Last fall, I did the props on Crazy for You. For those unfamiliar with the show, there is a scene were a cowboy shoots his gun off in the saloon. The bullets hit various objects in the room for comedic effect, including a cuckoo clock that explodes.
I have not shared any photographs or information on the clock yet because I was actually writing an article on it. The full details and pictures are now up in the latest issue of Stage Directions magazine in an article called “Don’t Go Cuckoo.”
I also shot a short video showing the action of how the clock cuckoos, explodes, and how long it takes to reset it for the next performance.
Very cool! I was given the same task to design our exploding cuckoo clock. For my design, I had the same clock styled house (more of a pentagon shape from the front) but the painted the same. Inside there was two half platforms separated by a gap. On top of the gap was a thin piece of wood and through the opening was a handle. This was created because the set piece of the wall to the saloon was reversible and also became the outside so we wanted to not have anything stick out but rather a hole to stick your arm in. On that piece of wood was a small square with a hinge to connect it to the larger piece and a small wire attached to that.Disguised in the front of the clock was a clear tube which came to the back. Preshow we filled it with feathers. When the cuckoo is supposed to come out, a stagehand would move the handle and the bird would appear. When the cuckoo came out the second time the stage hand would do the same but push the wire (which made the bird fall face forward) and blow through the tube and feathers would float across the stage, along with a great chicken cluck sound effect, the exploding cuckoo was a fun element to the show!