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Trivia / The Puzzle Place

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  • Colbert Bump: DefunctTV's episode covering the show and its production history has resulted in a revival of interest in the series, especially among those who watched it growing up, and has renewed the search for its many Missing Episodes.
  • The Danza: Leon MacNeal is played by Noel MacNeal, though the character's first name is a Sdrawkcab Name.
  • Fake Nationality: While Carmen Oshbar and Noel MacNeal share their ethnicities with Kiki (Hispanic) and Leon (Black) respectively, Skye (Native American) and Julie (Chinese) are both played by white puppeteers.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: The show has never been made available on DVD and stopped rerunning on TV in 2000. Outside of a few VHS releases, with one or two episodes, and a couple recordings off TV uploaded on the internet, good luck finding it.
  • Kids' Meal Toy: Dairy Queen had a set of four moveable puzzle pieces, each one featuring one or two of the show's characters, in 1998. There was Ben, Skye, Leon and Julie together, and Kiki and Jody together.
  • The Other Darrin:
    • Jody had no less than three performers over the course of the series: Alison Mork in Season 1, Stephanie D'Abruzzo in Season 2, and Terri Hardin in Season 3.
    • Due to Peter Linz's commitments with Bear in the Big Blue House, Skye and Nuzzle were performed by Matt Vogel for Season 3. Noel MacNeal's commitments with the same show also led to Eric Jacobson taking over as Leon's puppeteer, though MacNeal still provided the voice.
    • Kyle was both puppeteered and voiced by Drew Massey in his first appearance, but puppeteered by Allan Trautman and voiced by Terri Hardin in his second.
  • Production Posse: With this being a puppet show, it’s no surprise that many of the cast have some experience with their roles- for instance, Kiki's puppeteer also performed as Rosita on Sesame Street.
  • What Could Have Been: Some of the characters' names were changed before the show's premiere: Ben and Jody were originally named "Max" and "Jazzy," while Leon's last name was "Devon" and Skye's was "Blazing Star."
  • Working Title: As seen in this early press release, among others, the show was originally going to be named The Puzzle Factory, and then The Puzzle Works in the show's pilot, before the final title was settled on. The show was actually still named The Puzzle Works throughout the filming of the first 40 episodes, but when the name was changed, the puppeteers dubbed the words "Puzzle Place" over every mention of the "Puzzle Works" in those episodes before they aired.

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