Paul’s Puppets used a number of advertising items over the years.
Bernie originally designed his trademark as a stylized Art Deco marionette within a stepped frame, with a row of footlights across the bottom. This was flanked by “PAUL’S” “PUPPETS”. A large version of this trade mark was made from Masonite™ and applied to both sides of the trailer used to haul the puppet equipment to shows. During the 1950’s Bernie had a set of these made in chrome-plated metal, which he attached to the front door of every auto he bought from then on. Later the trademark was simplified to just the marionette within a square.
Originally an 8 1/2” x 11” folder in red and black was used as an advertising mailer and correspondence insert. In the late 1950’s Bernie had Fred Worthington design a new folder. This was a 4” x 8” colored paper cover with a 4-panel fold out insert which included photographs of various shows along with the minimum required stage measurements and set-up time. When they began doing hand puppet shows a second folder was printed with information on the floor space required for these performances.
When their twice-weekly TV show on WBAL-TV began getting letters from viewers, Hutzler’s Department Store, their sponsor, had a post card printed. It featured Jo -Jo standing in front of the stage curtain with the Hutzler logos. A selection of children books was in the foreground. Hutzler’s used the puppet show mainly to build their store name recognition, there was very little product promotion on the show. These post cards contained a printed greeting on the reverse, so all that was needed was a hand-written name and address for children to receive a reply from Jo-Jo. When the show switched from WBAL-TV to WMAR-TV a red letter sticker was applied over the original WBAL-TV cards.
