Mark Ritts

Mark Ritts (June 16, 1946 – December 7, 2009) was an American actor, puppeteer, television producer and director, and author. Ritts also produced and directed many independent videos and television spots as president of Mark Ritts Productions, Inc., for clients around the world. 2Biography Ritts was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard with a degree in English literature. Being the son of noted puppeteers Paul and Mary Ritts, he pursued a sideline in puppetry, starring in PBS's The Real Adventures of Sherlock Jones and Proctor Watson and NBC's The Pink Panther Show, among many others. In the 1980s he was the puppeteer for the Philadelphia-area produced Starstuff. Throughout the 1990s, Ritts was the voice and manipulator of Kino, the Emmy Award-winning puppet co-host of the PBS series Storytime, as well as one of the show's writers. From 1992 to 1998, he participated on CBS's Beakman's World. In it, Ritts starred as Lester, a disgruntled actor (with a bad agent) in a rat suit who reluctantly helps Beakman with his experiments and trades barbs with Josie, Liza and Phoebe. The character was originally conceived as a puppet character, but at the last minute, the show's producers decided he would be a costumed acto