{"id":8341,"date":"2014-08-19T22:55:36","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T02:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.puppeteers.org\/?p=8341"},"modified":"2014-08-25T09:29:03","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T13:29:03","slug":"the-puppets-of-captain-eo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/2014\/08\/19\/the-puppets-of-captain-eo\/","title":{"rendered":"The Puppets of Captain EO"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Captain-EO\"<\/p>\n

Photo of the Geex, Michael Jackson, Fuzzball, Hooter, and Major Domo from DisneyWikia.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In 1986, Michael Jackson collaborated with Disney Studios to create a 3D film, exhibit, for the Disneyland theme parks. Pop King, Michael Jackson was always an aficionado of Walt Disney. He was known to visit the park, often in disguise.\u00a0 He built a miniature theme park on his property; Neverland,\u00a0 inspired by Disneyland.<\/p>\n

The film was to be called Captain EO and would be an installation in Disneyland, Epcot and some of the overseas Disney theme parks.\u00a0 The film tells the story of Captain EO, played by Michael Jackson, and his alien crew of goofy misfits who are on a mission to deliver a gift to an evil witch queen played by Angelica Huston on a polluted planet of twisted metal and wreckage.<\/p>\n

\"eo_ranch\"<\/p>\n

Photo of Michael Jackson, Francis Coppola and George Lucas from DisneyWikia.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In the story, Captain EO and his crew are sent to the \u201dDark Planet\u201d to bring the gift of beauty and music to the witchqueen who rules the planet.\u00a0 Francis Ford Coppola was brought on board to direct it and George Lucas produced it. Jeffrey Hornaday (Flashdance) choreographed the dancing along with Michael Jackson.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Photo of Michael Jackson, Fuzzball and Bruce Schwartz (Fuzzball puppeteer) Photo from legend-of-mwfc.la.coocan.jp<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I was working with Rick Baker running his costume shop at the time.\u00a0 Rick had created the zombies\u00a0 for Michael Jackson on Thriller and Michael wanted Rick to create the puppets and creatures for Captain EO. This was to be my second time working with Michael Jackson. (I had worked on Thriller and also played a zombie in the video)<\/p>\n

Rick Baker was only interested in creating the puppet that sits on Michael\u2019s shoulder, Fuzzball. (originally named Flutter)\u00a0\u00a0 The remainder of the characters were built at Lance Anderson’s shop.\u00a0 I went back and forth between the two shops working on characters.<\/p>\n

\"me<\/p>\n

Photo of Camilla Henneman working on Geex puppet. Photo by Marc Tyler.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I was in charge of fabrication for the creature called the Geex.\u00a0 The Geex was a birdlike creature that had two heads with separate personalities, Idy and Odie.\u00a0 It also had 3 legs.\u00a0 When the Geex\u2019s entire body had to be seen\u00a0 Idy and Odie were played by suit performers, Debbie Carrington, and Cindy Sorenson\u00a0 whose legs were tied together like in a 3 legged race. Much of the action was performed with a half body puppet puppeteered by Terri Hardin.<\/p>\n

\"TonyCox\"<\/p>\n

Photo of Tony Cox wearing the foam body suit for Hooter built by Marc Tyler. Photo by Marc Tyler.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Captain-EO-Hooter\"<\/p>\n

Photo of Hooter from DisneyWikia.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Hooter, an elephant like creature, was fabricated by Marc Tyler. Hooter was a person in a full body costume, played by Tony Cox. Marc had the experience of hearing something from the actor in the suit, that no builder ever wants to hear.\u00a0 The actor was fully suited up with the head on and Tony said “I think I dropped my gum”. There was some clean up involved.\u00a0 Ah, the glamor of being a suit builder.<\/p>\n

\"Captain-eo-robot04\"<\/p>\n

Photo of Major Domo from DisneyWikia.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The creature that sits on Michael Jackson\u2019s shoulder is called Fuzzball. He was created at Rick Baker\u2019s shop.\u00a0 The brilliant puppeteer, Bruce Schwartz<\/a> performed Fuzzball. Watching Bruce\u2019s performance was like watching an intricate ballet dancer. Bruce Schwartz was suggested to Rick Baker for the role, by Jim Henson.\u00a0 The only time that Fuzzball was not a puppet was for a brief scene where a spider monkey (painted red) was used to scamper up Michael Jackson\u2019s arm to his shoulder.<\/p>\n

