Diamond Heat

The collaborators on a well-known soap opera are interviewed regarding their experiences while making the show. These collaborators are puppets.

Filmed like a documentary, this feature is made out primarily of scenes that show the protagonists and crew being interviewed about a popular television show called 'Diamond Heat'. The show is said to have been created in 1985 by producer Blandley (Frigolette) with the intention of bringing to the world the most successful daytime tevevision show ever. Interviewees include cast members, some of which are Ron Reginald (Larson), Jane Johnson (Hall) and Samantha Singleton (York), Blandley and production assistant Abbey Allison (Constantellis). They all talk about their time working on the show, the ups and downs and about their past. Through dark and adult humour, they recount a great deal of misfortunes and awkward situations.

Regarding the puppets, it would be fair to say that they are not exactly superb quality. The lot of them are basically socks that have cartoonish eyes, lips and hair glued on them and an off-screen person has their hand inside, making them move and they are voiced by actors. Since this is a comedy, the fact that the puppets do not look professionally made can add to the humour. Watching these puppets pretending to be real people has its funny side. To describe a few, there is the famous and naive actor Reginald, Mexican star Gabriel Gonzalez Gonzalez (Rivero) and ex-convict Steve Starkley (York), who tends to move off-screen and ride away on his motorcycle. Each character has their own personality and the screenplay and voice acting succeeds in making them entertaining.

The interviews are alternated with brief scenes from several episodes of the show and clips showing a puppet being outdoors at a location that is significant and talking about their past. The image during the soap opera scenes looks old, giving the impression that they were filmed in the eighties. The outdoor scenes also show real people, which feels a bit awkward, making one wonder whether puppets and people co-exist in that film's universe.

Basically, this is a mockumentary puppet show dark comedy about a bunch of puppets talking about a soap opera. In order to enjoy it, one should not take it seriously and have fun watching the silly puppets as they try to act like real people and tell jokes.