Love Puppet

In February of 1976 I was a guest on a public access children’s show. I think it was called “Perry’s Place” or some other lame shit like that. The host of the show was a man named Perry who always wore a green sweater three sizes too large and tight high-water jeans. I think that sucka got busted for indecent exposure while on set sometime in the early 1980s. It was a big news story for about 30 seconds.

I remember the lead puppeteer was a woman named Jaclyn Hoistenberg. She was a chunky Jewish girl with a thick Brooklyn accent and magnetic attitude. That woman was nasty to everyone on set. She loved barking orders at the crew and even made some of the children cry. Needless to say, I thought she was amazing.

After the show wrapped, I caught up with her backstage and asked if she ever put on any private puppet shows. She winked then told me to close the door while she slipped into the closet. I acted cool and waited a minute before walking in after her. I was astounded to see an audience of puppets scattered across the floor with her standing there semi-naked. She had large googly eyes on each breast with cloth teeth hanging from the bottom of her muffin top. When she squeezed her legs together, the flesh wave made it look like that damn mouth was moving. I was impressed but when the mouth said “time to feed the love puppet” I grabbed my shades and hauled ass out of there.