The most consistently geographically challenged person I’ve met was a professional ventriloquist (I built his dummies) who frequently traveled internationally. He was miffed that a girlfriend was offended when he called her his “little Swedish meatball” – she was from Switzerland.
He was the entertainment director for a cruise ship going to the Bahamas so planned to buy leis as handouts for his audience. Er, wrong ocean?
I was fine with making his mermaid Hispanic (he did accents well – one of the Siamese twins spoke posh BBC and the other punk Liverpool), but couldn’t convince him that Brazilian Carmen Miranda hadn’t worn a lei, either.
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Ventriloquist dummies commissioned by professional Wayne Francis: soft sculpture over armatures. Many life-sized.
Wayne is a tall dude. When he held Ernie at full extension of his arm, the clown was a good eight feet (244 cm) up there.
The Chesrown Posse, commissioned by a guy named Marshall Chesrown, who at that time owned one of Denver’s largest car dealerships. My version of permanent papier-mache is hot glue and unfolded bias tape (the kind that comes on a ginormous roll). The armature was hoopskirt boning. Light, strong, permanent: the heads for these guys as well as the bodies for the two in the middle. Much lighter and less hot than fabric fat suits. The tops of the hats were mesh to give what ventilation was possible for the hired actors greeting people out in the lots on summer days. Their costumes were roomy enough to layer up underneath at the other end of the season.