KidsComedian.com

A Celebration of Stories Book

2008-03-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

This has been an exciting project that has taken almost two years to pull together. I started using stories in my shows a couple of years ago. The stories I tell are really silly and ones that kids can relate with. The stories in this book have been tested in front of audiences full of children of all ages. I’ve been amazed at the response I’ve been getting. There are some stories that I thought would just be good for younger children and, to my surprise, older children and adults have enjoyed them too. Story telling has completely changed the way I perform. Now I get an incredible response from every routine I do. So, I’ve compiled some of my favorite stories in this book.This book also encourages children to write stories of there own by explaining the key elements in a story. Children will learn about characters, setting, action and conclusion. They will also learn about important things like nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives.

This book encourages children to use their imaginations. It also teaches children if they can think of something or talk about something then they can write a story about it.

However, one of the most important things in this book is fun. Each story is written around an activity. Every story has a magic trick that kids can do using things they can find around the house, or they can learn how to build a puppet of one of the characters in the story.

This book will be available at my show or it can be ordered at KidsComedian.com

World Puppet

2007-10-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

One of my main goals as a performer is to teach children to be tolerant. So, this world puppet will be able to help me talk about children all over the world. I think that building a world puppet has a lot of potential for humor. I should be able to poke him where China is and tickle him while I’m doing it. The actual puppet will be made a lot like a Muppet. It will be polyfoam with fleece over it… Now the question is, if the world could talk, what would it sound like?

Wordsworth D. Worm

2007-09-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

Almost all of my shows encourage children to read and I wanted a puppet to express that. I also wanted a puppet that was uniquely mine. In the past, I’ve purchased my puppets and there are a few other entertainers who have puppets like them. I thought about it for a while and decided that a bookworm was just perfect for that. Lots of libraries use a bookworm as a mascot, but none of them have a puppet. So, I spent the last month building Wordsworth D. Worm. He’s about four feet long because I wanted something very visual. Sometimes I perform for several hundred children at a time. His eyes move side to side and his antennas droop.

After looking up several pictures of bookworms I’ve found things that make a bookworm look like a bookworm. They are always green. They almost always wear glasses. And, many of them have the characteristics of snakes and caterpillars. This is why they are never pink like a normal worm. Finally, many of them have arms. I guess they need arms to hold books. I decided mine should have arms mostly because I wanted something else to move on the puppet.

The picture on the bottom is for my new business cards, brochures, and other material.

So, here he is, Wordsworth D. Worm.

A Celebration of Stories

2007-05-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

I’m excited about this new show for 2008. I spend two years developing my presentations. The first year is research and development. I spend this time reading books on the subject and writing material. Then, I spend a year testing the material to make sure it is actually entertaining. That way I can guarantee a great show for a summer library kick off. The picture above is from a test show in Oklahoma.

Usually my goals in my shows are to have fun, while talking about a theme, while encouraging children to read. This time the theme is READING. This show will combine magic and puppetry to teach children what all the parts of a story are. Children will enjoy reading more if they know what it takes to make a good story. I’ll give fun examples of character, setting, action, and conclusion. This show also encourages children to write stories of their own.

While children are laughing along with a magic or puppet routine, they will learn about the different parts of a story. Here’s a taste of what that will be like.

Some stories focus on character. For example the story of the Three Happy Hamburgers has talking hamburgers and a vicious hamburger eating kangaroo.

Other stories focus on setting. The Haunted House is one of these stories. The setting is the front yard of a haunted house that has strange things in it such as pickles and porcupines.

Then there are stories that focus on action. I get to tell the story of How I Saved the World. Can I, Brett Roberts, save the world from an alien invasion by doing magic tricks? You’ll have to wait and see.

Are Names Important?

2007-04-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet”

Shakespeare didn’t seem to think names are important, but I tend to disagree. The title of a show is the introduction to the show. First impressions are important. When writing a paper, the heading is what grabs the attention of the reader. The sub heading gives a little more information, but if the heading isn’t interesting, no one will read the paper. It’s the same thing when developing the title of a show. The first thing that an audience will see is the title of a show. Sometimes they will come and see a show just based on that. A show can seem good or bad, just depending on the title.

For example, in my house, I’m the one who cooks dinner. I get tired of cooking the same thing all the time so sometimes I try something different. I told my kids that I was going to make chicken parmigiana.

