November 4th, 2021

Bumpity, Fred Worm, Scotty MacThistle and Digger Mole have found a permanent home in the collection of the Portland Puppet Museum. JoAnn Griggs, the widow of puppeteer Bob Griggs, donated the puppets just in time for them to be included in their Winter exhibition, Enchanting Fairy Tale Puppets and TV, through January 2022. Bumpity was a staple for Oregon and Southwest Washington TV audiences, but had been off the air since 1984, 13 years before a chance meeting led to a collaboration between Griggs and a father and son filmmaking duo, resulting in the documentary film Bumpity Returns. It was 2001 when Patrick and Crispin Rosenkranz completed the documentary. They remember making it as an epic adventure. It was a chance to work with some of Portland's finest including actors, musicians, and graphic design artists. The list of names is too long to mention all who contributed their talent towards making the film possible.

Many lucky coincidences had to come together for this documentary to be realized. It surely wouldn't have happened had not wee-little Crispin been captivated by the Bumpity program every Sunday in the early 70s, with it's low-tech puppetry and distinct vocalizations of Bob Griggs. It would have been even less likely if Crispin's journalistic-writer father hadn't noted his son's fascination. Patrick recalls in 2021, "Crispin was young enough to consider Bumpity a personal friend. He was a modest, self-effacing, gentle soul who was content to stay in his little patch of green grass in Bumpity Park, where the flowers grew bright, the mushrooms tall and visitors from near and far came. What a life!"

Bumpity Park was for some, not just the name given to an artfully constructed set where an unscripted puppet show took place, but an actual park like any other park in the environs of Portland, Oregon where talking worms, thistles, moles and lumps on the lawn entertained children. To a nature loving child like Crispin, why wouldn't it be real? He asked his Mom to go there!

Around 1997, Bob and his wife JoAnn happened to be working on a theater production along with an adult Crispin. When Bob mentioned his past work on Bumpity, Crispin shouted, "Wow! I'd forgotten about that show!" He asked Bob, "How did his voice sound again?" Bob obliged and in Bumpity's voice said something like, "Well gee, hello Crispin, it's nice to have you here today in Bumpity Park!" After getting over the initial shock and bewilderment, Crispin knew he had to make something, some work of art, about his reunion with his childhood TV friend Bumpity. "For years I thought, 'Bob and JoAnn's story would make a great film,' but it was really with my Dad Patrick's encouragement and powerful storytelling abilities that we got it together and brought our film to life. Working with Griggs on the film gave me proof that he and JoAnn were masters of unscripted entertainment, and our nostalgic documentary sparked a Bumpity renaissance! Locals took to our website's guestbook where we sold green VHS cassettes of our film."

Now, at age 51, the same age as the Bumpity himself, Crispin is happy to say, "I can just pop in to the Portland Puppet Museum to see the puppets and miniature set reproduction created by Co-Owner Steven Overton. As I do I feel I am truly stepping into the Bumpity Park of my childhood imagination."