Pulling strings to help Bob Baker

One of the characters in Bob Baker Marionettes
Christmas show welcomes guests.

Editor's note: This column originally ran in the Antelope Valley Press on Sunday, June 7, 2009. Three years later, Bob Baker is still hanging on, although his grip is now precarious. Humorist Charles Phoenix is doing a one-off fundraiser to try to save the theater. My husband and I took Phoenix's Downtown Disneyland Tour in December of 2011, and saw a part of the Christmas show, which was wonderful. Many of the puppeteers are Latino kids from the theater's downtown neighborhood. If you can't go to the fundraiser, try to catch the show, before the whole thing slips away.

Pulling strings at city hall took on a new meaning Wednesday, as the Bob Baker Marionettes lobbied the Los Angeles City Council to grant historical cultural landmark status to their home on First St.

The council granted the wish of Pinocchio, Fluffy the dog, and Calvin Collidisworth the song-and-dance man, and now the former movie scenery shop is on the city's landmark list. I'm not sure what that means in terms of protection for the theater, but I hope it helps.

Fans of the 85-year-old Bob Baker, marionette operator extraordinaire, were concerned back in December when they heard that the operation needed $30,000 to bring its mortgage current, or it would be forced to sell the building.

Baker has said that although he was behind in payments, he is refinancing his mortgage to a better rate, and that if people want to help, they should come down and see the show.

The poor marionettes are caught in the same bind as everyone: with less disposable income, people are having kid's birthdays at home to save money, school districts are cutting field trips, and the mortgage/credit crunch is driving up the cost of business.

Bob Baker with his Marionettes. Charles Phoenix's fundraiser  is on July 29 at 4pm.
Tickets are $75, and the details are here.

I had heard of Bob Baker for years, but I'd never seen his show until my friend Lynn and I went on Charles Phoenix's "Disneyland" Tour of Downtown Los Angeles. Phoenix, a huge fan and supporter of Baker, believes that every land at the Happiest Place on Earth can be found downtown.

For Fantasyland, he took us on a yellow school bus to the Marionette Theater and we got the birthday experience: 

a puppet show, a cake, and ice cream in those cool little Dixie cups I hadn't seen since I was a kid.

Baker isn't always there; often he is on the road doing shows, like he was on Wednesday when his puppets invaded the council chambers. But he performed the day we visited, and came into the birthday room to chat.

Watching Baker agilely working the strings, it's difficult to believe he's 85, and I could have listened to his old Hollywood stories for hours. He manufactures collectible marionettes for the Disney Corporation, and said he had a "handshake deal" with Walt himself.

Charles Phoenix (in mouse ears) gives a tour of the
Bob Baker Marionette Theater as part of a tour. Phoenix is doing a
 fundraiser for the Los Angeles institution.

His long career, begun by working with director Mervyn LeRoy, has spanned decades. He operated the aliens in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," made shoes, stockings and nightgowns dance in "Bedknobs and Brooksticks," worked the marionette that sang with Judy Garland in "A Star is Born" and one of his puppets was serenaded by Elvis Presley in "G.I. Blues."

You might think that children raised on video games and movies with sophisticated special effects would scoff at the time-honored marionette show, but the kids at our show were enthralled.

The folks working the puppets wear black and are in plain sight, but after a few minutes you forget that they are even there. The puppeteers breathe such life into the creatures that the children sitting on the floor are transfixed.

Baker has vowed never to give up the fight to keep the theater open, and I hope he succeeds. My granddaughter Charlotte is only two months old, and I want to give her a birthday party there when she's old enough.