Career Change Ushers in Stringtime of His Life : Puppetry: Jim Gamble traded in 20 years with the Air Force to pursue his artistic love. His troupe of marionettes will visit Mission Viejo for a ‘Carnival.’

Say you’re a pilot. You’ve spent almost 20 years in the cockpit, first with the Air Force and then with a major commercial carrier, earning the rank of captain and chalking up some 12,000 flying hours.

Long about your mid-40s, it strikes you that, hey, maybe it’s time for a career change. With yur credentials and your degree in aeronautical engineering, there are many lucrative possibilities. But for you, there is only one clear choice:

Puppets.

Loony? Maybe. But for Jim Gamble, it was lunacy inspired by a lifetime love of puppetry and tempered, apparently, by a liberal dose of business savvy.

In 1983, Gamble incorporated what is billed as the largest professional puppet company in the United States, Jim Gamble Puppet Productions. Last year alone, the group, based in Rancho Palos Verdes, presented more than 2,000 performances around the world and released five commercial videos; another is due on the shelves next month.

On Saturday, Gregory Ballora, one of 10 professional puppeteers in the group, will visit Mission Viejo’s Saddleback College with “Carnival of the Animals,” a puppet fantasy based on the musical composition by Camille Saint-Saens. (Gamble himself couldn’t take the gig. After a phone interview for this story, he and his wife, Marty, were off to Hawaii for a two-week assignment. His job does have its fringes). Recommended for kindergartners through adults, “Carnival of the Animals” will be presented at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. in Saddleback’s McKinney Theatre.

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Gamble said that, like his puppet renditions of “Peter and the Wolf” and “The Nutcracker,” “Carnival of the Animals” was created to foster an appreciation of classical music in children through puppetry. But because it offered no particular story line for his puppet actors to play out, the Saint-Saens piece posed an artistic challenge that the other works didn’t.

“So,” Gamble continued, “we took the life of the composer and put it into a story. We present him as a little boy writing music, which he really did at the age of 5 or 6, and making a carnival from the things he has in his room.”

“Carnival of the Animals” is actually 14 short pieces of music, and during the course of the 45-minute show, the puppet Saint-Saens conjures up a variety of creatures that help the audience visualize the themes in each of the musical segments.

“During the ‘Fossils’ music, he creates a Tinkertoyasaurus; in ‘Things With Long Ears,’ he makes this mule sort of thing, something like you might see in a circus with two people in it that separates in the middle.” Other characters include a cuckoo clock that “turns into a bird and gobbles up the music,” a dog that becomes an elephant, and a tea set that becomes a turtle.

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Company member Ballora, a UCLA theater grad whose puppeteering credits include the penguins in the “Batman Returns” film, will present “Carnival” using what Gamble calls the Eastern European style, in which the human performer, dressed and hooded in black and standing beyond the reach of the stage lights, manipulates the puppets directly in front of his body.

The puppet actors consist primarily of marionettes, or string puppets, and a few rod puppets, most of them less than 2 1/2-feet tall. After the show, Ballora will offer a short behind-the-scenes view of puppetry and tips on how children can construct their own simple puppets.

Gamble’s group has received some high-level recognition through the years, including top awards from the Union Internationale de la Marionettes (UNIMA) and the Puppeteers of America, and one of Gamble’s videos recently was tagged for a 1993 Parents Choice award.

The company has played to audiences in more than 20 countries, is the resident puppet theater for the Los Angeles Music Center on Tour educational program, and last June was named a Touring Artist by the California State Arts Council.

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In this county, it has been seen at malls, in schools and at private parties, and performed last spring in the Imagination Celebration. Later this year, it will begin touring schools as part of “From the Center,” the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s education program.

Gamble, who 25 years ago began creating and performing with puppets on his own, oversees the design and production of his company’s extensive puppet corps. At last count, he said, he had more than 2,000 puppets ranging from the two-foot-tall marionettes to Grandpa Bunny, a human-sized fellow who stars in Gamble’s upcoming video, “How Peter Cottontail Got His Hop.” Described in promotional materials as “small miracles in engineering,” many of the puppets can be broken down and reassembled into different characters, a feature used often for “Carnival of the Animals.”

At 55, Gamble is far from blase about his accomplishments. When discussing his craft, he sounds more like an enthused 10-year-old than one of the best known puppet masters since Geppetto.

Puppets “are just amazing things,” he said, noting that they have been used successfully in art therapy, physical therapy and even ministry. “Kids love them, and adults love them because children are educated and entertained at the same time.”

Jim Gamble Puppet Productions presents “Carnival of the Animals,” a family-oriented puppet fantasy based on the musical composition by Camille Saint-Saens, Saturday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. in the McKinney Theatre at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo. Running time: about an hour. Tickets: $5. Call (714) 582-4656.