soft pink furry elephant performed beautifully as
did the fishing line attached to the door of the ark that closed as if by the
very hand of God. The climax was building. The audience was watching as the
rain was about to be unleashed on the earth. Behind the theatre we hit the
start button on the vacuum cleaner, the paper flew everywhere creating the
havoc of the storm. The only problem was that the force of the vacuum blew the
theatre apart and they were left standing in the debris with puppets on their
hands and 150 kids laughing! That was in 1977. Soon after that dubious
beginning a puppetry ministry was created that would become "No Strings
Attached".
Twenty years ago in late November 1981, our puppet ministry was born. The first
performance was the Christmas story at Barker School (just 3 minutes from our
current office). Since that time, we have had the privilege of performing to
well over a million children. God has taken us on an amazing journey that we in
no way deserve – below will give you a snap-shot of what has happened in the
last 23 years.
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There have been countless early mornings driving to family services and many
all-nighters preparing for shows. But the best snap shot we could think of is
in the No Strings Attached archives, dusted off to give you a picture of the
last 23 years. |
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The number of shows performed – 3600. While we lost our exact catalogue
of about 1500 early shows in the great computer crash of 1989, we are fairly
sure that to date we have performed at least 3600 shows in the last 23 years.
The longest drive to do a show – 11 hours. On the 11th August 1985 we
drove all night from Sydney to Melbourne to get to St.Thomas’ Werribee in time
to do a morning Family Service.
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The largest audience in one sitting – 75,000 children. The Greatest Gift
of All for Billy Graham in March 1998 in front of a stadium full of children in
Lima, Peru. There were an extra 25,000 children watching on a large screen
outside the stadium. |
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The most puppets in one performance – 150 puppets. The live performances
of Timestory in 1988 involved a huge number of puppets including birds,
"feather dancers", talking faces made of junk, opening flowers, a frog and
more. |
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The busiest puppet time – 105 hours. In the weeks preparing for
Timestory we clocked 105 hours in one week. (This was only surpassed by work we
did for Westfield Tuggerah where we clocked up 115 hours in 5 days!!!)
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Number of countries – 15. This involves performances and/or training
seminars. This has been for shows in 8 languages.
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The most profitable performance – 21st August 1983. The
performance of "The Lost Son" at Hurstville involved "roping in" Mal Heap for
the first time. He hasn’t been able to escape since!
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The greatest puppet celebrity "moment" – meeting Kermit!
The team were on set of The Muppet Christmas Carol and met Frank Oz, Kermit,
Miss Piggy and got to play with Animal! A dream come true for any puppeteer.
The biggest break - 7th November 1982.
Brian King (the former Bishop of Western Sydney) was our minister in the early days.
Among many others at church, he was very supportive and gave us the job of our
first Family Service telling the story of "Gideon".
The most translations – 29. The production that Logosdor wrote for Billy
Graham (called "The Puzzle") has been translated in 29 languages.
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Our most famous character – Waffle & Modigliana. Mal
scores both of these having developed the character of "Waffle" and female cat
on The Ferals called "Modigliana".
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The Most Performed Skit – Nose Job. This show was first
performed at Berowra Christian School with help from Martyn Hood. Since then we
must have performed it at 1200 times!
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The Most Unworthy Award – A Gold Promax Award (Washington) for
a promo for Hey Hey its Saturday. While this award actually belongs to Channel
Nine for the most creative ad in ???, Mal and Simon were the sole puppeteers
for the ad. What makes it amusing is that it is the first and last time Simon
and Mal have ever used a marionette!
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The Most Painful puppets – Dawn & Norman. Emma, Mal, Jane
& Simon each had to perform in a McDonalds commercial and then an Olympic
promo with puppet characters of Norman May and the famous swimmer Dawn Fraser.
The puppets were built in Melbourne and were heavy, had mouths that needed
contorted fingers to control. 24 or so hours of straight filming was
excruciating!
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The Hottest Show – 48 degrees Celsius. We don’t really know
what the temperature was, but inside a puppet theatre on the Beach in summer in
tropical Evans Head at Scripture Union beach mission is hot. |
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The Most Elaborate Show – Djinwarriors at the Beverly Hills Hilton.
We once had the opportunity to present a TV show idea to Movie Studios in
Hollywood. This involved using a Suite at the Beverly Hills Hilton plus three
of our computer controlled animatronic puppets, plus a specially prepared video
presentation. We came very close to an Worldwide Distribution Deal. Oh well,
maybe next time!!! |