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Here's what we've been working on lately, some cool animatronic animals, and some wierd stuff, too!: We just made a *bitchin'* Animatronic Alligator! Pneumatic, powerful movements of head, jaw, and tail!
We've made a special page dedicated to the different ways of making Hand Puppets! THINK BIG! TCS highlights some of its awesome LARGE SCALE CREATIONS! Check out a silly Renuzit Ad featuring a little TCS magic! TCS Clucks up...we admit it...we made some CRAZY CHICKENS FOR DENNY'S! Who doesn't like a silicone-skinned BBQ Chicken? Low in calories! TCS conjures up a Giant Dragon for Broadway's "Shrek The Musical"! TCS creates a Menagerie of Puppets for "Shrek The Musical" TCS' Gus the Groundhog gets an upgrade, celebrates his 40th PA Lottery spot! An oversized Art Commission :Big Baby Gigantic SUV-sized shoes for Adidas! : Really Big Shoes Some wacky veggie and herb puppets...who never made it to the screen! :-( The Ones that got away" A page detailing our work in helping Vancouver artist Jeff Wall create one of his most iconic works: "Dead Troops Talk" TCS creates the first Animatronics Study Program of its' kind! See our Animatronics Study page at: http://www.character-shop.com/animatronicstudy.html for the latest info... Animated, puppeteered, walking, hopping, "Annoying Fees" for a Time Warner Cable ad... A unique "Steampunk"-style action prop for Barry Sonnenfelds' new Warner Bros. Pilot "Pushing Daisies"... The Foster Farms Chickens are BACK! Foster Imposters Realistic animatronic slithering reptiles SNAKES ON A PLANE! A strange little marionette named "Fash" for Old Navy A Water Buffalo battering ram for Bud Lite A dancing Chimp for an Arby's spot A personal project featuring Brian the Dog! Gus the Groundhog gets a makeover, and helps the PA Lottery break sales records! A realistic catfish for a Visa Print Ad! A devious rattlesnake gag for the Jimmy Kimmel show A cute chipmunk for a ComCast spot .. Goofy animatronic chicken puppets for Perdue Chicken...A
Pinocchio suit and animatronic head
for DiGiorno Pizza...a Water Buffalo battering ram for Bud Lite...a
wisecracking Ventriloquist Dummy for Sprint...A Chimp hand and Tiger tail for an Aussie Bank ad...More Gus the Groundhog
Pennsylvania Lottery spots (we just shot the 19th one!)...Did you know
that TCS did the character design for the pesky flies "Buzz" and
"Scuzz" for the movie "Racing Stripes"?......Check out our page on the
incredibly popular Foster Farms Chickens!...A rare look at a Robot Dog that never made it to air...A retrospective page, looking at the work Rick did on Jim Cameron's "ALIENS"...We've aldo updated our Feature Films and Commercials pages with bigger pics and more detail!
Like to see what we've done in the past?
Have a look at some of our previous updates! We've created a beautiful Puma, an
ornery Sheep, a wide-eyed Frog, and a trio of
hungry Hyenas for Cadbury's Chocolate new
branding campaign and award winning director Noam Murro. Noam had this
to say about Rick and the TCS crew: "You ROCK!"... Also for Noam Murro, an Adidas spot that garnered
Adweek "Best Spots" coverage: "Carry". We also did a new Holiday Spot for Jack in the Box
featuring three new Holiday Balls... A Pizza Hut ad featuring a pair of accurate replicas
of the Audrey I and II plant puppets from
"Little Shop of Horrors"... Trivia: Did you know that Rick played Pizza the
Hutt in "Spaceballs"? He was also one of the apes on horseback at the
end of the film... 5/2004 We've been busy! We completed creating a
beautiful Puma, Sheep, and Frog for a pair of European spots and award
winning director Noam Murro. Noam had this to say about Rick and the
TCS crew: "You ROCK!"... pics and details to come soon!.. Meet Gus the Groundhog! TCS designed
and created the newest spokesanimal for the Pennsylvania Lottery.
