For four days every February, the streets of Olinda, Brazil, are filled with hundreds of giant puppets—but none is more revered than a 12-foot replica of actor John Travolta in the 1977 movie Saturday Night Fever. The puppets are part of Carnival, a festive season that occurs before Lent in many Roman Catholic nations. In 1932, revelers in Olinda created their first puppet, called a boneco (BO-neh-koh) in Portuguese. From there, the number has grown and grown. But the Travolta boneco towers above the rest. When the doors of a dance hall swing open just before 9 p.m. on Carnival day, a brass band pushes out into the crowd, followed by the famous puppet, to lead a parade. People cheer and wave and reach out to touch it. At this point it looks nothing like the actor, admits Silvio Botelho, who made the boneco 45 years ago. The clay and papier-mâché face has morphed over time, and Botelho has begged to remake it, but the puppet’s owners say they—and thousands of others—love it the way it is. “It’s horrible but beautiful,” says reveler Maria Helena Alcântara. “He touches our hearts.”