By Sarah Spitz
Hollywood, CA (The Hollywood Times) Aug. 2, 2026 When you hear the phrase “Adult Puppet Improv Show,” with the word “Uncensored” tossed in, a certain tingle of excitement arises. Will these be naughty puppets? Will there be “blue” material? Will the show be as hilarious and taboo busting as the popular musical Avenue Q (a hit parody of Sesame Street, commingling live actors and puppets)?
You will hear f-bombs and subject matter that never would have come up on Sesame Street. And these definitely are not the Muppets you or your kids grew up with! I wasn’t sure what to expect, and while I generally enjoyed the show, I was not as enthralled as I’d hoped to be. But this is improv after all, so no show will be the same as the next.
Brian Henson’s Puppet Up! is onstage for 8 performances only at the Montalbán Theatre. The stage is set with multiple screens at various angles and runs a repeating slide show with the puppeteers’ bios, information about the show and, of course, soclal media links. The staging is intriguing: we see the puppeteers operating their puppets on the stage but with a little neck twist upward, we see on screen what the puppets are doing on camera. The split screen/live action is in itself a fascinating process to witness.
Like any improv show, “Puppet Up!” relies on shoutouts from the audience, prompted by the emcee (at this performance Ithamar Enriquez), to create impromptu sketches based on a specific set up. The nature of improv is just that, improvisation on the spot. So while the scene set-ups are planned, what happens on the stage is fresh every time because of the audience input.
The show opens with Brian Henson, son of the late Jim Henson, the world-renowned puppeteer and creator of The Muppets, sharing a personal history about his father and mother, how they met, worked together, married and then developed their puppeteering techniques. Puppets were created especially for television, built to fit within the frame of the screen, and the actors would focus on the feedback shown on the monitors to see what the camera saw. Sometimes at night they’d gather to blow off steam and laugh at themselves and each other.
Brian was experimenting with puppets using comedy writers until his wife introduced him to Patrick Bristow, an improv actor. After seeing an improv show, Brian asked Patrick to help teach the puppeteers improv skills and how to look each other in the eye through the monitors. Together they created an “underground” show for an invited audience at the Henson studio, and one night an Aspen Comedy Festival producer told Henson he wanted to bring the show to the festival. From there it rocketed to stages across the globe that has continued for 20 years. Patrick Bristow is still the director.
With an opening sketch about “frisbee golf,” that didn’t quite land, to a more amusing set up about two pairs of diners at different tables, one a “good” couple and the other a “bad couple.” The grateful table were cloyingly sweet and the other table were very smelly, with waiter/puppet Kirk bouncing between them. More comic than the first, this sketch was enhanced by one of the puppeteer’s knowledge of Chili’s in Encino, of the stores and neighborhood surrounding it. Later, we watched hot dog puppets play rugby on screen and the funniest part was that none of the puppeteers had a clue about how rugby is played.
Next, reaching into the audience, Enriquez selected Clint and Stacy. The actor/puppets had to work Clint’s occupation as a MediCal and CalFresh claim advisor into a song. Tricky stuff, with made-up music and made-up lyrics done live in the moment. Again, not a solid hit, but the emcee did choose these particular folks with no foreknowledge of their lives and occupations.
An intermezzo while the stage was being set up for the next scene, we were privileged to watch a Jim Henson sketch filmed in 1966, Music Hath Charms. A piano playing puppet is harangued by increasingly larger monster puppets, attempting to soothe the savage beasts with a hilarious denouement.
More fun ensued when the Dating Game set up involved a bachelor who is always interrupting, a man who is always right and an influencer attempt to answer the lucky bachelorette’s questions. Who will she choose?
A ComicCon set up followed by a tango danced by puppets in prison for sharing the reasons why they murdered the characters in the scene: a Trekkie, a Galaxy Quest ultra fan and a mother. It was creative to say the least.
Soon another couple from the audience Michele and Richard, endure a reconstruction of their first date where she ordered coffee and he ordered orange juice. As the scene progressed, each of them were supposed to hit a bell or a buzzer in response to how much the puppets got right or wrong about that date.
All that happened in the first act, and in the second we had a movie set up, a children’s story at bedtime, another film from 1968 by Jim Henson called Business Business done when he was 31 years old. Lastly one unsuspecting audience member was invited onto the stage to operate a puppet with the others in a sketch…It had moments but was kinda cringey, really.
I think that there was some sense of pre-destined direction in the choices being shouted out by the audience. For example, asked what style of film the “James Bond” sketch should be based on, the predominant audience call was “noir,” yet the host selected “erotic thriller” which had a mixed result. And he called on one side of the audience more than the other, which made it feel uneven.
All that said, improv is improv and what you see won’t be what I saw, other than the scene setups. Be prepared to yell loud with your prompted suggestions, and be ready to scream “Puppet Up!” on demand.
Weekends through August 9 with matinee and evening performances. The Ricardo Montalbán Theatre, 1615 Vine St, Hollywood, CA 90028. Tickets are available at puppetup.com
