Puppeteer Larry Smith Dies At 79
Apr 16, 2018Dog and Nasty Ole Thing puppets, died Monday. He was 79.Smith's puppet show was the first program broadcast by WXIX-TV in 1968, and helped make Channel 19 the nation's highest-rated independent station in a year.The Dayton native started at age 14 on WHIO-TV in 1952. He came to Cincinnati in 1957 to work on the weekday morning "Uncle Al Show." By the time he retired in 2006, Smith had done puppet shows for Channels 9, 12, 19, 25, 48 and Northern Kentucky's old Storer Cable (now Spectrum)."During his 54-year career Larry racked up an estimated 6,319 hours of LIVE television. That’s LIVE television. No tape, no edits in post, no re-dos, but LIVE!," wrote Boston puppeteer Wayne Martin on Facebook. Martin, a Cincinnati native, was inspired and mentored by Smith."It was Larry Smith who lit the spark in me at three years old and started me on my life's journey as a puppeteer. When I was four my dad took me to Pogue's Department Store where Larry was appearing. Seeing Larry's puppets in person and in color for the first time just blew me away and it was here that I first met and spoke with my idol," wrote Martin, who will talk about "Larry Smith and His Puppets" Saturday, March 3, at the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting. The event was planned months ago. Smith founded the Cincinnati Area Puppetry Guild in the early 1970s. His Rudy and Teaser puppets were part of Media Heritage's display at the main public library in downtown Cincinnati in December and January. Smith had been in poor health for several years, says Mike Martini, president of Media Heritage, the local TV/radio archives. Media Heritage presented a lifetime achievement award to Smith in 2008."The nice part about receiving this award is that I can accept it, "Often they honor people after it's too late. I can enjoy it while I'm still alive," he told me in 2008, when I visited his Westwood home before the presentation and saw his basement workshop. Smith learned to make papier-mache puppets in Bible school, and started doing puppet shows in Cub S... (WVXU)
