Take a Gander

The local hands behind, and up in, kids' DVD star Miles The Goose.

by A.D. Amorosi

How to make suckers out of children? Surely that's the name of the game where mercenaries like Madonna are concerned. Only someone whose adult career is fizzling fast would seek an evil reign over kids by flooding the market like manischewitz at a kabbalah bash with inferior volumes like Lotsa de Casha and Yakov and the Seven Thieves.

Yet, not everyone is content to let Maddie take babes in the wood to her bosom with her ultimately cynical characterizations. And not everyone is short-shrifting the kids. Take Miles the Goose — the friendly host of Banyan Entertainment's new travel DVD, Are We There Yet? The Walnut Street production house has created a DVD for rambling parents on the move and the kids they need to sit still.

The blue-feathered Goose with a yen for haberdashery doesn't speak down to, or around, children. Instead, the Goose DVD's smart mix of live action, puppetry and animation offers traveling families charmingly educational look-sees into everything from historical icons along the American highway to guessing games concerning constellations and weather systems. (The just-released DVD has already garnered three award nods: one from the Dr. Toy organization and two silver Telly Awards.)

While Miles cracks wise and characters like the Question Kids — Madison, Chris, Violet and Dylan — play along, songs like "Superman" and games like "Alphabet Snoop" enthrall.

featherworld: Puppet designer Susan Ricca has her hands full with Miles (right); the award-winning DVD.

Writer/director Mitchell Goldstein and his team of scribes offer smart solutions to children's boredom and parents' frustrations; musician Rebecca Frezza and her Big Truck Band's original songs rival They Might Be Giants' most kid-centric tunes.

Then there's puppet designer Susan Ricca, whom Banyan sought to make Miles.

"He's cute and funny: the sort of person — I mean, puppet — you'd want along for a trip," says Ricca, who orchestrated Miles' design, creation, fabrication and costumes. She even went so far as puppeteering one half of Miles' body.

Though she has created Miles purely for Banyan's use (they own all product and licensing rights), the move will give Ricca's art form the sort of wide marketing most puppeteers dream of — at least those who grew up loving The Muppets, Dark Crystal and Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

"It was really amazing to see something that came from my soul was interacting with these little kids," says Ricca, a Philadelphia artist whose visual contributions have graced commercials for MTV, Yuengling and Comcast.

Ricca had been employed as the senior merchandise manager for Banyan's Design Invasion program on Fox. She'd also done freelance work with several of the independent production unit's other shows, including HiJinks, a kid's candid camera show on Nickelodeon featuring a Ricca-designed penguin puppet named Professor Frost (voiced by comedian Gilbert Gottfried).

After discovering Ricca's background in puppetry, Banyan got Ricca goosed, presenting her with a concept she re-created for their DVD: positivism stuck with blue and yellow feathers. Working on a three-week deadline over Christmas 2004, she sculpted his beak and made a mold cast in latex rubber with foam, feathers, fabric, more feathers, a wood skeleton and more feathers. "I still find his blue feathers in my apartment," says Ricca.

"The whole DVD is based on smart concepts like geography, travel and astrology," says Ricca, whose main influence for her puppets was the Muppets. "Gonzo was my favorite; and the guy with the Elizabethian collar and wild mustache who juggles fish."

If that last description sounds surreal, know that Ricca is partnered with Carmen Martella III, the local actor who has collaborated with her for his tributes to Tony Clifton and Salvador Dalí, as well as other staged events.

Together, the duo are planning more puppets-oriented products and live shows; a film of Ricca-built puppets for which Martella will voice and write songs is under way. Currently she is copyrighting these new characters.

"I wanted to make Miles happy, serene and goofy so that kids can stay busy, cheerful and intellectually challenged," says Ricca of Banyan's un-cynical buddy puppet. "Miles should be as big as Barney. He's certainly smarter."

Are We There Yet? is available at all good kids' stores for $17.99. Consumers can purchase a copy by visiting the DVD's Web site at www.milesthegoose.com.