nemo

Finding Nemo on Ice

Disney sure milks every drop out of it’s successes. After first becoming a musical, Finding Nemo – On Ice is about to tour in Australia. It’s quite interesting to see how they have tackled the puppets, however. For a quick overall impression, you can see a range of them on the video linked on this page, and there are some good photos by Conrado4 at Flickr. It seems like I was not the only one to find the idea of ‘finding Nemo on ice’ amusing, and wonder about the placement of the fish eyes.

It’s not so much the repetition of a favourite story that is so depressing about productions like this, but that they have to follow the exact same path and shiny look every time, there are no variables, and it’s all locked in. When my kids were babies I had a similar reaction to Fisher Price activity centres, though I am yet to meet someone who felt the same dislike of them. I see they are now collectable vintage on Ebay.

Finding Nemo: the Musical

Brian Kolm sent me a note a few weeks ago about Finding Nemo: the Musical, a new musical stage show at
Disney’s Animal Kingdom. (Thanks, Brian!). If you page down you can see photos of some of the large puppets, which seem impressive.

‘Principal characters such as Marlin, Nemo and Dory will be represented by live performers operating animated puppets. Some puppets are larger-than-life — such as Crush, the cool sea turtle, who is nearly the size of a Volkswagen, and Nigel the pelican, who stands 22 feet tall.


Other characters will be portrayed by a diverse array of puppetry styles, including rod, Bunraku and shadow. Tap dancing sharks, puppets riding bicycles, and a punk rock routine by Bruce the shark create theatrical magic and fun throughout the big blue world.

The Laughing Place has a couple of extra pictures in their two-page gallery.

The puppets have been designed by Michael Curry, who was the co-designer for The Lion King. The production opens officially in January 2007, but meanwhile preview shows have begun, and you can read a few reactions here.