Origami Sightings - Television Talk / Educational

In November, 1994, Joseph Wu was interviewed for the pilot of a new TV show called HI-TECH Culture. The segment was how an artist used the Internet to broaden his artistic horizons. The show was broadcast on the Canadian Discovery Channel on Wednesday, January 25, 1995 at 9:00 PM.

Gay Merrill Gross made two appearances in October '96 on Hometime on The Discovery Channel. The appearances were each for eight minutes. The show numbers are #11 for origami and #33 for napkin folding.

Martha Stewart:

• On “The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno, 2/28/97, Jay hosted "Lifestyle" expert Martha Stewart demonstrating putting on a bed sheet. She tucked the bottom end under the mattress, but then she folded the bottom corners up over the top of the mattress in sort of a rabbit ear fold and tucked in the edges.  Next she folded the rabbit ears under the mattress and tucked them in, creating two triangular flaps at the bottom of the sheets.  Jay Leno exclaimed, "What is this? Origami?"

• Gay Merrill Gross did two segments for the Martha Stewart show.  The first aired on January 25^th, 2000.  Gay showed the simple paper cup and some variations.  On another show, she demostrated the waterbomb and talked about various other models. http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=tvs3888 

• On 12/12/2001, June Sakamoto was back with on Martha Stewart explaining about the American Museum of Natural History Origami Christmas Tree. The tree looked great and the close-ups of the models on the tree were wonderful. The original theme for that year was put on hold following the 9/11/2001 World Trade Center terrorist attacks and a call went out to folders around the world for peace cranes.
  

• June Sakamoto was on on the Martha Stewart Show on July 23, 2002, to demonstrate origami folding. June showed Martha how to fold a traditional lotus blossom. The segment was the last on the show. June also mentions the OUSA website! http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=tvs7145 

• 2/17/03 on Martha Stewart Living, Avery Sternglass taught a "spinner modular" made with 6 waterbomb bases and 6 preliminary bases. He connected six units together and held it between his palms, then blew on it to make it spin. The model is Lewis Simon's Gyroscope, which was published in Gay Merrill Gross's The Art of Origami. http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&styleType=tvradio&catid=cat13145&id=tvs7873 

• 9/15/2005 on The New Martha Show, Vicky Mihara Avery did a segment with Martha on Japanese-style gift wrapping.  http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=learn-cat&id=cat20307&date=September%2015,%202005 

• 9/30/08, Martha Stewart and guest Chris Bridges (aka rapper Ludacris), and his chef, Tyson, cooked Origami Sea Bass with Origami Sauce, which was steamed in an origami box. Martha stated that origami is very relaxing if you can figure it out. She had some trouble folding the box. The recipe, can be found at the following link, along with diagrams for the traditional magazine cover box. http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.fc77a0dbc44dd1611e3bf410b5900aa0/?vgnextoid=6c1c5cf8defac110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=default&rsc=ts_Homepage_Homepage http://www.hiphoprx.com/2008/10/01/ludacris-joins-martha-stewart-in-the-kitchen/ 

The Late Show with David Letterman:

• In the early 1990's, Pearl Burnett was a guest on the David Letterman Show. She folded models as she sang. Some tapes of her act were edited at EZTV in Los Angeles.

• David Letterman did a bit on origami business card folding on 2/28/97. He bent a few of his business cards and then from below his desk he pulled out a Ferris wheel - fully operational. He even said something like - "no paste" was used.

• On 5/20/99 Dave was wearing an origami dollar bill ring. He made sure the cameraman got a close-up of the ring. Apparently someone in the audience folded it for him. When the first guest, Helen Hunt, came out, Dave asked her to marry him (like he always does with female guests) and gave her the dollar bill ring.

• On Monday 11/22/99 there was a man doing origami with his tongue.

HGTV:

• The show "What's your Hobby?" featured a 5-7 minute origami segment on 5/30/97. Terry and Karan Hall were interviewed and demonstrated how to fold a paper cup. They had a whole room devoted to papers, models, etc. They displayed a number of models, including an array of Fuse boxes, some insects that must have been Lang's, and two elephants less than 1cm long. The Halls belong to the West Coast Origami Guild and publish, edit, and mail the club’s monthly newsletter.

