Don Austen

Don Austen (born 1958 in London, England) is an English puppeteer. He began his career in 1981 at Cannon Hill Park's puppet theatre in Birmingham. Austen joined the Jim Henson Creature Shop in 1986 for the movie Labyrinth. He was a puppeteer for other blockbuster movies including Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), The Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), The Bear (L'ours) (1988), The Witches (1990), and Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999).Most notably he performed in The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), inside both the Ghost of Christmas Present and The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. He also managed briefly to boost numbers in Muppet Treasure Island (1996) as Pirate Crew and Cannibals. Austen's British TV debut was on the irreverent cult ITV puppet show Spitting Image. (1987–90) Austen voiced and puppeteered Sky One's DJ Kat for more than 2000 award-winning DJ Kat Shows (1989–95) and 200 breakfast shows as Earl E Bird on Channel 4's Early Bird (1991). Austen voiced/puppeteered feline gang leader Danny Mogg (1991) in comedy drama series The Wild Bunch. This TF1/Channel 4 co-production, recorded at AB Studios Paris, was a vehicle for French TV star Dorothee. During the LIVE ITV Saturday morning show What's Up Doc? (1992–94) Austen teamed up with John Eccleston to write and puppeteer a run of British TV favourites. Firstly, The Wolves, aka Bro & Bro, and within weeks earn their own spin-off comedy drama Wolf It! (1993–96) for four seasons. Austen and Eccleston joined BBC1's Saturday morning 3hr flagship Live & Kicking (1995–2000) as cantankerous Leprechauns Sage & Onion – built by Darryl Worbey Studios – while that other Irish phenomenon, Riverdance, packed houses in London's Theatreland. As Mr. Sage, sporting a rather dodgy hairpiece, Austen wrote and puppeteered comedy sketches for five years. Outliving three sets of in vision presenters, he became the longest surviving 'presenter' (Eccleston took time out to perform Rygel in the sci