Puppets mean Re$ult$! PA Lottery ticket sales shot up from $16 million
a month to $22 million a month after Gus's debut! We've shot 3 spots
with Gus, with more to come...Then there's Pedroso,
Venezuela's most popular celebrity! A walking, talking, charming,
Waldo®-powered Polar Bear, he's the
living corporate logo for Venezuela's Empresas Polar...Polar Beer sales
have also increased significantly since Pedroso's debut; we've shot 18
spots with him so far! ...Wrigley's Juicy Fruit ad features a TCS
creation; a Pinata that comes to life!... 1/2004 A Singing Sturgeon for a New York Lottery spot...Animated, ambulatory doughnuts for
International Delight coffee creamer...Grab that Eggo! A full sized
French Toast costume for a pair of commercials for Eggo French Toaster
Sticks!...TCS also did some subcontract work on "Aliens vs. Predator"... 6/2003 We've completed some character designs for a Sony
Film called "Racing Stripes". Have you seen our work for Orbitz? Both Creativity and Shoot Magazines
gave us quite nice write-ups! A cool homage to those funky 60's
marionettes shows...check 'em out! 3/2003 Have you seen our Apple
iMac ad? We wrapped a 3 month long shoot on New Line's remake
of "Willard", starring Crispin Glover. We created hundreds of
realistic rat replicas for the film, including sophisticated
animatronic versions of the hero rats Ben and Socrates, as well as
other creature effects. Currently showing on TV are spots we've done
for Jack in the Box, and a whole slew of new ads for Foster
Farms, featuring the inimitable Imposter Chickens Tom and Bob! Although we created him a while back, there's a "Plato" page Check it out!: Need
something very realistic?! Kind of a nice human head replica on our Realistic Human Page...
A Rooster for California Cheese that wakes up
a couple of cows a little too early! A cute Puppy toy gets mean for Duracell,
New Foster Farms spots with our new Turkey Character,
Flopping trout for "Dr. Dolittle II", a scratching Dalmation
paw for McDonalds, and a hellaciously cool 12' long robotic arm
for
Ford Focus , and, of course, the ubiquitous Talking Sandwich
Spots for Florida Citrus. Delightfully creepy Jack Balls for Jack in the Box ,
at Christmastime...You can see some of our most recent work on an
MTV-airing campaign for Sony Walkman. Yep, that little blue
alien that all the coeds are diggin' is Plato, an animatronic Bunraku
TCS special! We created some Pied Crows for a Jeep ad, and an
animatronic dog and ostrich for Fox's upcoming theatrical release "Dude,
Where's My Car?" Another "Best Spot" vote by Adweek for
our Oxygen.com SuperBowl Spot! Check
out the publicity! A
few more articles posted up at that link, and a whole new slew of
commercial spots for some
major clients. See if you recognize any of these ads: Oxygen.com "I
Am Baby"; featuring a fully
articulated 12 axis-of-freedom silicone-skinned animatronic
arm. Also debuting on SuperBowl Sunday were our Discovery Cove
Dolphin puppets that required 4 scuba-equipped puppeteers and modifying
a '64 Ford Galaxy to be filled with water. A bizarre Trippy the
Guniea Pig for Perdue Chicken, a talking PiggyBank for CoolSavings.com
, A new Foster Farms ad package featuring our creation of a
brand new character! Al Franken butters up our Talking Potato
for Parkay, and a worried dad-to-be rushes home to
find our Newborn Puppies for a Honda spot, Ericsson Cellular
Phone hired us to create a motley trio of Aliens for an international
spot that's getting a lot of attention. Maybe you saw our Blockbuster
ad last Halloween that featured a cute couple of bats! (click here to downlad
a3.4 mb MPEG version!) We also
created a cute Lion named Kingsley for a kid's video series. Good
Day LA visited TCS for the third time recently!
Delightfully creepy Jack Balls for Jack in the Box ,
at Christmastime...You can see some of our most recent work on an
MTV-airing campaign for Sony Walkman. Yep, that little blue
alien that all the coeds are diggin' is Plato, an animatronic Bunraku
TCS special! We created some Pied Crows for a Jeep ad, and an
animatronic dog and ostrich for Fox's upcoming theatrical release "Dude,
Where's My Car?". How did our Y2K start? With a
"Best Spot" vote by Adweek for our Oxygen.com SuperBowl
ad! It also placed in the top ten on the USA Today
Reader's Poll!
