Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 5, 1994 TAG: 9402070245
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CATHERINE HINMAN ORLANDO SENTINEL
DATELINE: ORLANDO, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
He is Socko, a street-wise, wise-cracking, New York teen-ager in a leather jacket.
He is Cocktail Frank, a gum-chewing rock musician.
And, of course, he is Dottie, the brassy mayor of Weinerville.
Weiner has more than a hundred such characters, but who is he, really? A puppeteer and comic original, that's who. And if Nickelodeon has its way, Weiner and the far-out members of his Weinerville family soon will be household names among 6- to 11-year-olds across the country.
``Nickelodeon Weinerville,'' produced at Universal Studios Florida, debuted Sunday afternoons on the kids' cable channel last July and became such a success that Nickelodeon ordered another 40 shows. Taping before a studio audience at Universal will continue through Feb. 14.
The half-hour show, which increased Sunday afternoon ratings by 125 percent, now airs weekdays at 3 p.m. (ET) as well as in a two-hour block Sundays at 2 p.m.
At its core, ``Nickelodeon Weinerville'' is a variety show. It includes puppet sketches, audience games and jokes, a little improvisational stand-up comedy and even cartoons. Weiner (yes, it's pronounced Wee-ner, and yes, it's his real name) is the show's antic host and lead performer.
As anchor now of a kid's show accessible by 59 million households, Weiner has journeyed far from his days of juggling a toilet plunger, an M & M and a rubber hand in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. As Dottie would say, ``Aaaaaaaaaah!''
Nickelodeon officials have dubbed him a Soupy Sales for the '90s.
But if Sales, a kingpin of Saturday morning TV in the '50s and '60s, was known for pies in the face, Weiner will go down in entertainment history for the faces he puts on his half-human, half-puppet creations.
For these puppets, Weiner, who has a wide-eyed, childlike demeanor, rests his own head on the shoulders of such characters as Dottie, Cocktail Frank and Baby Jeffrey for a startling visual effect. He pulls levers behind a cardboard set to operate arms.
There also are other puppets: Socko is a sock puppet Weiner works with one hand. Zip, Dottie's sidekick, is a small foam puppet on a rod. Boney the dinosaur, a grumpy parody of Barney, is a large hand puppet with an attitude problem.
The effect is a live cartoon - slapstick that has changed very little since its beginnings before a grown-up audience.
``Cartoons appeal at every level because they have the sophisticated humor, but they have the physical schtick,'' said Weiner's collaborator and wife, Sandy. ``When you get the really pure physical humor, its works so well, and that's something he does very well, I think.''
Quick on his feet and skillful with an audience, Weiner today draws much from his roots as a mime and street performer in New York City in the mid-'70s.
``Mimes are interested in what their hands can do,'' said Weiner, 41. ``So I just said, hey, it would be neat if I dressed them up, put clothes on my hand. ... People went, `Wow, Wow, Wow,' and I went, `Yeah, yeah, yeah.' I just took it from there.''
In 1980, Weiner appeared three times consecutively on ``Saturday Night Live'' with Rocko and would have continued, he said, had a writers' strike not blown the upcoming season. In the '80s he toured the comedy club circuit and performed at college events. In 1985 and 1986 he was nominated as one of the top college acts by the National Association of Campus Activities.
On television, Weiner has most recently been seen on Fox's ``Comic Strip Live'' and on the comedy cable network HA! (now Comedy Central) in ``Random Acts of Variety.''
Weiner developed his head puppets in 1990 as a means of having one puppet interact with another. The head puppets, which he crafts alone in a Westchester County, N.Y., studio, also proved to be a great new vehicle for Weiner's humor.
``To come up with a Socko routine, it used to take me like three weeks to get it until it was good,'' Weiner said. ``This head puppet thing, I can crank out a new set and a new thing in like two days. I just like to keep on creating new material.''
Three years ago Weiner did a pilot game show spoof for the cable channel Comedy Central using one of his head puppets as host. The consensus after the show was done was that the concept worked better for kids. Nickelodeon agreed.
Gwen Billings, director of development for Nickelodeon, said the network had been interested in developing a personality-based children's show for some time. Weiner had no shortage of personality.
``Here's a guy who is very funny and he's got a heart and a soul,'' Billings said. ``He's an adult in your face who is not threatening.''
by CNB