They said, “Eww! That sounds gross!”

So I said, “Okay, I’ll make chicken spaghetti instead.”

They got excited. They like chicken. They like spaghetti. The two together sounded pretty good to them…. So, I cooked exactly the same meal I was planning all along. I just called it something different.

There are different kinds of shows available in the world of educational entertainment. There are story tellers, puppeteers, singers, musicians, etc. Kids get more excited about some shows more than others. Out of all these shows, the ones with live animals probably get kids the most interested. Magicians probably come in second place. Sadly enough, puppeteers don’t stir a lot of interest. Most puppeteers I know are talented performers and puppetry is a very legitimate art form. But shows like Barney have made people believe that puppetry is just for young children. This is a sad fact that seems to be uniquely American. I actually performed a show once where a sign outside said, “Puppet Show, 3:00pm”… I only had about ten people at that show while most of my shows have at least a hundred. My shows happen to be variety shows with magic, puppetry, and story telling. However, I like to use the word “magic” in the title because that’s what kids are interested in.

This may sound egotistical, but I’m a celebrity. Not a big celebrity, but people do know who I am. During the summer, families will follow me from city to city. I’m always honored when people tell me that they do that. My name is one that people recognize. So it’s important that my name is used in the show’s title.

Sometimes a show’s title can be too clever to be useful. It’s important that a show be creative and original, but if the title is too clever then people might not understand it. For example, the movies “Jaws” and “Star Wars” have really simple titles. Simple is always best. Once people see the show then they can understand what it’s all about. The title is just there to get them in the door.

A show’s title is used to get people interested in the show. The aspects of that show that are attractive should be used in that title. And, simple is always best. So for me, a title like “The Magic of Brett Roberts” works best.

Muppet Mobile Lab

2007-03-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

I just love mixing puppetry with technology. One of my first jobs as a puppeteer was operating animatronic characters for Showbiz Pizza Place. The Muppet Mobile Lab is very similar, although the technology is a lot better. This “puppet” has misters that spray water all around the car. It blows bubbles. It smokes. And, it can spray water out the front…. And, what is really groovy, is that it balances on two wheels. The actual Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker characters move fairly well. Bunsen’s body moves around and his head moves in all the directions it should. Beaker can just turn his head and move his mouth. He can also do that funny thing where he pulls his head into his shirt. I personally would like to see something horrible happen to Beaker, but no one asked me. The Mobile Lab works two different ways. It has preprogrammed skits that are pretty funny and, the puppeteer can improv. The improv was not as funny. I’m told that it’s actually Dave Goelz who provides the voice. If this is so, I think that’s great. He created the voice and mannerisms. It’s his character. However, I think it’s probably just a collage kid, who works for Disney, operating it.

The Scientific Method for Choosing a Puppet

2007-01-15T15:40:00.000-08:00

I use puppetry in almost all of my shows. While I used to build all the puppets in my shows, recently I've been buying them. I'm very picky about the puppets I use.

There are two theories that can be used for choosing, or better yet designing, a puppet that people can relate with. One is “The Magic Triangle” and the other is “The Uncanny Valley”.

First, The Magic Triangle is a technique Jim Henson used in designing puppets for television. He was the first person to realize that eye contact is important, even for a puppet. His characters were designed to look right into the television camera. What the Magic Triangle refers to is an imaginary triangle that can be drawn from the characters pupils to the characters nose. The sides of the triangle should be equal. Ernie, on Sesame Street, is a perfect example of this. Ernie’s eyes are actually crossed. However, they are only crossed enough to give the illusion that he is looking right at the child watching television at home. The Magic Triangle has a significant psychological impact on anyone watching the puppet. Public speakers maintain eye contact with their audience. This is just as important for puppets.

Second, the Uncanny Valley is a principle concerning the emotional response of humans to non-human entities. It was theorized by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970. It says that the more human-like a non human ententy is the more we can relate with it. However there is a point where a non-human object becomes too human-like and we are repulsed by it. If an object is nonhuman, but hase some human characteristics, then we notice the human-like characteristics and we are attrcted to it. However, if an object appears almost human then we notice the features that make it non-human and it appears strange to us. A teddy bear is a non human object. It has eyes and a mouth so we are attracted to it. A corps looks human, but we immediately notice the characteristics that make it non-living, so it makes us feel uneasy. This is why puppets that are more cartoon-like are more desirable than realistic looking ventraliquist dummies.

