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✦03

Hup - Circle of the Suns Jester Hat - Jim Henson Company 70th Anniversary Auction on Julien's Auctions, sold for $3,200 - Lot 206

"The jester hat worn by Hup (performed and voiced by Victor Yerrid) in the seventh episode of the prequel series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Netflix, 2019), entitled, "Time to Make ... My Move."

Hup wears this jester hat as he reluctantly introduces a performance by skekGra the Heretic (performed by Damian Farrell and voiced by Andy Samberg) and urGoh the Wanderer (performed by Olly Taylor and voiced by Bill Hader) called "The True History of Thra." This performance, told in song and puppetry, tells the story of how the urSkeks beings came to inhabit Thra from another world, how they ultimately were split into two species - the Skeksis and the urRu - and how to overthrow the Skeksis' rule by finding the Dual Glaive sword.

The hat is comprised of velour, four leather points (two large, two small), and a suede outer trim. All elements have been hand-painted in various tones of brown, blue, gray, green, and gold-tone. A resin adornment is present on the back, as well as two resin bobbles hang from the two large leather points.

Dimensions: 10.5 x 7.5 x 7 inches"

My visceral "what is THAT?" reaction is the same way a lot of people online seem to respond to their first sighting of these hand puppets. It's the rubber heads. They seem so uncanny.

These are part of an earnestly well-intentioned educational movement, though, probably in the late 1980s or 1990s: having serious multicultural representation for kids. This was not something that could be taken for granted before then! You can find non-white dolls before 1990, if you know where to look, but it wasn't yet a norm that of course a range of races/ethnicities should be represented.

Rummaging through eBay and etsy, I'm pretty sure of the existence of:

Latino family (this set)

Muslim family (wife/mother wears a head wrap)

Black family (quite dark-skinned, for once)

Asian family (harder to find)

White family (blonde mother and daughter, red-brown hair on dad and son)

Each family set contains mother, father, son, daughter, and baby (not seen in my pic). From the vantage of 2026, we can point out that these choices ignore mixed-race families (buy two sets, mix-and-match), assume heteronormativity (buy two sets, mix-and-match), and don't address disabilities (true). But in the 1990s, toys like this were a big step forward from making whiteness the default.

Total Solar Eclipse 2026

none are mine credits below