I traveled to the Creature Shop for an exclusive look at what’s under the fur. Here’s what the mentors from Syfy’s Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge had to say about their creations.
Welcome to Jim Henson's Creature Shop, where all your dreams (and nightmares) come to life.
I was thrilled at the opportunity to see Fraggles, but terrified I might run into one of the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal. BOTH OF THESE THINGS HAPPENED.
Dale Berman/Syfy
My tour guides were Julie Zobel, Peter Brooke, and John Criswell.
This trio also serves as mentors on Syfy's reality series Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge. And with good reason! Zobel (left) is the lead fabricator and has worked on projects like Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and Dr. Dolittle. Brooke (middle) is the Creature Shop creative supervisor, and his credits include Where the Wild Things Are, The Flintstones, and Dinosaurs. Criswell (right) is the mechanical engineer, and has put his skills to work on Critters, Pushing Daisies, and The Hangover, among others.
Dale Berman/Syfy
This one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater is pretty much fully animatronic.
"This is not a hand puppet," Criswell explained. "He’s a combination of a cable-controlled mechanism and a servo cable-controlled mechanism." His name is Scoots, and he was created as promotion for the Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge series.
Louis Peitzman/BuzzFeed
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