As I approached the castle, I realized that these pieces from the show are truly very simple creations. While we as viewers see the brilliance of these structures on camera under the lights of a television studio, they are surprisingly made of little more than plywood, nails, and paint.
I don't say that to suggest that their quality or the creativity behind them are inferior in any way. In fact, I admire the simplicity of the show even more having seen the basic nature of these Neighborhood landmarks.
Commenting that the castle itself was a little shorter than I had envisioned, I was told that it was set up on a riser when it was on the set which added about another twelve inches to its height.
Through the image below, you can see into the area where the puppeteers would have worked.
Similar to the first photo in this series, the one below shows the castle from above giving a glimpse of the upper platforms.
Most interesting of all, of course, is seeing the side of the castle never shown on camera.
Next up, the Eiffel Tower...
PLEASE NOTE: While WQED will occasionally open its doors to the public, at this time WQED and the Fred Rogers Company do not provide public tours. Please do not interpret this or any other blog posts as an open invitation to contact them with such a request.
5 comments:
THANK YOU for posting these. Can't wait for more. Perhaps you even got an up-close shot of the model neighborhood??
Aaron -- The NOM models. Yes. The model neighborhood. No. My understanding is that model is in storage at this time. Glad you're enjoying the photos!
Great photos Tim I tell you this you should compare my photo of the neighborhood of make-believe model to your shot of it from 1991 to 2011 also what made you decide to do the Tree first then the Castle and then the Tower thanks for doing these
your neighbor
Lawrence
Lawrence -- No particular reason for the order of these. I guess maybe in the order they were on my camera but that's nothing intentional.
Love all the nooks and crannies in the back of the castle. You almost forget that there were all those other openings because they weren't used very often. I'm sure it was hard if you had filled the lower level with puppeteers to get people to fill the top also.
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