It's not hard to picture what Steve Meltzer must have been like as a little boy. The puppeteer, who mans the box office before jumping onstage to work the puppets for Puppetolio! every weekend, has a big, goofy grin and exudes the energy of an 8-year-old inviting you to play in his room. Puppetolio! is delightfully old-fashioned, a low-tech puppet show with Meltzer's zany cast of stringed characters and really corny jokes that add up to the equivalent of being tickled for an hour.

"I wanted to do what I am now doing when I was 4," Meltzer says. "Paul Winchell was a huge TV star back then, and my idol. I knew his partner, Jerry Mahoney, was not a living person, but Paul acted as though he was, and he made me believe it. The reason I do this is for the sheer joy that I have with the audience as we laugh ... and sing ... and believe together."

In an age where family entertainment has gone through the technology stratosphere, Meltzer's show might be a throwback, but the kids in the audience laugh like little loons. "I love all the modern technologies, but my experience has taught me that humans haven't really changed all that much. We still love to gather together and find the common joy of any kind of fantasy or illusion. In this tech-saturated time, I wish the purveyors of pop culture would realize that 'low-tech' can actually be a selling point."

This month, Meltzer will present the first-ever Santa Monica Puppetry Festival, which will conclude with an appearance by Leslie Caron, who earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a poor French orphan in the heart-wrenching 1953 movie Lili, in which a lovelorn puppeteer and his puppets play a major role. Meltzer is currently searching for Carrot Top, the cute little boy hand puppet who sang "Hi Lili, Hi Lo" in the movie. Carrot Top was last seen at an MGM props auction in 1971. Meltzer would love to hear from anyone who might know Carrot Top's whereabouts.