Check out the publicity! We've been busy creating a whole new slew of commercial spots for some major
clients. See if you recognize any of these ads;
right now, on any given day, there are at least 12 commercials playing
that feature our work! Oxygen.com "I Am Baby"; a fully
articulated 12 axis-of-freedom silicone-skinned animatronic arm. Also
debuting on SuperBowl Sunday were our Discovery Cove
Dolphin puppets that required 4 scuba-equipped puppeteers and modifying
a '64 Ford Galaxy to be filled with water. A bizarre Trippy the Guniea
Pig for Perdue Chicken, a talking PiggyBank for CoolSavings.com! Al Franken butters up our Talking Potato
for Parkay, and a worried dad-to-be rushes home to
find our Newborn Puppies for a Honda spot, Ericsson Cellular
Phone hired us to create a motley trio of Aliens for an international
spot that's getting a lot of attention. Maybe you saw our Blockbuster
ad last Halloween that featured a cute couple of bats!
(click here to download a 3.4 mb MPEG version!) We also created a cute Lion named Kingsley for
a kid's video series. Good Day LA visited TCS for the third
time recently, and we showed off our recent projects! Our
Superbowl Bud Lobster Spot from last year was a "runaway" hit!
Adweek voted it as a "Best Spot"! Seen them talking sandwich ads for
the Florida Orange Juice Growers? We did
'em! Our
Toasty the Sheep has helped Sony sell 4 MILLION Playstation
consoles (and lots of Spyro the Dragon games) in the last two months!
Look for our Honey Nut Cheerios Frog, Rattlesnakes for a Coors
Light spot. (
click here to download a teeny Quicktime movie of it! ) Other
projects have included a Talking wallet for ATT Long Distance
Services, Empty suits for Honda, Cat paws up to no good for a Got
Milk ad, a frog for Claudia Schiffer to kiss, a hapless
action figure for Domino's Pizza , a Baby's arms yank Dad into
his crib for some McDonald's fries, Goofy chickens for Kentucky
Fried Chicken, Undersea creatures for Texaco, a cow's
udders go dry for Nabisco's Oreo O's cereal, a cranky doll for Hostess,
more Foster Farms spots, Nutcracker dolls come to life for a
holiday
spot for Pepto Bismol, intelligent cow hooves for Chick
Fil-A, a walking, talking Barbeque for Matchlight ... 1998 brought us a Saturn Award for "Best Makeup
" on "
MIMIC "!New articles online, including a nice 4 pager from
HOW Magazine on the making of the creatures of "MIMIC". More new articles coming soon!
Check out our " What's New! "
button for details and links! (Bear with us;
some links may be broken and some pages unfinished...) The makeover for the website continues! Mostly appearance
tweaks and link fixes. Speaking with Guillermo Del Toro about possibly
doing a "Hellboy" movie, enjoying the attention generated by our Superbowl Bud Lobster (mentions
in Entertainment Weekly, Shoot, and Adweek magazines). We created a
trio of Nutcrackers for a Pepto Bismol spot. We also created a
huggable, lovable lion character named Kingsley for a series of
childrens' educational videos. Look for our Coors Light "Rattlesnake"
spot, Florida Orange Grower's Commission "Talking Sandwich" ads, and
yet another animatronic frog for Honey Nut Cheerios! New
articles online,
including a nice 4 pager from HOW Magazine
on the making of the creatures of "MIMIC". 10/98 A complete makeover for the website! Slick, consistent
navigator button layouts (we read "Web Pages That Suck" and there were
too many in there that reminded us of ours!). A new logo, animated
gifs, more anecdotes , and plenty of
info on and pix from our latest projects! A Saturn Award! For "Best
Makeup" for our Creature Effects on "MIMIC
" (Presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
Films). A whole new slew of commercial spots for
Sony Playstation , AT&T, Citroen, Hostess
Cupcakes, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Texaco, Matchlight, Foster Farms,
Honda, Los Angeles Times, Oreo "O's" Cereal, "California's "Got Milk?"
campaign, and more! LINK heavily so people can go to new stuff 9/3/97 Go see MIMIC! And check out our MIMIC
page ! It's under construction, but it's more info on the
movies' creatures than you'll find elsewhere! Except, perhaps, for
FANGORIA issue#167 (October), which has a 5 or 6
page article on our MIMIC creatures... And we made the fine art scene! Jeff Wall, one of today's most
important artists, is having a major retrospective of his
backlit, larger-than-life photographs at the L.A. Museum of
Contemporary
Art. TCS had a hand in creating some horrific effects for one of
his more chilling pieces...more to come on that project... Also, soon to come, celebrities' boats that I've puked on!
