A little bit of background about me, if I may, before I get to the point: I work nights consistently for over two decades now. The reason for that is so I can be at home during the day to care for my son and daughter, both of whom are non-verbal autistic. I won’t sugarcoat it, it’s a very lonely life, and my previous job of about 16 years tended to be so quiet that I would drive myself mad trying to stay awake. Watching movies helped a lot, hence writing about them here, but eventually the mind needs more.

So I read a lot, plucked on a Ukulele for a while, tried — and still am trying — to learn Spanish. But I was still alone with no one to talk to, so I talked to everyone by starting my own little podcast. I thought myself SOOO original that I created an announcer character for it, an angry rodent named Bitchy the Hamster (SOOOO original…). Thing is, Bitchy quickly became the main attraction and eclipsed the rest of my little show, and as I focused more and more on him, I thought I should upgrade to video, for which there are two options: animation or live-action.

Then the virus came and made the world come to a complete stop. Well, most of the world. My then-employer was an IT firm, and because every company on the planet had to switch to exclusively online work overnight, we stayed busy for the whole catastrophe. By “busy” I mean “my colleagues,” as I still had nothing to do, just now from home where my kids were stuck 24/7 due to school closure. By that point I had a firm grasp on the fact that I sucked at animation, so I used the stone of down time to kill my two birds. I created a real-world body for Bitchy and ended up entertaining the kids.

I quickly stumbled on a YouTube channel called Puppet Nerd, run by a school teacher and absolute wonder of a human being named Adam Kreutinger. Adam devoted his spare time to making puppets and showing the whole world how to do it for themselves. He became my number one resource and inspiration, and I owe him a LOT. Sadly, by the time I was getting the hang of it, Adam announced on his social media feed that he would be scaling back his online presence due to having been diagnosed with a brain tumour. After a long and brave battle, he passed away in early 2025.

So when our Mutant-Reviewer-in-Chief asked me to do a write-up of my movie-related puppets, even though I don’t think my work deserves such a spotlight, I strongly felt Adam does deserve it. A very heartfelt Thank You, Adam, for the wonderful light you brought into this world. And now, without further ado, let me introduce you to some of the friends I literally made along the way.

Chistopher Lloyd

Yes, I know, the erstwhile Doc Brown rarely, if ever, has a moustache except in the one TV show episode I was watching around the time I had a very special request from a good friend. Said friend, a nightshift nurse who once cared for me and became a partner in crime when I joined the nightshift myself at the very same hospital, had first asked me to make a few puppets for her grandkids. And then a little later she mentioned that her brother, whose wife had just passed away from cancer, seemed to find solace in using the kids’ puppets to amuse them and himself.

So the request was to make him a “pappy” puppet. And I was simply stumped, as all my concepts ended up looking like a puppy rather than pappy.

That is, until I ended up somehow watching an episode of R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour titled “Grampires,” which was about a retirement community whose elderly residents are bloodsuckers. In it ,Lloyd played a fanged grandpa and, for reasons I will attribute to the umpteenth coffee I had that day, he looked to me like a puppet. His big bushy moustache very much accentuated that feeling, so I had found my pappy inspiration — though without the bloodsucking part. The gentleman I gave this to made him his constant companion, took him everywhere he goes, and apparently loves to make videos of himself conversing with his pappy. There is a huge difference between childish and childlike, and this man is living proof that the latter is simply beautiful.

The Trick or Treat Gang

One of the first projects I tried when I started learning the craft was a series of Halloween-themed creations. My initial intent was to make the roster of classic Universal monsters, but my Wolf Man looked more like the Berenstein Bears and I’m nowhere near cracking the creature from the Black Lagoon.

I thus went with what I was able to master up until then: The Wicked Witch of the West (with glasses, shout out to the Wicked movie), the Mummy (I worked in a hospital, had access to all the gauze I wanted), Nosferatu, and a dapper cyclops inspired both by Jason & the Argonauts and Don Draper.

Not much complexity to them but I had a blast making them and even though I had intended to keep them for myself, they all went to enthusiastic new homes. This year I’m challenging myself with the Venom-arm costume, keep you posted!

Jason Momoa

Again a co-worker stumped me with a special request, and again it was someone so dear to me that I couldn’t bear to let him down. My colleague Max moonlights as the singer/songwriter for a local heavy metal band called Lashout. It’s perfectly normal that you’ve never heard of them, but that will change sooner or later for they most certainly do rock!

Upon befriending me, he learned of my hobby, and asked if I could make his band a mascot. I made him five, one for each member of the band, but after number four I had run clean out of inspiration. I tried to find some directly around me, and found number five in another co-worker of ours, a genius handyman named Phil, whom I always address as “Momoa” because of his uncanny resemblance. Inspiration renewed, I swung for the fence and made the Aquaman dude my target. But here’s the kicker: When I presented “Jason” to his new owner, he flipped out over how much it looked like the drummer of a famed French Canadian hard rock band called Les Chiens Sales, a dude lovingly nicknamed Fouine (French for Weasel). Honest truth, even I have to admit I could not have nailed it more had it been my intention. My friend’s plan is to make a music video with all five puppets, and afterwards present Weasel with his likeness. I sincerely cannot say which of those two events terrifies me the most…

Deadpool

I made this not because I’m Canadian and a huge fan of the Ryan Reynolds films, but because I’m an autism dad. To make a long story short, while seeking services for my son and daughter now that they’re over 18, which any autism parent can tell you is a harrowing endeavour, we met with a care worker who expressed having a very hard time trying to connect with a young non-verbal autistic man that happened to be obsessed with Deadpool.

Since I did have success connecting with my son via his Spongebob obsession, I thought I could give back by trying to provide this young man with a tool to express himself, or at least a tool for his care workers to communicate with him. I don’t mind telling you I had to re-start it from scratch a few times, and even there the result isn’t my best work, but I did make that thing with oodles of love.

And yes, I know, Deadpool’s mouth should be concealed, but the point of a puppet is to have that big cartoonish clap trap AND he’s “The Merc with a Mouth”, so I made the artistic choice to give him one. My biggest point of pride are the Katanas holstered in his back, which are actually the rods used to articulate the hands. I wasn’t there when it was first introduced to the young man it was made for, but I was told there was a rare, huge smile on his face, and I’m not crying YOU’RE crying!

Hellboy

I should mention that while I do the puppets themselves entirely by hand (sewing machines scare the puck out of this Canadian), I am useless at making clothes. So I buy all their clothing in a thrift shop where I dress them for under $3. On one of my thrift shopping sprees I spotted this gorgeous beige trench coat and I became obsessed with making a puppet of… Detective Columbo.

But I also had a ton of red fabric leftover from my Deadpool build, so what the Heck, I went with the BPRD’s badass instead. You can guess by the eyes and nose that I modelled it more after the comics version than either of the film adaptations, though I did watch The Crooked Man while doing it so I may have leaned a little more toward Jack Kesy than my main man Ron. But mad respect to both, for they headlined a movie that isn’t the mediocre entry led by David Arbour. Full disclosure: I intend to redo the hand of doom, which, YES, I made on the left, because I’m a lefty and I’m empowering my people dammit!