December 10th, 2012 by Stinkhead
We got to play with the new Doi Birds from Dr. Phineas’s Magical Emporium. They’re a great, unique puppet, and kids and adults can get into it immediately. Click below for more.
To give you a little background, Dr. Phineas is an original children’s theater show based in Connecticut. The puppets are created by my friend, Tim Clarke. Tim worked with Jim Henson back in the day, and is also the creator behind childhood favorites of mine Boglins and Sectaurs. Tim worked on The Dark Crystal sculpting Mystics, as well as Fraggle Rock. Now he works with his son providing the puppets and direction on the Dr. Phin production. One of the popular characters, the Doi Birds are now available at their online store.
I gave this Doi Bird to my five year old to play with and he instantly took to it. He’s played with some traditional hand puppets before, but he really took to the unique operation of this puppet. It’s pretty simple, but flexible enough each puppeteer can bring something new when they put it on. Slide your hand into the yellow glove. This creates the bird’s feet. With your other hand, move the rod up and down to extend the bird’s colorful neck, or twist it to turn the bird’s head. The material is soft yet durable, and the colors are very attractive and fun to play with.
We had a lot of fun playing with this bird. Not only did he enjoy “pecking” me with his Doi Bird, but he loved making the bird look at different things and make different noises. Five is a perfect age to pick this up and start playing with it, but the unique operation makes it fun for adults to play with too. I carried it home on the Metro and I enjoyed entertaining the kids sitting near me.
After we played with the Doi Bird a bit, my son wanted to dig up all of his puppets and put on a puppet show. I love the amount of imagination that the Doi Bird inspired.
If you’re in the New England area, check out Dr. Phineas’s Magical Emporium to see when the next live show is coming up, and hit up the store link and get your own doi bird before Christmas.
Here is a video of Tim himself showing off the Doi Birds in action.
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Posted in 5&up, Boys, crafts, gadgets, Girls, kids, Magic106.5, review, toys | Comments Off on Doi Birds!
