Have you heard that national puppetry is coming up on March 21st?! I didn’t know this was a think until recently. I think this will be a very exciting day. If you have Disney+, you can celebrate by watching Earth To Ned. It’s a wonderful show that connects with puppetry. It would be great to watch on National Puppetry day too! My daughters and I will be celebrating the day with puppets. We love to put on puppet shows, so this is going to be so much fun!
Earth To Ned
In Earth to Ned, alien commander Ned (puppeteered by Paul Rugg) is sent to conquer Earth at the behest of his admiral father, but he calls off the invasion after falling in love with our pop culture and celebrities. Instead of blowing the planet up, Ned buries his ship beneath the Earth’s crust, sets up a studio on the deck, and enlists the help of his sidekick Cornelius (puppeteered by Michael Oosterom) along with his reluctant ship’s AI B.E.T.I. (puppeteered by Colleen Smith), and a gaggle of small monster-like creatures known as the CLODs, all so that he can star in his own talk show and learn more about Earth’s greatest resource….celebrities! Ned, Cornelius, their Artificial Intelligence B.E.T.I., and CLODs are brought to life by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, the team behind some of Hollywood’s most iconic characters.
Ned
Egotistical and brash, the 437-year-old spaceship captain and talk show host is very curious and wants to be informed of all things earth-related. His favorite earth “cuisine” is mayonnaise!
Cornelius
Ned’s lieutenant is from a race of aliens called Cornisians who have always served Ned’s species. He takes to the idea of being a co-host for Ned’s show and introduces the guests. He often gets sent to the surface to perform field reporting, which usually results in him getting absorbed into the complexities of the subject at hand. He is slightly inept, but witty and makes humorous comebacks when Ned insults him.
CLODs
CLODs are a group of small monster-like creatures that can eat just about any material and speak in unintelligible grunts and growls. The CLODS pop-up in every episode to the delight of kids everywhere. In one episode, Ned is exploring fashion with the help of RuPaul and Rachel Bilson and The CLODs orchestrate a fashion show where they each put on a unique outfit from different eras of Cher’s career! In other episodes, the CLODs stage a musical production, a Western, open a restaurant, and more!
B.E.T.I.
B.E.T.I. is the spaceship’s artificial intelligence. She is a charge of energy that powers the ship and doubles as a computer that can glean information. She is sarcastic and cynical and is not above belittling Ned and Cornelius’s intelligence.
Each episode focuses on a topic that is both equally unique to earthlings and fascinating to Ned, including comedy, sports, social media, and fashion. Ned beams in celebrity guests from across the known universe to put on the ultimate chat show, and the more he learns about our human culture, the more obsessed he becomes.
The series is jam-packed with celebrity guests including Joshua Bassett (“High School Musical: The Musical: The Series”), Rachel Bilson (“The O.C.”), Michael Ian Black (“Wet Hot American Summer”), Rachel Bloom (“Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”), Gina Carano (“The Mandalorian”), RuPaul (“RuPaul’s Drag Race”), Taye Diggs (“Rent”), Lil Rel Howery (“Get Out”), Bindi and Robert Irwin (“Crikey! It’s the Irwins”), Gillian Jacobs (“Love”), NeNe Leakes (“The Real Housewives of Atlanta”), Thomas Lennon (“Reno 911!”), Joel McHale (“Community”), Andy Richter (“Conan”), Olivia Rodrigo (“High School Musical: The Musical: The Series”), Eli Roth (“Hostel”), Kristen Schaal (“Gravity Falls”), Paul Scheer (“The League”), Jenny Slate (“Zootopia”), Raven Symoné (“Raven’s Home”), Reggie Watts (“The Late Late Show with James Corden”), Billy Dee Williams (“Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back”), Jason Ritter (“A Million Little Things”), Ginnifer Goodwin (“Big Love”), Aisha Tyler (“Archer”), Mayim Bialik (“The Big Bank Theory”), stand-up comedienne Margaret Cho, and more.
In honor of World Puppetry Day, the award-winning Jim Henson’s Creature Shop has created an EXCLUSIVE craft kit featuring the CLOD characters from Earth to Ned to encourage you to celebrate the magic of puppetry! Jim Henson’s Creature Shop has created a pattern and materials list so that anyone can make a CLOD. You’ll need the following:
Wooden spoon (body)
Plastic fork (teeth)
Pink pipe cleaner (inside mouth)
Gray pipe cleaner (for hair)
Fur (body/head) – 12 “ x 18”
Tan fun foam (face) – 9” x 12”
Wiggle eyes
Pink and tan felt (tentacles) – 9” x 12”
Glove (to perform tentacles)
I made my very own CLOD too! You can see in the photo above. I had a lot of fun making the CLOD. It was fairly simple to make as well. I’ve always enjoyed making all kinds of puppets, so this was fun for me. My daughters and I love it and thought it turned out great. I’m sure we’ll be making more of these too. They’re so much fun! It has got to be one of our most fun puppets yet! We’re so excited to use it for puppet shows!
Would you like the chance to win a CLOD craft kit? It contains everything you need to create your very own CLOD puppet! All you have to do is enter below for your chance to win. Good luck to everyone.
This really looks adorable, both the show and the puppets themselves. You can definitely tell it is a Jim Henson influenced show. It also reminds me of Alf from the 1980’s. I didn’t know about National Puppetry Day, but making a puppet is a nice way to celebrate it. The nice thing about making a puppet, as opposed to other kids’ crafts projects, is that the kids can play with puppet after the craft projects is completed.
Yes! I loved Alf as well. Such a wonderful show.
This sounds like such a great show. I’ll have to check it out. The puppet looks like fun to make too.
It was a lot of fun to make. We loved it.