Jinan shadow play was brought in by Li Ke'ao, and has a history of 77 years (1918 to 1995). Li Ke'ao was originally from Lijialou, Zou County, Shandong Province. He was born into a peasant family and used to sell steamed buns. Because he loved shadow play art, he learned from Qufu shadow play artist Zhang Shengwang in the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, Zhang Shengwang was already a solo artist. Later, he recuperated in Li's house. Before his death, he said: "I have lived in your house and owe you a lot of debts. I leave all my shadows (referring to shadow puppets) to you. It is not easy to make these shadows, so let's just make up for the debt." From then on, Li Ke'ao inherited this artistic heritage and performed in Zou County. Later, he gradually became famous. It is said that Li Ke'ao performed in Confucius Mansion twice, and Confucius Mansion also gave him some shadow play props. After the liberation of Jinan in the late 1940s, Li Ke'ao built his own shadow play theater in Renmin Shopping Mall. Li Ke'ao has two sons, Fu Zeng and Fu Xiang. The theater was named "Zengxiang Tea Garden". In 1955, with the care and support of the Jinan Municipal Bureau of Culture, Xiangqun Shadow Puppet Club was established. In April of the same year, Li Fuzeng and Li Fuxiang represented Shandong and went to Beijing, the capital, to participate in the first national puppet and shadow puppet show. They were warmly welcomed by the delegates and the audience, won the Outstanding Performance Award, and were selected to report the performance for the party and state leaders in Huairen Hall, winning honor for Shandong shadow puppets. In 1956, Shanghai Fine Arts Publishing House published the "Shadow Puppet Painting Collection", which selected two shadow puppets and a horse kept by the Li family 30 years ago. In 1959, Xiangqun Shadow Puppet Club and the Puppet Troupe merged and were named Jinan Puppet Shadow Puppet Troupe. The shadow puppet team added a band and students to strengthen the new force. After the establishment of the troupe, shadow puppet artists actively created and rehearsed new programs, such as modern dramas "Picking Sister-in-law", "New Daughter-in-law", "Two Yuan and Six", "Duck Commander", "Little Sentinel of the East China Sea", mythological dramas "Intelligent Stimulation", "Pingdingshan", "Mr. Dongguo" and nearly 20 new shadow puppet plays. After the reform and opening up, Zhou Maozhu and others were ready to resume the art of shadow puppetry that had been shelved for many years and perform shadow puppetry again, but they had no props. In the winter of 1978, Sun Fengnian, an old shadow puppet artist from Qingdao, came to Jinan to visit his relatives and brought shadow puppetry props with him. Zhou Maozhu used his props to perform three consecutive shows with Li Xingshi and others at the Railway Cultural Palace. The audience was full and they were warmly welcomed. After that, Zhou Maozhu, Li Xingshi and others hurriedly made props and performed in Daming Lake and other places. In 1980, Shandong TV made a TV film of "Journey to the West" performed by Li Xingshi and others, which was broadcast in the province and on CCTV and was loved by the audience. After that, Jinan shadow puppetry has been performed in Baotu Spring, People's Park, and Jiefang Pavilion for many years, with an average of nearly 100 shows per year and a total audience of 600,000. In August 1988, they also held a shadow puppet exhibition in Wulongtan Park. In December of the same year, the puppet show was held at Baotu Spring for 50 days, with 80,000 spectators and 300 foreign guests. In the early years, the puppets of Jinan puppets were only 22 cm tall. They are flexible to operate, easy to master, fierce fighting, and very realistic in various actions. The actors can operate more than 20 puppets with both hands without chaos and handy. However, if they want to perform in a large theater, they cannot be seen clearly from a distance. So in 1957, someone took the lead in increasing the height of the puppets to 30 cm. Now it has increased to 50 cm. Because the actors need to adapt to the process and improve their skills from small to large when operating the puppets. Now the largest puppet is 95 cm tall, and the smallest is only 4 cm. In this way, during the performance, large, medium, small, far and near can be used in combination. The puppets in the early years were carved from old drum skins, which were opaque and colorless. The carved patterns are also rough, mostly using folk blue printed cloth patterns, and similar to folk paper-cut patterns. The shapes are simple and exaggerated, and the characters reflected are black, clear and vivid. At that time, there were also colored puppets, but there were too few of them. In the past decade or so, artists have worked hard to explore traditional shapes, absorb the essence of puppet shapes from all over the country, refer to the various costumes and headdresses of opera characters, create new patterns, and carefully carve various puppets. All are carved from the best cowhide, bright and transparent, and painted with oil. Today's puppets are bright, fresh and gorgeous, and many of them are fine products. In addition, the screen has also doubled. This can expand the range of puppets' activities and the placement of scenery near and far, and the coordination of various lights has enhanced the artistic effect of the performance.