Hello! Welcome to Silly Side Hustles.

I’m Michael. You may not know my name, but chances are good you’ve seen my work.

I’m a creature designer, puppet builder, animatronic designer, and creative director in the themed entertainment world.

• If you grew up in the 2000s with Sesame Street, Bear in the Big Blue House, or Johnny and the Sprites, I was backstage bringing new creatures to life.

• If you saw Avenue Q on or off Broadway, I was there stitching up Princeton and Kate so they could hit the stage looking their best.

• More recently, if you’ve visited Disney or Universal parks—or visited a Jurassic World exhibition—I was in the lab helping to dream up dinosaurs.

• And if you have your own little ones in your life and you’ve met Bean Bear, Ms. Rachel’s fuzzy friend, I was in the mix, making sure he came to life as brightly as possible.

If you’d like to learn more about those projects and more, you can find more at michaelschupbach.com.

This space is my creative playground: a place to share quick ideas, quirky experiments, and the weird, joyful things I wish existed—so I went ahead and made them.

If something here makes you smile, drop me a note. Or better yet, book a workshop, or snag a sticker, and help spread a little nostalgic joy of your own.