• On Thursday, Oct 8^th, 1998 the Carol Duvall Show included origami. Week 40 Episode 506 showed an origami heart card and frog's tongue by Jeremy Shafer. Diagrams for the heart and instructions for the tongue are on the website http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_cds/episode/0,,HGTV_3822_2117,00.html . HGTV's Carol Duvall show had a segments on tea bag folding in Episode 714 http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_cds/episode/0,,HGTV_3822_2251,00.html and Episode 847 http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_cds/episode/0,,HGTV_3822_2353,00.html . On Episode 566 (6/12/02) Jeremy Shafer demonstrated how to fold a tiny suit, both coat and pants, using origami paper for Father’s Day. http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_cds/episode/0,,HGTV_3822_2167,00.html 

• "The Carol Duvall Show," aired two episodes (934 and 941)  showing footage from last year's Pacific Coast Origami Conference (PCOC) in San Francisco. Their website contains a 4 minute video clip from the second episode. http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/cr_paper_crafts_origami/article/0,1789,HGTV_3293_1383567,00.html 

• Carol Duval's  4/12/2002 show included Karen Thomas demonstrating Gay Merrill Gross's Practical Purse, the one that may be found in Gay's 1990 book "New Ideas for Paperfolding". The web site includes diagrams for this purse, and other origami things. http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/cr_paper_crafts_origami/article/0,,HGTV_3293_1396649,00.html  

• HGTV 5/2004 aired a commercial for a concrete product that comes in yellow and black bags (Quikrete). The paper was folding and unfolding into all kinds of different buildings, walkways and even a fountain or birdbath.

• Carol Duval showed how to make nice stars from old xmas cards. She showed how to fold a preliminary base and assemble a star from five bases by using origami paper, but her display stars were done from cards cut square. The card stiffness helps this model. She glued the preliminary bases together, one to another using their opposite faces, into a ring to produce a nice 3D star that had two sides with color and two sides with white from the back of the cards. She only did 5 pointed stars. Another show featured German or Swedish stars folded from strips of paper ( http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/cr_occasions/article/0,1789,HGTV_3268_1382226,00.html and http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/cr_occasions_december/article/0,1789,HGTV_3270_1383070,00.html ).

BBC:

• The Air Show on BBC2, all about the Farnborough Air Show, used a multitude of (no doubt computer generated) paper airplanes gliding through the sky, for the program's titles.

• On the BBC2 show Blue Peter Night, there was a short section on Origami, with a close up of a Swan, and a quick shot of a large display. Akira Yoshizawa was a guest on the program. I think his visit and display was featured in one of the Blue Peter annuals - number 21?

• On 12/9/2000 the BBC program Art Attack there was a different artist than the regular host folding a large sheet of paper.  The paper was white against a white background, so the camera shot wasn't the best, but the end result was a large origami elephant! http://www.hitentertainment.com/artattack/ and http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/art/howto/origami/index.shtml 

• Origami was shown on the BBC kids program Blue Peter 5/16/2001. The program was filled with Japanese things and Megumi Biddle demonstrated a Kirigami cut and fold dog. Then she then taught the host how to fold a Penguin.

• "Following the introduction of sound in the cinema in the late 1920s, access to entertainment and information for Deaf people was still through newspapers or via hearing friends and family. By the mid-1950s, many hearing people had bought a television set, but there was no incentive for Deaf people to do so as there were no subtitles or sign language being broadcast. At the end of the 1950s, the BBC transmitted the first program made specifically for a Deaf audience. It was called For Deaf Children. Presented by a hearing person, the program took a strongly oral approach using gesture, speech and captions. Although For Deaf Children was primarily aimed at the young Deaf, the BBC was anxious that all children should be able to enjoy the program and it quickly attracted a large hearing audience. Because of the success of this series, in 1960 the BBC decided to broaden the scope of the program and rename it Vision On. Tony Hart, who had enjoyed great success in For Deaf Children, presented the show alongside former actress Pat Keysell. Pat used speech and some signs in her presentation, and Vision On became hugely popular, running until 1977." http://www.bbc.co.uk/seehear/about/history1.shtml The show's title "Vision On" was reflected below and turned on end to make "Zapp", the frog character. The V's of vision was enlarged to make his leg and the O's in On, also enlarged to make the eyes.  It would then bounce of the screen. The show presented many arts and crafts, origami being one of the techniques displayed. http://www.its-prof-again.co.uk/vision_on.htm http://www.tonyhart.co.uk 

• On September 27, 2005 Blue Peter again featured origami, with Mark Bolitho and 4 children, some of them being Junior members of the British Origami Society. The team folded a giant origami canoe. The website included diagrams for a small version of the origami canoe. http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/  http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/show/dyk/index_origami.shtml 
  

The Today Show:

• The Today Show, 12/28/2001, showed  was a school group from California who had done an American Flag out of approximately 2,500 cranes in red, white and blue. They were going to present the flag to some memorial near ground zero. Most of the students who had worked on the cranes and flag were Japanese. The teacher was the spokesperson. The cranes looked like they were from 6 inch paper and strung from a 6 foot (2 meter) pole. The whole flag appeared to be wrapped in plastic to protect it from the elements.

