Ehmer's Puppets collection

An album of photographs depicting Bernie and Eileen Ehmer and their puppets, and 5 A3-sized items.

Many of the photographs in the album were taken during puppet performances, including at the 1st Festival of Puppetry in 1979, the 1982 Commonwealth Games and at Expo 88.

The album also contains a number of collages used to create photocopied promotional flyers. The collages consist of photographs, photocopied text and other images pasted onto cardboard.

The A3-sized items include a large photograph of a young girl eating an ice-cream with a puppet, and 4 foolscap-sized boards with glued colour photographs of puppets.

This series contains four folders of handwritten and typed scripts for a range of puppet performances, including:

• Let's go to the moon - for Queensland Symphony Orchestra (never used),
• 'Tinytime' TV program scripts (written by Eileen and Joyce) and run sheets,
• Script for Seven's Super Saturday Australia Day special in 1984,
• Script for Dreamtime in the Deep, presented at the Chandler Theatre at the 1982 Commonwealth Games,
• Runsheets for puppet shows on a range of themes (mostly Christmas), handwritten on cardboard, from 1983-2011,
• Hey-Diddle-Diddle, a puppet production performed at Twelfth Night Theatre (1969),
• Script for a puppet show called 'The Swagman' (1970) - marked-up with lighting and production cues, 
• A folder of mostly handwritten notes related to scripts and music used in Ehmer puppet shows' and
• A published copy of sheet music for 'Shine on Brisbane' by J. James.

10 folders of papers related to different aspects of the activities of Ehmer's Puppets and the Ehmer's involvements with the broader puppet industry, including:

• business correspondence and promotional material (Box 24573),
• 'Art of Puppetry' and '21 years of puppetry' exhibitions at Queensland Art Gallery (Box 24572),
• 'An evening of puppetry' at the Reid Gallery (Box 24572),
• Artwork and finger-puppet patterns for Norco ice-cream wrappers (Box 24461 O/S),
• Draft manuscript of an unpublished book by Bernie Ehmer about puppetry (Box 24572),
• the first Queensland Festival of Puppetry (Box 24572), and
• correspondence and artwork sent to the Ehmer's from children (Box 24573).

An envelope of newspaper clippings about Ehmer puppets, collected by Bernie and Eileen Ehmer. 

Four items relating to Ehmer's Puppets:

• a t-shirt worn during performances of Remhettes Puppets (early name of Ehmers Puppets) in the 1960s, 
• Rotary Club of Wynnum and Manly decorative pennant, presented to Ehmer's Puppets in the 1980s,
• a wooden marionette-style puppet depicting a skeleton. The puppet is painted purple, with white painted rib bones and blue 'jewel' eyes. The puppet's strings and moving apparatus is intact, and
• a rod-style puppet depicting former Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen. The puppet was designed to be operated from below, with movable arms and mouth. 

Two VHS cassettes containing video material:

1. Copies of TV segments featuring Ehmer's Puppets and Bernie Ehmer; and
    
2. Raw un-edited footage of Ehmer's puppets activities include puppet building, posters, puppets, clippings books, demonstrations, setting up performances, and live performances (approx 45 min.) Following are TV segments featuring Ehmer's Puppets visiting children in hospital. Around 47 minutes the footage cuts finishes and unrelated pre-recorded television footage continues.