In the original 1932 Tod Browning film on which this show was based these characters were portrayed by actual Little People ( in fact a brother and sister) but for our purposes they were enacted by 36" tall foam rubber puppets. Operated in the Japanese style, aka the Bunraku, with puppeteers all in black and hooded in black, these puppets had movable mouths and eyes, but were not constructed with lifelike features. They would appear too much like "Dolls" if I had designed them in that way. Oddly their pudgy cheeked hollow eyed appearance was rendered totally believable with careful lighting and staging. The arms, hands and legs of the puppets were directly manipulated by the puppeteer's black gloved hands which allowed them to handle props and costumes naturally and even to affect a fairly convincing "walk' which is usually so hard to achieve in puppetry.
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