(Lester on BEAKMAN’S WORLD)

Mark Ritts stars as Lester, a disgruntled actor in a rat suit who reluctantly helps Beakman with his experiments and trades barbs with Josie, Liza and Phoebe.

For many years, Mark has been a successful writer-producer-director of the big events major corporations stage to motivate and inform employees and to launch new products.  He has also produced and directed many independent videos and television spots as President of Mark Ritts Productions, Inc., now in its 20th year of service to resentful clients around the world.  Since moving to California from the New York area in 1994, Mark has written and produced a Barney the Dinosaur special for Fox, as well as a one-hour prime-time documentary for PBS on microbiology.  More recently, he made a major high-definition documentary for Merck & Co., and his critically-acclaimed DVD for boaters, Cast Off for Catalina, is available at most marine retailers and at Amazon.com.  He is also a director of the Court TV series, North Mission Road.

The son of noted puppeteers Paul and Mary Ritts, Mark has always pursued a sideline in puppetry, starring in PBS’s The Real Adventures of Sherlock Jones and Proctor Watson and NBC’s Pink Panther Show, among many others.  He won an Emmy as the voice and manipulator of “Kino,” the puppet co-host of Storytime, which enjoyed a nine-year stint on PBS.  Fast Fact: “Lester” was originally conceived as a puppet character, but at the last minute, Beakman’s producers decided he should be a full-sized guy in a rat suit!