(Oh, I know it's only two, but that's more stories about puking on
celebrities' boats than you'll find elsewhere!) And look soon for our foray back into the world of commercials
(we were in MIMIC-land for nearly two years!) with a brand new Hostess
"Where's the Cream Filling?" spot, featuring a little dolly that don't
take no guff! Just got back from Tokyo! Did a Fuji-Xerox commercial and
print ad with a little animatronic character I like to call "E.T."
HIGHLIGHTS: Mr. Spielberg saying he liked our puppet "very much"
and would like to "talk about the technology" with me. (Do the words
"DreamWorks", "Synergy", and "Richer than God" conjure up any images?)
Shopping in Akihabara ("Electronic City") for gadgets. Got a COOL
10.4" flat LCD TV/Monitor! Riding the underground at rush hour!
Getting radio-controlled animatronic Godzilla and M othra toy!. Getting
drunk on Sake! Bare breasts on daytime TV! A US $800 dinner for 6
people! Paid for by the Agency! LOWLIGHTS: Expensive!
A 22-hour shooting day! Customs trying to take my Mothra spray silk! Also, look out for a new Bud Frog spot featuring our three
little guys and...an alligator!?! Webmaster's Note: Due to the recent move to our official domain, you may
experience missing pages and images, broken links, and occasional
dizziness or nausea. Please bear with us until we get everything
squared away (and do not attempt to operate heavy machinery). Thanks! So Happy New Year, already! Whew! We been crankin'! I suppose,
if you watched the Super Bowl, you saw our Bud "Buzzard "spot, as
well as our "Frozen Frogs" spot. We're especially proud of the latter
as it tested and rated higher even than the original (sorry, Stan!).
Since November, we also did a Japanese cel phone commercial with
an animatronic Kangaroo and Brad Pitt, revamped our penguins for
another Japanese cel phone spot, and created an articulated
glowing-fingered animatronic hand and suit-wrangled for a Japanese
Fuji-Xerox spot featuring E.T. We also built a 1/6th scale puppet
of Billy Zane in full outfit as the "Phantom." Shoot-wise, we did
two Bud Frog spots; the "Frozen" one and another--you'll see it
soon enough--which involves a 'gator... Gettin' ready to go to Arizona to film a Bud Lite commercial.
It involves a vulture. It involves us. I can say no more, except that a
road trip from L.A. to Kingman in a fully stocked Winnebago with the
wild and crazy TCS crew should prove, in a word, "memorable." Rick added in the TV Coverage page; it's
a little drier than the anecdotes page, for you gossip-mongers.
Ohh, the stories I could tell, if I was real stupid! Happy Halloween! I added some more libel and slander to the Anecdotes page; you guys shore
like the DIRT, doncha! Our new Budweiser commercial has
come out, it features the famous ants and an animatronic anteater that
we built! Pic is on our home page, with a press release
and behind the scenes info soon to come! What's New | Features | Commercials | Resume | Realistic | Whimsical | Scary | Animatronics | Prosthetics | Puppets | Waldo ® | Publicity | TCS Fun | FX FAQ | Reference | Contact Us Except where noted, all contents are the property of The Character Shop, Inc. and copyright 1995-2006
Meet two of the latest additions to the TCS Menagerie: an Owl and a Poodle!
An 8' tall Furry Alien for a Fiber One ad, a new look at Rick's work on "Spaceballs", Beautiful Model Cars for an Edmunds.com spot, a page showcasing some of our Rental Items, an incredibly realistic Walleye Fish, a Sleepy Sheep for Corona Light, a Possum for Geico, and a Goofy Goat for Capital One!We also can provideSuicidal Cows or Taxidermied Poodles! Check out our home page for more info!
Need an authentic bomb retrieval Robot? Or an awesomely modified one? Call TCS!
We just recently worked with Cousins on a very cool viral spot. It's also sweet and delicious!
Also new!: Recent work for Corona Light, Discovery Card, a new "Visigoths" spot for Capital One, and Animal Planet. Some is work we can't show yet. But we'll put it up when it's released!Also new!: Capital One Ad features our "stuffed" poodle!:
Our Go-to Bovine undergoes Gender Reassignment yet again!