\"minor<\/p>\n

Photo of Minor Domo from DisneyWikia.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Major Domo was a peg legged robot, performed by Gary DePew as the suit performer, and puppeteered by Steve Sleap as an upper body puppet. \u00a0 Minor Domo is a little robot that looked like a cross between a vacuum cleaner and a miniature tank, which attached to Major Domo\u2019s back. Major and Minor Domo were constructed by Ken Myers, Al Coulter, Frank Carisosa and other crew at Lance Anderson\u2019s shop.\u00a0 Other puppeteers for various characters included: Tim Lawrence, Tom Hester, Al Coulter and Lisa Sturz. \u00a0 After the suits and puppets were built, rehearsals began.<\/p>\n

Francis Coppola decided to have his performers do an improvised scene similar to what you would do in a high school acting class. At one point the puppeteers and actors improvised a summer camp scene where the mischievous campers were played by the puppeteers.\u00a0 Michael played a camp counselor who was trying to keep from being fired by the stern camp director played by Angelica Huston.\u00a0 This was very entertaining to watch.\u00a0 Some of this is in the Making of Captain EO\u00a0video. You can see some of the improvisation footage at 6:10 :<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3SLhaSFde5M<\/p>\n

\"audition-geex3\"<\/p>\n

Left photo is of the puppeteers and Michael Jackson doing rehearsals. Center photo and right photo are Debbie Carrington and Cindy Sorrenson in a fitting for the Geex costume. Photo from legend-of-mwfc.la.coocan.jp<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

During the filming, the set was constantly visited by celebrity friends of Michael Jackson, Francis Coppola and George Lucas.\u00a0 Kathleen Turner was there often.\u00a0 Joni Mitchell visited.\u00a0 The entire Jackson family came by one day.\u00a0 During filming, I remember standing next to Elizabeth Taylor (there to visit Michael) and trying to sneak glances at her eyes to see if they really were violet.\u00a0 (I\u2019m still not sure)<\/p>\n

\"images\"<\/p>\n

Photo of Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson on set of Captain EO. Photo from DisneyWikia.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The script went through a lot of changes.\u00a0 As it was fleshed out, many effects were added.\u00a0 The final cost of Captain EO was about twenty three million dollars, which at the time made it the most expensive film per minute ever made.\u00a0 Captain EO ran for 10 years at Disneyland and closed down in 1996.\u00a0 After Michael\u2019s death in 2009 plans were made to reopen Captain EO as a tribute to Michael Jackson.<\/p>\n

This is a video of the full movie, Captain EO.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vAvMkZQBIXk<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1986, Michael Jackson collaborated with Disney Studios to create a 3D film, exhibit, for the Disneyland theme parks. Pop King, Michael Jackson was always an aficionado of Walt Disney. He was known to visit the park, often in disguise.\u00a0 He built a miniature theme park on his property; Neverland,\u00a0 inspired by Disneyland. The film […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":866,"featured_media":8376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"page.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1535,1317],"tags":[1617,1643,1622,1621,1637,1620,1635,1623,1634,1648,1647,1631,1624,1644,1630,1639,1633,1625,1626,1638,1642,1632,2053,1641,1646,1561,1616,1640,1619,1629,1627,1636,1628,1558,1645,1649,1618],"class_list":{"0":"post-8341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-film-television","8":"category-fun-facts","9":"tag-3d-film","10":"tag-al-coulter","11":"tag-alien","12":"tag-angelica-huston","13":"tag-bruce-schwartz","14":"tag-captain-eo","15":"tag-cindy-sorenson","16":"tag-dark-planet","17":"tag-debbie-carrington","18":"tag-disneyland","19":"tag-elizabeth-taylor","20":"tag-flutter","21":"tag-francis-ford-coppola","22":"tag-frank-carisosa","23":"tag-fuzzball","24":"tag-gary-depew","25":"tag-geex","26":"tag-george-lucas","27":"tag-jeffrey-hornaday","28":"tag-jim-henson","29":"tag-ken-myers","30":"tag-lance-anderson","31":"tag-lisa-sturz","32":"tag-major-domo","33":"tag-making-of-captain-eo","34":"tag-marc-tyler","35":"tag-michael-jackson","36":"tag-minor-domo","37":"tag-neverland","38":"tag-puppet-2","39":"tag-rick-baker","40":"tag-terri-hardin","41":"tag-thriller","42":"tag-tim-lawrence","43":"tag-tom-hester","44":"tag-tony-cox","45":"tag-walt-disney","46":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/866"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacquiparledesign.com\/pofa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}