• For the whole week of 6/17/2002 on the "Today Show", different origami models were displayed behind the hosts.

Dorothy Kaplan was on the Aleene's Creative Living craft show on TNN showing how to make the money rose and to promote the Money Rose booklet and Origami Money Folding tape. This segment was shown on October 27^th 1998. There was also a photograph and a little story on the Rose in the Aleene’s Creative Living magazine (Sept. or Oct 1998 issue).

Joseph Wu was on The Breakfast Show on VTV (Vancouver Television, channel 9) Friday, October 17, 1998 to talk about origami in a live interview.

On 19 February 1999, Matthias Gutfeldt was on Swiss television SF1 presenting a 7 minute segment on origami.

5/6/99 the public TV station WLIW aired the show European Rail Journeys.  This episode was "Spain: The Andalusian Express".  On board were a group of Japanese tourists folding origami!

Nick Robinson appeared on the Granada Vreeze channel show Livetime on 6/12/99, between 1/2pm, demonstrating origami.

Robert Lang traveled to Switzerland at the request of a Swiss TV station for an interview and some filming of origami. The show, NZZ Format, aired in Switzerland on June 27 and July 26, 1999 on Swiss channel SF2. He discussed origami design, TreeMaker, his Allosaurus skeleton, and ran a simple TreeMaker design in real time for the camera.

On the Craig Kilborne T.V. show, an Italian named Ennio Marchetto did an act using his clothing as Origami paper. He folded it into a butterfly and other models. http://www.enniomarchetto.com/  

The TV series On the Road Again, hosted by Wayne Rostad on CBC television (Canada), featured and interview with Joseph Wu on 1/9/04.  - “When Joseph Wu was three, his father gave him an origami instruction book; now the Vancouver man is one of the few people in the world making a full-time career out of the ancient art of folding paper." http://www.cbc.ca/ontheroadagain/previous.html

An interview with Joseph Wu on the CBC show Zed, aired Wednesday, Feb 4th, 2004. For more specific information (plus a Quicktime "preview" of the show), check out this website: http://zed.cbc.ca/go.ZeD?CONTENT_ID=94191&page=content  

The TV show NextStep on the Discovery Channel featured Professor Miura’s “Miura-ori”, the map fold that NASA uses on satellite solar panels so they can be unfolded in space. On the same show a man made an origami airplane out of very light paper. He then gently tossed the plane. He had a square board (about 2 feet by 2 feet) in his hands, and he held it at an angle so as to create a bit of an updraft. He then walked slowly behind this plane, and the lift created by the board was enough to keep the airplane afloat.

There was an origami segment on Canadian Sesame Street filmed in Winnipeg about 15 years ago. The person’s name was Ken Furakawa (?).

An episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood had a woman guest who did some origami.

A TV show called (very loosely translated) Night Mice, (on Tuesday nights in Israel) deals with strange internet sites, mainly those of sexual or illegal contents. The origami pages of Zack Brown and Marc Kirschenbaum were featured. The models were of erotic origami.

The Painted House (an interior design show) was using a "Zen Den" theme and the special guest was a lady demonstrating origami.  She had about a five minute spot and folded the traditional crane and gave the hostess a large scale Pan mask by Kasahara and traditional kimono models for wall decorations.

For the new Millennium (January 1, 2000), the Television Broadcast channel TVB in Hong Kong had a variety show. In one part of the show people danced a dragon made of paper. It was instructed by the origami organization in Hong Kong.

A TV interview of Joseph Wu was on the show Lotusland. This is a production of the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Vancouver office, and features arts in Vancouver (with a strong Asian slant). The episode aired Saturday, Feb. 26, 2000 at 10:30 p.m. on CBC.

On 3/28/2000 on the Australian talk show The Panel, one of the hosts described a documentary he has just made about two men who travel  "manipulating their genitals a la origami"...... not going to take that any further!

A short segment on origami played on German TV in June 2000. It featured Peter Budai and showed models he folded, such as Montroll's Zebra and Spotted Giraffe, as well as some original designs (a tree with leaves and a Chinese dragon).

On San Diego NBC Channel 7: V'Ann Cornelius taught the host to make the waterbomb base and use it as a star. She displayed a small and a large Ishibashi ball, the crane, flapping bird, plus several boxes she will teach in a course in October at the Japanese Friendship Center. September 2000.