A new Brand Icon for Ortega Foods: Blu the Talking Pinata.
TCS has a Bovine with Multiple Personality Disorder. Won't you please rent it, and give generously?
Rick Lazzarini and The Character Shop team up with Ronald Binion to create Doug, the Official Orange Spokespuppet for the 2012 Ford Focus
"Napoleon Dynamite" Director Jared Hess chooses TCS and our Puma for a Toyota Spot.
Rick and TCS create a kick-ass, giant, animatronic Raven for a new Old Spice ad
TCS creates a beautiful 20 foot tall marionette for Mayflower Moving
Holy Self-Unwrapping Candy
Bars, Batman! TCS created some amazing effects for a trio of new
M&M's M-Azing Candy ads!..
"Willard"
is out on DVD! See our web page for pics of Ben and Socrates,
as well as some of their behind-the-scenes secrets! QuickTime movies of
our animatronic rat tests coming soon...
We created an incredibly realistic
bloodhound replica for
Sweet Home Alabama," starring
Reese Witherspoon.
The iMac in the store window that mimics a passerby was a rod
&
animatronic puppet, built for Director Kinka Usher by TCS! 
Charmingly rustic
cuckoo clock figures come to life thanks to
the fabulous art of rod puppetry, in one of a pair of spots for Mohawk Carpets for RSA-USA's director John
Schwartzman.
We created the animatronic
"psychedelic toad" for the Barry Sonnenfeld-directed Tim Allen-starrer "Big Trouble", coming soon on DVD.
that shows how we created the quirky blue alien character
for a slew of MTV commercials for client Sony!
We created a Rooster for California Cheese that wakes up a
couple of cows a little too early! For independent film
Producer/Director Regis Trigano, we created an authentic-looking
tortoise for his filmed adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's "Terrapin".
We also did this Bud spot
featuring a thirsty pair of tortoises ! 
3/2000
5/99
3/8/96
3/6/96
2/5/96
We're currently sprucing up our Sandlot dog to go to Planet Hollywood,
getting our animatronic elephant ready to go to Las Vegas for a week,
doing a little "Operation Dumbo Drop" video release P.R., getting ready
to take a brand-new E.T. animatronic head to Japan for more Fuji-Xerox
ads, creating 1/5th scale puppets of Kurt Russell, Steve Buscemi, and
Pam Grier for "Escape From L.A.", and gearing up to take ourselves off
the market for about 7 months so we can work on the creepy feature film
"Mimic."
We are also sprucing up around the old web site, starting with this
page, and including our expanded and newly updated FX
FAQ .
When I say "Whew!" I MEAN "Whew!"11/11/95
11/2/95
10/31/95
10/25/95
Rick went on National Radio today, the Tom Lykis Show (KMPC 710 AM) to
discuss/debate those wacky people who think our Bud animal spots drive
kids to drink. Everybody knows that it's Parents who
drive their kids to drink!
The L.A. Times is scheduled to come to the shop 10/26 for a photo
session! The subject: the Bud Frog Female !10/5/95
Now Playing: Our "Zork" commercial for the Aluminum Can Association,
where friendly purple aliens rock'n' bop with the help of soda pop
sipped from aluminum cans!
Anybody gotten to the gory screens of PHANTASMAGORIA yet? In a slow
period last year, we decided to take on the gore effects for the hit
CD-ROM project. Since we're PC- challenged and
Hyper MACtive, we haven't been able to see the game play! Sort of
a little break from the lovable characters we've been doing lately.
We've just finished an R and D period on some pretty wild creatures for
a major feature. We're keeping our fingers crossed that the real deal
goes through soon.....
Been keeping up with the Fox/Santilli Alien Autopsy Controversy?
Producers from Fox have asked how much it would cost to replicate the
footage with a state-of-the-art replica...
Soon you'll be able to download QuickTime clips of our Bud Frogs from
the DDB Needham site. For now, you can visit the Digital Domain site
for more still pix of the flying frogs and amorous amphibians.
What we plan to add in the future: How-to pages! Learn how to make body
casts, molds, and prosthetics!
And, we have to ask...do you REALLY want to download Quicktime movies?
'Cuz, we'll do it, man....
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