Mori’s theory also states that movement implies life. His familuarity chart changed dramatically when the non-human object was animated. Acording to his chart, we are very atracted to Bunraku puppets, because they move so much like a humans.

So, a puppet that can make eye contact, moves in a believable manner, and is realistic, but not maniquin-like is a likable character that people can relate with.

Rudolph

2007-01-02T09:58:00.000-08:00

I've had the privilege of visiting the Center for Puppetry Arts several times. It's a terrific place to learn about the history of puppetry. They have workshops, outreach programs, and they put on wonderful shows. One of the particularly cool things about the center is the museum. There you can see several Muppets, Dark Crystal puppets, Madame, and lots of other puppets that have historical significance.

The newest addition to their collection is Rudolph and Santa from the 1964 Rankin/Bass production of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". The current owner/discoverer of said puppets, Kevin Kreiss, contacted the center a few months ago to see what they could do about the puppets' deteriorated state. Kevin brought them by and they assessed the situation...The puppets were in bad shape, having been used as Christmas decorations/playthings for the last 30-odd years in the home of a former Rankin/Bass employee. Santa's legs were both broken, as was Rudolph's neck(!). Rudolph's nose bulb was torn out and the cavity had been stuffed with red candle wax. All of the lead armature wires inside the puppets were corroding and half of Santa's mustache was missing. There was a lot of cleanup and restoration to be done.

Luckily, a top member of their puppet crew, Robin Walsh, has a lot of experience with puppet restoration, having worked for several years at the Center for Puppetry Arts. While there she worked with everything from antique Indonesian shadow puppets to Italian rod marionettes, so she set up a plan and spearheaded the operation. The whole process took several weeks, and great care was taken to preserve the integrity of the puppets. They made new pieces only to replace missing parts, leaving everything in it's original form as much as possible. Careful cleansing of the fur and clothing got out years worth of cigarette smoke, candy stains and dust.

Now the puppets are in mint condition and are on display for all to see.

Energy Hogs

2006-12-05T16:45:00.000-08:00

A while back I did a commercial for the Alliance to Save Energy. It "stars" a large hog and several pig puppets. I was actually inside the hog and if you watch the longest version you get to see lots of pyro going off around him. It was lots of fun. I was excited to get to do it. I also got to work several of the little Hog Commandos.

Here's a link to see all the commercials:
http://www.ase.org/content/article/detail/3461

Santa Research

2006-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

All of my shows take a lot of research. My Christmas show is no different. This show tells the origins of the Christmas tree, candy canes, and other Christmas traditions. Here are some facts that did NOT make it into my show: (I just thought they were funny.)

There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second.

This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks.

This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second--3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element.

Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them... Santa would need 360,000 of them.

This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance. This would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.

Jeff Dunham

2006-10-17T10:58:00.000-07:00

I can only name a small handful of professional ventriloquists. This seems to be a dying art. However there is one performer who really keeps the art form alive. That’s Jeff Dunham. You may have seen him on Comedy Central this year. He’s probably the only ventriloquist who’s ever been on that channel; much less have his own special. All his material is original and daring. He’s not the kind of performer you would hire to entertain a bunch of children. And I think that’s wonderful. One of the bad things that television has done for the art of puppetry is to convince people that puppets are just for children. Wayland Flowers and Madam showed us that adults could enjoy puppetry and Jeff has followed in that tradition. Personally, I’ve tried to do “G” rated shows for adults and they don’t seem to do very well. But Jeff has really found his calling.

I had the privilege of spending time with Jeff after one of his shows here in Texas. We sat around for about an hour talking about puppets. He showed us a new routine he was working on and he seemed a little nervous about showing off material that wasn’t polished. However, he pulled out his lap top ad I got to see a new puppet character he’s developing. I probably shouldn’t talk about it, but you can see it on his new Comedy Central special next year.

Not only is Jeff Dunham very funny on stage, but he is genuinely a nice person to talk to. It’s rare that I find someone who I can really talk shop with.

Community Calendars

2006-09-18T08:13:00.000-07:00

I want to do everything possible to make the events I perform at successful. Here are some ways to advertise special events for free.

