Bad Idea Bears

While the company rented out the majortiy of the puppets for the show, they weren't a fan of the Bad Idea Bear puppets that came with them. We decided the simplest way to make them would be to cut apart pre-existing teddy bears, and I was given two of each.

I was asked to take inpiration from the Broadway version of the puppets, so one would be blue and the other yellow. They couldn't find a yellow bear, so the first step was unstuffing the tan bear (the closest they could find) to get dyed. One of them I experiemnted with hand-dying using paint, and the other was left to soak in a vat of polyester fabric dye. It took a couple soaks to get the vibrant color we were looking for, but the real dye won in the end.

While the yellow bear was getting colored, I had to time to experiment with the mouth mechanism. Using a video as a guide (linked below), I made a cardboard mouth plate and glued a sock to the edges for the puppeteer's arm to go through. After the yellow bear was finished drying, she got the same treatment.

Not going to lie they looked pretty unsettling at this step

In this one you can see the sock at the bottom

Once they were actual puppets, they just needed a little more work. The blue bear got a new nose so that he matched the yellow one, and they both got large friendly felt eyes.

Both bears on my desk at home