Comcast Digital Cable on channel 130 (Discovery For Kids) had a little commercial type thing where it teaches you simple origami models. 3/31/2001

A show called How 2 4/12/2001 featured a lady with a collection of Origami Dinosaurs. They also showed how to make an origami T-rex out of 2 pieces of paper and glue. The presenter  noted using the 'G' stuff was cheating. Possibly this was Steve & Megumi Biddle - they had a free pamphlet out on folding dinosaurs, promoted by Channel 4(?).

The Scientific American Frontiers program was "Flying Free”, hosted by Alan Alda, SHOW1109, Airdate: April 10, 2001. The plane is called the "walkalong glider". Tyler McCready (son of Paul McCready, inventor of the Gossamer Albatross human-powered ultralight plane) made a paper airplane and he held a sheet of paper underneath the airplane and walked around the room. http://www.pbs.org/saf/1109/resources/transcript.htm#7 

Joseph Wu was interviewed 5/31/02 for the show Plugged In on Vancouver cable channel 4.

Sagwa is an animated adventure series on public television for children ages 4-8. It is based on the book The Chinese Siamese Cat, written by Amy Tan. Sagwa's adventures and the beautiful setting of  China long ago provide children opportunities for exploring questions about growing up and discovering the richness of different cultures around the world. Episode 16 has a girl showing how to fold an easy Sting Ray.
 

There are a handful of models on a table in the Blue's Clues video Blue's Safari - a crane, a pig, a giraffe and a frog.

A skit on Late Night with Conan O'Brian, the "Coked Up Werewolf"  folds a cootie catcher/fortune teller while filling in for Ari Fleischer at a White House press meeting.

Michael LaFosse and Origamido were showcased on Channel 5 in Boston March 2004 on the program Chronicle.

PBS station KQED featured Robert Lang’s origami and some of its scientific applications on their show, California Connected 4/2004.

A show that aired on channel 35 UCSD-TV in San Diego on the Origami Masterworks exhibit at the Mingei Museum featured Florence Temko demonstrating a nice fold. After that, Robert Lang was filmed folding his heron. http://www.ucsd.tv/schedule/index.asp?keyword=Origami+Masterworks&x=69&y=13.

Koshiro Hatori appeared on "Weekend Japanology" on Friday, May 13, 2005.The program introduces Japanese culture, this time origami, and was broadcast from NHK World TV. http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/japanology_e.html 

KHOU Channel 11 in Houston ran three minute piece on 8/10/05 featuring Lisa Helfer's origami studio and the Origami Houston! Study Group.

January 2006 - Juan Carlo Rodriguez appeared  in a local TV show, which has a section that roughly translates into "Dare To". He offered to teach an actor or actress from local TV an origami model, and see if he or she would be up to the challenge. The actor was a comedian from Radio Rochela, and he was tasked to learn a deliberately difficult model for a beginner: Paul Jackson's Elephant. He did finish it - with some help - and the model he did was elephant like!

Friends of Folding - Origami Edmonton did a 20 minute episode on the HelpTV show which aired on Canadian Learning TV. You can see a video clip of the show here: http://members.shaw.ca/friends.of.folding/gallery.html 

On 2/6/2006 a show aired on the Science Channel called "Rise of the Feathered Dragon". The show was about research on fossils of feathered dinosaurs and early birds in China. Near the end, the archeologists were showing their finds to some local children. On of the archeologists then folds a flapping bird and makes a comment that something can be taught by paper dragons as well.

The Ellen Degeneres Show on 4/18/2006 featured 10-year-old origami artist Tristan Alan sharing his inspiring story of how he raised money for schools that were affected by Hurricane Katrina. http://www.cranesforkids.com/ 

7/6/2006, the PBS show POV (Point of View) featured Japanese high school baseball. The title of the show is "Kokoyakyui: The Greatest Story".  The summer starts out with 4000 teams, and ends up with only one champion. During training and early games the players and cheer squad are shown folding cranes, each with wishes for winning. When a team loses, its cranes are passed on to the winners. There are at least 6 times that the cranes are shown, with the strings becoming larger as the teams win.

The Daily Show, August 10, 2006 - John  Stuart, while making a political statement, takes a piece of blue paper, crumples it up, then slyly reaches under his desk and produces a very nicely made blue swan.

Peter Buchan, a young origami creator from the UK, appeared on the Disney Channel in their spot on Hobbies showing his origami creations.

