SNAPSHOT
This web series features Neil Patrick Harris who lives with his partner David Burtka. Neil sleeps a lot and has strange dreams featuring puppet characters. Neil opens each episode by directly telling the audience “Hi, I’m Neil. I sleep a lot and when I dream, I dream in puppet.” He then promptly falls asleep and has a puppet dream. (synopsis via Wikipedia)
Right so I am little late to the (slumber) party on this one.
Neil’s Puppet Dreams, which aired on The Nerdist Channel on YouTube, and was a production by The Jim Henson Company under its Henson Alternative Banner, found its sleepy way into the zeitgeist between late November and late January 2013.
It starred Neil Patrick Harris aka NPH, who helped create the series, as himself along with his husband David Burtka, who also played himself, and his dreams which happily featured a host of puppet characters on a series of wild, wacky and colourful dreamy adventures.
The plotlines, as you might expect, from the people who gave us The Muppets and the puppets of Sesame Street, and the man who most recently appeared in his tighty-whity underpants in a Birdman tribute sketch at the 87th Academy Awards, is a suitably charming and hilarious excursion into the gleefully surreal.
Depending on the episode, NPH was either getting a most unusual check-up at the hands of Dr. Feltman, hoping aliens who abducted him would do their trademark probing schtick, or dancing in a Bollywood musical where he was, naturally enough, in love with a cow named Bessie.
Every single episode is an absolute delight to watch and I have the good folks at Advocate to thank for alerting me to the series in a recent fun article they did on NPH and David Burtka, 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka’s Marriage.
Now if you’ll excuse me I am feeling rather drowsy and Grover and Big Bird are expecting me to go skipping through a field of psychedelically-coloured lollipops with our friends the Talking Cheesecakes …