Bil Baird

Bil Baird (1904-1987) was a puppeteer best known for his "Baird Marionettes", who appeared on Broadway (including his production of Man in the Moon at the Biltmore Theatre), television (in series such as The Whistling Wizard, spotlighting Charlemane the lion) and in films like The Sound of Music. For the latter, Baird and wife Cora designed, performed, and choreographed the "Lonely Goatherd" sequence.
Jerry Nelson, Faz Fazakas, and Olga Felgemacher all worked with Baird early on, and Baird collaborated with Jim Henson on a number of other occasions, such as on Here Come the Puppets. Baird's son Peter Baird performed, uncredited, in The Muppets Take Manhattan.
Baird, armed with Charlemane the lion, participated in the Muppets' musical tribute to Burr Tillstrom in the 1986 Television Academy Hall of Fame ceremony.
The Value of Imagination, a juvenile biography of Jim Henson, claimed that as a child, Henson watched Baird's TV series Life with Snarky Parker and claims that it was an influence on his decision to go into puppetry. This is demonstrably false, as evidence by a 1982 Cinefantastique interview with Judy Harris. Harris asked if Snarky Parky was an influence. Henson responds, "I don't think I ever saw that show." Harris goes on to ask "if Snarky Parker had rubbed off on you and that's where you got your initial inspiration for your first puppets?" Henson elaborates: 
In his own 1965 history of puppetry, Baird assessed Jim Henson's work at that time: 
A short biography of Baird appears in Cheryl Henson's 1994 book The Muppets Make Puppets!.
==References==
*A rendition of Bairds' "The Lonely Goatherd" marionette sequence from The Sound of Music was performed in The Muppet Show episode 217. The staging closely resembles Baird's.
*In the final "Land of Gortch" sketch, which aired on Saturday Night Live on September 8, 1976, King Ploobis assures his troupe that they have been resurrected "as it was predicted and spoke of in the great book." Not the Bible, as Scred assumes, but Bil Baird's Book of Puppetry.
*At The Furry Arms Hotel on Sesame Street, a suite is named after him (as mentioned in Episode 3156).
==Sources==
==External links==
*IMDb
*Letter and photos
*History of Bil Baird from Mason City, Iowa
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Category:Influences
Category:Puppetry