It’s the craziest puppet show on the web! William Sikora III set out to bring puppets to the world wide web like never before.
 

Fluffy Friends was born during the first days of Vine. “The short clips allowed us to use the couple puppets we had to make comedic sketches and more at any given time.We were posting 3-5 times a day, if it wasn’t for Vine, we may not be here today.” Sikora said.

“Shortly after racking up over 10k followers, Instagram unveiled video and that changed everything. We then had 15 seconds to make videos which was more than twice as long as Vine. Fluffy Friends started picking up a following there. The original character that was featured in the Vines was Cookie Monster, it was just something I did for fun and could do his voice really well.” Sikora said.

Then LaTonka came into the family, she was just a secondary character, rarely seen but all of her videos sparked up views and comments and we were onto something.

“Little by little, LaTonka started making her way to the top of the character list, I also had a custom puppet made who was to be used in a video game commentary show, that puppet was Ollie. He actually sat on a shelf for almost two years because I couldn’t really find a place for him because no one watched the short lived gaming series. During that time, views were growing and that was when I decided, if I was going to take my puppets far, we had to get rid of Cookie, so he “left” the Fluffy Friends house and I brought in Ollie as the new ‘roomie’ along with all the other characters. Honestly, I thought Fluffy Friends was going to lose popularity and die off after taking out Cookie and bringing in another monster, but I was wrong, so wrong!” Sikora said.

LaTonka and Ollie’s chemistry exploded when we created the series Word of the Day in 2015. Videos started going viral, people started interacting more and Fluffy Friends was growing faster than ever.
In 2016, the current LaTonka puppet was literally falling apart and it was time for her to get a major upgrade. We set out to find an amazing puppet builder to make an all new LaTonka that still captured the spirit of the original. Fans welcomed her with open arms as the new character was a big change and a much needed one. Later that year the official sticker app, Fluffymoji, was released. It became a huge hit and was featured on The App Store. The following year we released Fluffymoji 2, which expanded with almost 500 animated stickers and emojis becoming a fan favorite, perfect for any conversation. Both apps are used daily by people all around the world.

 

“The goal of Fluffy Friends was to create a diverse group of characters, whom we all could relate to. Different textures, colors, personalities, all intermixed. I wanted to use my skills to make everyone laugh. People have long viewed puppets as something for just kids, but I set out to make Fluffy Friends something for everyone to enjoy no matter if you are 15, 35, 55, 105 and everywhere in between. One day I want to take these characters further than ever creating a foundation to give back to those in need and really make a difference. Laughter is a powerful medicine and together we can change the world.” Sikora said.

The memorable characters have gone on to create short films, parodies and holidays specials like Haunted House and a Christmas Jamboree in 2021. There is much more to come in the terms of short films and of course on social media.

Across social media Fluffy Friends has over 300k followers and is growing more and more. The Word of the Day series has become internet gold with over 300 episodes. “I never imagined it would be bigger than it was but I did it because I was passionate about it.” Sikora said. “I really had to stick with it and push it, invest in it to grow.”