12/02/06 - The Travel Channel show 5 Takes features five young adults from different countries traveling the USA.  This episode the group was in New York. They went to the Museum of Natural History and Bevis from Taiwan wanted to find the white tiger on the OUSA origami tree (he did).

January 9, 2007 David Jacobs appears in a 10 minute segment on the Australia Channel 10 pre-school show Puzzle Play. David folds some models, the kids guess what it is, then they cut to footage of the real thing. Included were Peter Engel's Kangaroo with Joey, an Edwin Corrie Pig, Edwin's Koala 2 , and a Radlett flapping bird.

Jan 24, 2007, Episode 72: Underwater Car - Mythbusters busted the myth that you can't fold a piece of paper more than seven times.  Tori, Keri, and Grant taped together 17 rolls of newsprint laid out in a NASA hangar at Moffat Field. The resulting paper was 170 feet long by 220 feet wide (think football field). They were able to fold it 12 times for 4096 layers of paper. Each of their folds were angled 90 degrees from the previous one.  They could have folded it a 13th time for 8112 layers but in Keri's words it would have been "a semicircle of paper". Myth Busted!

April 18, 2007 - The Paul O'Grady Show aired in the UK on channel 4, with a spot on origami. Rick Beech to appeared on the show folding a
life size horse. They mentioned the BOS and the 40th anniversary and put a link to our site on the channel 4 website.

May 20, 2007 - The segment airs on CBS News Sunday Morning aired a segment with Robert J. Lang that was filmed at his studio in Alamo and at the Mingei exhibition in Escondido. http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2829605n 

The Wiggles have been spotted doing origami! The Wiggles are an Australian band that specializes in children's entertainment. (May 2007)

May 2007 - On the show This is Emily Yeung, Emily interviews people and explores the world around her. Today's show was called This is Emily Yeung Making Origami. Emily interviews "origami artist" John Jay Guppy at the Royal Ontario Museum. They fold an origami cup, then a samurai helmet. http://thisisemilyyeung.treehousetv.com/grown-ups/tvepisodeguide_Making_Origami.php 

June 2007 - Joseph Wu was interviewed by Channel M (Multivision Television) for their weekly show, Mandarin Magazine. Joseph talks about this being a time of transition for origami where the focus is moving from technique to a focus on art.   http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=Rb8F2b0mZEU 

Origami Alive! With Leonor, which is a children's educational program broadcast in more than 20 countries around the world. From Tokyo to Tampa, from Boston to Buenos Aires, Leonor Rosser is the most widely-watched origami artist in the world. Her programs have appeared in dozens of countries worldwide, to viewing audiences of several million children and adults. For many years, she was featured on Discovery Kids, and most recently, her program "Origami Alive with Leonor" has been broadcast on PBS affiliates in the United States. http://www.bigkidsvideo.com/origamionedvd.html 

Origami Video - The most complete collection of videos about origami on the net: more than 1000 videos! http://www.origamivideo.net:80/ 

A BBC Three show called The Real Hustle features various ways that con men can hustle or cheat unwary marks. The November 2, 2006 show (Episode 9) featured "The Origami Scam", in which a con man sets up on the street offering to fold a 10 pound note into an origami model for a payment of 2 pounds. While folding the note he switches it for a bill that has been cut in half, and keeps the 10 pound note and the 2 pound payment. His marks don't unfold the model, at least not until much later, so rarely find that they have been fooled. http://origami.oschene.com/archives/2007/09/ 

February 23, 2008 - The Spirit Awards for indie film and filmmakers featured origami in the show graphics and titles. http://spiritawards.ifc.com/ 

Cable TV’s On Demand ActivityTV and the associated online site provides fun games and activities to encourage students and parents to spend time together creating and learning. Activities include music, dance, cartooning, magic, origami and much more. http://www.activitytv.com/default.aspx 

March 3, 2009 - Tony Cheng did segment this morning on the Today Show with Kathie Lee and Hoda.  Of course I was demonstrating origami. http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/29490178#29490178

July 2009 - Episode 205 of Amazing Wedding Cakes on the WE channel had a chef for a Japanese restaurant and his bride requesting a crane shaped wedding cake. The cake baker talked them into an oval tiered cake with a white chocolate crane on top.

BizKid$ on PBS had an episode where 2 hungry girls use their last dollar to make an origami crane, sell it for $2, then continue to parlay that until they had enough money to order food. 

October 2009, PBS World included money folding by Harvard student Zach Abel (Dallas, TX) on "Hard Problems: The Road to the World's Toughest Math Contest".

Copyright © Janet Hamilton 2009

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