---

Modern life alienates people. Similar attracts similar, contrasts repel, and the barriers between their ideals push them farther apart, a Venn diagram with no intersections. This is the world in which Bobby lives, a world where parents drift along in parallel to the children they so ardently love and ignore.

The power structure fears their idealism and courage. Youth inherit from their elders cynicism and narcissistic tendencies, generation after generation, with no relief from this circle of destruction.

---

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE STAR

---

---

It is an unusual story, a puppet becoming a world phenomenon. Tell me your family history.

At heart, I am mostly basswood, with some harder woods making up my joints and softer organs. My ancestry dates back to Opera dei Pupi in Sicily in the 19^th century, and my sapline includes both Pinocchio and Pulcinella, known to most of the world as Punch, as in Punch and Judy.

Did you enjoy a lively childhood?

I had no childhood, I have worked all my life. We scuttled from town to town, playing mostly for children. When the show was over I was thrown in a suffocating duffel bag, enveloped with darkness until the next show.

People forget, there was cruelty in the old days. I couldn’t get a seat in a restaurant, had to be snuck into hotels. Parents wouldn’t let their kids play with me. Until Howdy Doody showed up on TV, guys like me were considered mere playthings, never equal.

What do you consider as your big break in the business?

The Sound of Music, 1965. I played the yodeling baby goat in the famous Lonely Goatherd scene. I didn’t get an Oscar (muffled laugh) but let me tell, that Julie Andrews is some kind of peach!

As a character actor, you seem to pop up in every puppet movie ever made. Can you share some highlights?

You have been linked to all sorts of romantic attachments through the years. Feel like spilling?

Julie Andrews, she was first. Hot and heavy with Lady Penelope, royal oak if ever there was. Don’t tell Kermit, but Miss Piggy is on the list. Charlie McCarthy hooked me up with Candice Bergen. I used hand out a lot of splinters in my rambunctious youth, but I’m a calmer piece of wood these days.

You don’t look like you’ve aged a day over the last five decades. What’s your secret?

Polyurethane. Gives a shinier finish than varnish, but requires a little more upkeep. No botox needed when one small strip of sandpaper makes the wrinkles disappear.

Why did you come out of retirement for Strung Out?

I’m a sucker for a strong script and venal sentimentality. Plus Jack Off Joe is a long time friend and he thought I would be good in the role, seeing as I have lived delinquency my entire adult life. And all the old gang got together—Moondoggy, Sus, Martin Spplitz, Knobby, Sin Dee—this furniture don’t get together much, so when we do, it’s a party. Even Bobby joined up, which I kind of feel bad about. We shouldn’t have, but it seemed like the puppet thing to do.