BELLEVUE, Wash. — Eric Thomsen, puppeteer, media creator, and founder of The Puppet Hideaway, has officially launched his live programming across major social media platforms. With the curtain now lifted on a project years in the making, Thomsen is inviting audiences of all ages into an immersive and collaborative puppet experience unlike any other.
A lifelong puppetry enthusiast, Thomsen’s journey began during his youth, when a love of puppets became both a refuge and a creative outlet during challenging times.
“I was a teen, an American kid living in the U.K., and I just fell in love with puppets,” Thomsen recalls. “It was how I built a world of my own, and it grew from there.”
From local community performances to earning a degree in radio, television, and film, Thomsen’s passion eventually led to a successful career in entertainment merchandising, where he worked behind the scenes with well-known household brands.
Eric Thomsen in 1993 with His Original Puppets
But even as his career expanded, something vital was missing: the opportunity to create his own show. That opportunity finally arrived in 2020 when, at age 50, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Thomsen made the bold decision to leave his high-paying career and devote himself full time to The Puppet Hideaway, a vision that had been decades in the making.
Today, Thomsen is embracing the creator economy with a self-funded, platform-diverse puppet series that is accessible to audiences around the world. His weekly “Puppet Wednesdays” live stream brings puppet fans together on YouTube every Wednesday at 4 p.m. PT for a behind-the-scenes look at puppet productions currently in development. Viewers are encouraged to share character and story ideas in the live chat, making each production a collaborative experience.
Thomsen’s programming is intentionally varied. Rather than centering the channel around a recurring cast of characters, he showcases a wide variety of puppets to celebrate diversity in design, storytelling, and performance.
“It’s all about the puppets,” he says. “I want to show the richness of what puppetry can be—not just one story, one character, or one world.”
In addition to episodic series such as Halloween Candy Hunt, The Little Merman, and Bunny Club, The Puppet Hideaway also features standalone segments including Puppet World Tour, Career Day, and the growing Puppet of the Day series, all designed to entertain while introducing audiences to the art of puppetry. Thomsen also plans to expand into children’s books based on his original stories.
The mission of The Puppet Hideaway is simple yet powerful: to promote puppets and the art of puppetry. Thomsen believes puppetry has the power to spark joy, creativity, and meaningful human connection.
“Puppets are a shared experience,” he says. “I’ve seen kids and parents light up when they’re handed a puppet. They begin talking to each other in a whole new way. That’s what I want to bring to the world.”
Puppet fans can explore Thomsen’s growing puppet collection and watch a variety of original puppet productions at www.ThePuppetHideaway.com and www.YouTube.com/thepuppethideaway.