Thread: Cockroach Prop

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I watched the Trick or Treat Martha Stewart Special last night and notice a little but cool prop used in the show. The walls/doors had cockroach's that moved up and down the wall slightly. Probably most likely there was a few moving these with fishing line, but thought it would be cool if a small motor could be used or magnet to move cockroaches up and down a wall/surface.

I'm interested in your ideas to formulate best design for this kind of prop.

I bought a few cockroach props last year from DOLLAR TREE. They have a faux cockroach attached to clear nylon thread. The thread is attached to a button like device that you first pull out the cockroach and then depress the button which quickly retracts moving the cockroach. You can play with the button and depress it in quick motions and the cockroach jumps forward a bit until you depress the button again when it jumps again. If you have a Dollar Tree in your area look for it in the toy area.

Today's episode of the Martha Stewart Show, "Johnny Knoxville", shows how they did the cockroach prop from the Tricking and Treating with Martha Stewart Special this past Sunday and how to make a marionette flying crow as also seen on the Special.

The segments for these projects start about :45 minutes into the show. It's with Basil Twist (his real name) and it involves marionette crafts. First off Basil shows how to make a flying marionette crow out of a faux crow, fishing line, a eye hook, a bamboo pole, hot glue and a fabric hinge. In appx the last 5 minutes of the show they revealed how they did the moving cockroaches--basically fishing line duct-taped to the back of a huge cockroach and looped over a door and pulled up from behind the door. No motors or anything like that.

BTW the Martha Stewart Show now comes on Hallmark in Primetime as well as in the morning/afternoon as of this week. The previous day's show also repeats the following day so when you see two shows listed, the first one is the repeat from the previous day.

I was wondering how they did the moving Snakes and face masks in the bell jars from Sunday's halloween Special. They showed them in a clip on today's show but didn't specifically mention them. I'm wondering if the snakes were marionettes. I kind of thought they might be animated using a reindeer motor (like they did on the Food Network "Challenge" Special with the Medusa pumpkin). Didn't get a good look at the masks in the bell jars but to me it looked they simply rotated somehow.