Something that we thought of this week is that you may not be using all of your puppets potential to its fullest. If you have a JET puppet, she almost always leaves a small gap between the upper and lower mouth plates. This is done for a variety of reasons such as avoiding the mouth being too tight to function properly with your hand.
This feature also offers other possibilities for you. If you will put your hand in the puppets mouth, you will discover that you can move your thumb up and down. You already knew this as it is how you make the puppet talk.
You can also move your thumb a little bit from side to side giving the puppet the ability to get some new expressions on his/her face such as a funny “set jaw” look which can be amusing.
You can also use the side to side movement to make your puppet look like he is chewing gum while you are talking. Maybe he/she is just being rude or just a typical smart alec. Play with this idea and see if it is for you and your act.
Make sure to take plenty of time to practice both this concept and to practice your overall performance techniques.
That’s all for now folks,
Steve and JET