Dallas Child and Fort Worth Child magazines both have a free community calendar. Where to go, what to do and who to see in and around Dallas and Fort Worth is the most well-read section of their magazines. If you would like to list our show in one of these magazines all you have to do is send an e-mail to calendar@dallaschild.com htcalendar@fortworthchild.com or fax to 972/447-0633 by the 10th of the month prior to the month of publication. Events must be open to the public, of interest to families in the Dallas and Fort Worth area and cost no more than $20 per person. Please include name and description of event, address, phone number, Web site, time, date, cost, and age served.

To ad something to WBAP’s community calendar simply go here: http://wbap.com/calendar/AddEvent.asp

WFAA’s community calendar:
http://www.wfaa.com/customerservice/helpcenter.jsp?id=1083854068000

WB33’s community calendar:
rmcmillion@tribune.com

NBC5’s community calendar:
http://www.nbc5i.com/eventslink/index.html

KZPS
http://www.kzps.com/pages/community-calendar.html

CBS11
amwilliams@ktvt.com

KLTY
http://www.klty.com/submit_an_event.php

DFW International
http://www.dfwinternational.org/calendar/submit.php

Go City Kids
http://www.gocitykids.com/about/contact.jsp?area=185

DFW Kids Directory
http://www.dfwkidsdirectory.com/calendar/index.php

GuideLive
http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/guidelive/guideEvents.cgi

Fort Worth Weekly
masterwebmaster@fwweekly.com

Fort Worth Calendar
http://www.fortworth.com/FW/calendar/event/add_new.jsp

Gas Prices

2006-08-30T06:03:00.000-07:00

I really do have a fun job. I get to travel from city to city performing educational shows. I've literally driven all over Texas just this last year. The down side, of course is that I have to fill up my tank on a very regular basis. So, I did a little research and found a site that posts gas prices. All I have to do is put in my zip code and I can see all the local gas prices. It's even updated daily. http://autos.msn.com/everyday/gasstations.aspx

Pirate Morals

2006-08-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

All my shows have an educational message where I teach health, history or other lessons. I also teach an ethical message. In the past, I’ve taught things such as social equality and good self esteem. With next year’s touring show I needed a lesson. This show is all about pirates, so the obvious thing to teach is that children shouldn’t steal. To make this lesson appropriate for children K-3rd, I’m going to focus on how a child might feel if something of theirs was taken. Children will learn a secular version of “The Golden Rule”. Since this is a pirate show, there will be a pirate character who steals things. This pirate character will be a shark. He will learn how he might feel if some took his things. The shark will be one of several NEW characters in this show. If you’ve seen one of my pirate shows before then this will be a very different show. I’ll be test marketing the new shark puppet for a while so when this show officially opens it should be a lot of fun.

Christmas in August?

2006-08-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

It always amazes me how early people start booking Christmas shows. I've already put several new shows on my calendar this month. There are several people in Dallas/Fort Worth who dress up like Santa for Christmas and there are a few magicians in this area. But, I am the only performer who can combine the two. In my show Christmas Magic, Santa gives kids a behind the scenes look at how he gets ready for Christmas. He'll build a magical snowman, show how he wraps presents, and he'll read from his famous Naughty and Nice list. He'll even show children the magical way he builds toys. It's a fun show. This is an all new version of the Christmas show I've done for the past few years. I've made it so every magic prop is tied in to a Christmas theme. And, several people have asked me to perform this show as me instead of Santa. The show will still have a holiday theme, but these events already have a Santa, so I get to just be me!

Promotional Material

2006-08-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about helping to promote shows. I believe that if events are a success then I’m a success. So, I’ve come up with some things that will help. Next year I will have promotional posters. These posters are not only for libraries. They are also for elementary schools, stores and anywhere else families are every day. I’ve been testing out “mini” posters and they seem to work really well. I’ve also learned that there are specific ways I need to word things. I use to be cute with show titles, but now I keep things simple. For example, next years show will be called “Brett Roberts’ Pirate Magic Show”. This show will still have puppets in it. (In fact, I should be getting my new shark puppet today.) But, I’m calling it that because magic shows draw in almost as many kids as animal shows. Also, my name will bring some people to that show. I’ve had lots of people tell me that they came to the show just because I was there. I also have people follow me from one library to another during the summer. And, I’m debating on preparing a press release. That might not help the event that the press comes to see, but it could help future library events.

New Blog

2006-08-17T05:02:00.000-07:00

Hi there,

I've decided to get with the times and post a blog.