Part of the fun of letting my travel companions decide the locations is the fact I end up in even more bizarre places than I would normally. The puppetry museum was definitely one of these! We’d both had an interest in such things but I probably would have avoided being a lone person wandering the halls looking for creepy dolls. Even though I kind of love creepy dolls. And he is particularly endeared to Jim Henson creations. We both appreciate the creativity of this unusual hobby.

Still, neither one of us knew a thing about the museum. As it turns out it’s run by the local college – UCONN which provides classes… for puppetry. I was speachless. I had no idea you could attend college and study puppetry. That seemed soooo…. out there. I could imagine the parents of these kids, “I threw us all into debt to pay for you to study what now?!” What good IS a degree in puppetry? What can you do with that? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.

But first we found ourselves in the city of Storrs, surrounded by campuses, largely empty. Most of the colleges in these parts have been shut down since the pandemic and it’s… a little apocalyptic to look at them so lifeless and sad. There’s a parking garage nearby but I ended up just putting the car in one of the many empty street spaces that I imagine were normally full pre-pandemic. From here we made our way to museum and in typical fashion I decided to make a total scene of myself by diving into the pavement as I crossed the street. I haven’t taken a spill like that since childhood! Ripped a hole in my pants, ended up with two bloodied knees, and two bloodied palms, but I got up without skipping a beat none-the-less. It’s best to do an impression of a cat running headlong into a wall. I did that on purpose! Stop looking at me.

The museum bragged about a collection of 2,500 puppets. Normally I have avoided museums since the pandemic buuuuut who would even be here? I was expecting a tiny little place devoid of human life except perhaps one lonely guy who really loves them puppets and probably hasn’t seen other human life in quite some time… I wasn’t far off.

The museum is free but they do ask who you are at the door and donations are always welcome. Part of me wanted to donate a puppet but I’m sure that’s probably not what they mean.

As we walked in there was a large display of all sorts of culturally diverse creations. There was a Sesame Street character and another Muppet I didn’t recognize that called to my travel companion. I didn’t realize how small they were in real life! Surrounding them was a metal mask of a goat man, a bunch of marionettes, and something called a water puppet which confused me greatly. A shadow puppet also shyly dangled from above. It was a nice display!

In the next room we found a disturbing display that seemed to be two probably haunted ventriloquist dummies, a plastic baby doll “Cherub” with cheap butterfly wings glued to it, and two partially decapitated dolls, one with no arms, and the other with a sword through it’s head. The plaques didn’t offer much in what was going on other than these were somehow supposed to be puppets used to tell the story of Hamlet. I’ve seen a production of Hamlet before… I remember none of these. In fact the whole room was dedicated to Shakespearean puppets which was hard not to laugh at but I would totally go see Hamlet as portrayed by two anthropomorphic chicken puppets. Who wouldn’t?!

The final room was filled with soulless black dead eyes staring at me from beyond vibrant clown make up. It was the stuff of nightmares. So much so that it threw me off and I didn’t take a photo of the eyes. Those piecing black iris-free eyes…

We were a bit sad this place didn’t have more. But the neighboring bookstore did. They had a bunch of garish giant papier-mâché heads all over the place, spill over from the puppetry museum. The cashier there told us the puppetry museum is in fat larger, that beyond the displays is a performance space used for puppet shows. We made a note to come back to see one after covid blows over…

And so ended our adventures to the day as I left with still-bloodied hands to go wash up with hand sanitizer in the car. Woot woot!