The roar was deafening as the crowd cried, “MILKBONE!!!” Right on cue, Nugget the dog responded, “AR AR AR AR AR!” Nearly 100 children could hardly contain themselves; the only thing that mattered was thwarting the plans of the infamous train robber, Stinky Cheese Velveeta.

On the other side of the curtain, Art Grueneberger fluidly switched from puppet to puppet, voice to voice, all the while enthralling the sea of children before him. You see, Tommy the mouse is traveling by train to his aunt’s house. The train he’s riding also happens to be shipping a load of gold to Fort Knox. Stinky Cheese Velveeta wants the gold, but Tommy uses the help of his dog, Nugget, and the many children in the audience, to put a stop to these evil plans. This is just one of dozens of puppet shows performed by the Puppet Art Theater Company.

The Puppet Art Theater Company has done shows across the globe, including work in various movies and the short lived WB television series “Phantom Investigators,” which is evidently very popular in Scandinavia right now. The owner of the company, Art Grueneberger, has been in the business for fourteen years and performs regularly in the greater Davis area. He attended Sacramento State University