The Funday Pawpet Show, a weekly staple of furry fandom, announced on September 12 that it will be ending its weekly broadcast, citing legal and logistical woes, particularly regarding the music industry.

We have come to a cross roads. Streaming video and music copyrights and licensing have become such a tangled mess of pain in the butt. The music industry has made it impossible for the little guy to do anything online. The costs, the bookkeeping, the constant upkeep of trying to keep from getting flagged… It is no longer a labor of love. We thank you all for nearly 18 years of puppet broadcasting support.

The loss of furry-friendly streaming service Furstre.am weighed on their decision. According to site creator Jacktail, the domain name was allowed to expire this month, as no current developers wished to take it on.

The original Hugh T. Manatee, a regular member of the Funday PawPet Show cast, is up for auction.

Funds will be used to purchase new equipment for Poinkcast, HughTube and video archive digitization.

Update: The auction raised $102.50, just 43% of the winning bid for Poink T. Ferret in June 2007.

Puppeteer JR explained the sale [tip: BabsBunny]:

A few weeks ago, I started thinking, I'd love to have a YouTube channel focusing on stuff I've done and Hugh and Poink; [...] So, I created HughTube. [...] I decided I really wanted to build this up, film stuff with Poink and Hugh that hasn't been seen anywhere, and really build up the PoinkCast brand. I put together a list of stuff I'd need, and realized that if I did it all out of pocket it was going to take a while. So I posted it on FA and asked for donations.

The Funday Pawpet Show now offers a near-complete episode archive – but perhaps not for much longer.

Over the past few months, several hundred old episodes have been detailed and put online for download, but the risk of five-figure licensing fees has led show lead Yappy Slyfox to threaten to pull the plug.

Originally, only each week's previous broadcast was available for download, although several "old tapes" that might just happen to contain early episodes were auctioned off several years ago.

The FPS annual telethon (which raised over $10,000 in 2007) is on November 14; its 11^th anniversary will be celebrated a fortnight later. The show runs 6-10PM Eastern each Sunday.

The Funday PawPet Show is to move to a 6PM Eastern start time, according to host Yappy Slyfox.

The move - forced by a change in work schedule - is expected to negatively impact European viewers, who benefited from a move from 7PM to 5PM in late 2007.

Radiolawn and Rapid T. Rabbit will no longer be broadcast before the main show, but the latter will still stream via MNN at 5:30PM Eastern on Fridays.

Update: The Funday PawPet Show, Megaplex, and for the Furry Costume Information Exchange have been restored.

A RAID storage facility holding data and code for several furry sites has failed, leading to downtime and uncertainty over their recovery.^[1]

Sites known to be affected center around the Florida Furs, and include the Funday PawPet Show, Megaplex, the Furry Costume Information Exchange (hosting the FURSUIT mailing list and an archive of fursuit-related stories), JR's Poinkcasts (also available elsewhere),^[2] and resources for furry ham radio enthusiasts.

IRC server lion.anthrochat.net is also affected. As it was the provider of IRC services for the Anthrochat network, channel and nickname registrations may be lost. The network itself remains online, and a temporary replacement is in place on another server.

November saw another success for furry fundraising events, as the Funday PawPet Show surpassed it's target of $10,000 in just two of their 4-hour broadcasts, thrashing last year's total of $3,940.19 in less than half the time.

Over 120 people are documented as donating to the show, many already regular viewers and visitors to the shows IRC channel.

T.H. Squirrel was celebrated as the largest donor, paying $1,400 for a Herbie Bearclaw commission. Many fursuiters also donated their services, and one fursuit maker raised an extra $350.

Said regular pawpeteer Kuddlepup:

I have to say that nobody on the cast truly expected the level of support that we got tonight.

The donations are set to go to licensing fees, operating expenses and hardware upgrades.

Fans of the Funday PawPet Show dug deep this week, raising over $10,000 for the regular four-hour puppet show in a fundraiser spanning two broadcasts.

The show's initial goal of $6,000 was reached shortly into the second show. $10,052 was raised by the closing song.^[1] Last year, $3,940.19 was donated.

The show's website lists over 120 separate donators.^[2] Many are regulars of the show's IRC channel, which topped a record 237 simultaneous users in the last hour.

The largest sum came from T. H. Squirrel, who paid $1,400 for an acrylic commission donated by Herbie Bearclaw.^[3]

Poink has been significantly modified over the years

Regular Funday PawPet Show cast member Poink T. Ferret has been put up for auction by his owner, Jackrabbit.^[1][2]

The pawpet - originally a Folkmanis design - has been modified over the years to include balloons, ping-pong balls, and red LED eyes. He was shaved by Uncle Kage during its last visit to Anthrocon, and currently wears hair implants.

The final bid was $237.50. Shipping costs were not specified.

We knew it was coming, but it's still a shock when it actually happens.

The CARP legislation hits the Funday Pawpet Show, extort... erm... requiring payment retroactively from their first broadcast -- 29 January 2001 through 31 August 2002.

In my opinion, CARP stinks to high heaven.

From the PawPet folk, off of alt.fan.furry: "Anthrocon is less than a month away, and Funday PawPet Show is looking to book puppeteers for the 3 hour live show that will be occuring on Friday night between 4-7pm." Read on for more.