Just as a matter of curiosity I tore into it and made a few modifications:

• Pushed everything that is to be printed into an array so that the script could get away with only one print, with less processing inside the print function, for a little better (maybe?) output efficiency.
• Changed sleep 1 to select, with a timeout of .2 sec., for smoother action without loss of synchronization.
• Golfed it down as much as I could without changing logic, flow, or behavior. Saved 82 keystrokes.
• Reformatted script for seventeen full lines and one partial, plus the shebang.

Here's the result:

#!/usr/bin/perl
sub r{int rand pop}++$|;@g=map{[map{' '}0..$=]}0..25;my$j=pop||2+r 3;
@f=map{my$k=my$n=$b++;my$z=1;my$x=r$=;;my($q,$v,$e)=my@l=(0x4);my$h=r
9;$w={i=>sub{$k=r$j while$k==$n or!$f[$k];my$o=$f[$k];$h+=$e?-1:1;if(
$h<1){$e=0;$k=$n}$e=$h>6?1:$e;if(!$z){my$u=$x<$$o{x}()?1:-1;$u*=$e>1?
-1:1;$q=$e?$u*r 7:0;$q||=4if$e>1;$v=r 6 if($e&&r(7)>3)}my$t=($$o{z}()
cmp$z)+1;$t=0if$x==$$o{x}();my$s=$x<$$o{x}()?1:0;for(0,2){$l[$_+$s]+=
$t cmp$l[$_+$s]}for(0,2){$l[$_+($s?0:1)]=0}$v-=2if$z;$x+=$q;$z+=$v;$z
=0if$z<0;if($x<2){$x=2;$q*=-1if$q<0}if($x>$=-2){$x=$=-2;$q*=-1if$q>0}
if((abs($x-$$o{x}())+1)*(1+abs($z+1-$$o{z}()))<9){r 2?$$o{c}($n)||($e
=1):${$f[$n]}{c}($k)}},d=>sub{$g[20-$z][$x]='O';$g[21-$z][$x]='+';$g[
22-$z][$x]='|';for(0,1){my@c=$_?qw!/ - \\!:qw!\\ - /!;$g[21-$z][$x+($
_?1:-1)]=$l[$_]?'-':$c[2];$g[22-$z-$l[$_]][$x+($_?2:-2)]=$c[2-$l[$_]]
;$g[23-$z][$x+($_?1:-1)]=$l[2+$_]>1?'-':$c[2];$g[24-$z-($l[2+$_]>1?1:
0)][$x+($_?2:-2)]=$c[$l[2+$_]>1?1:2]}},z=>sub{$z},x=>sub{$x},n=>sub{$
n=pop},c=>sub{$h=0;$e=2;$k=pop;$q=0;if(!r(7)){splice@f,$n,1;$$_{n}($h
++)for@f;}}}}1..$j;while(1){exit if@f==1;for$m(@f){$$m{i}();$$m{d}()}
my@n;for$a(1..25){push@n,join'',"$/|",@{$g[$a]},'|';@{$g[$a]}=map{' '
}0..$=}print$/x$=,@n;select$c,$c,$c,.2}
[download]

++ for pointing out that select can be used this way; I had thought it had to do with filehandles, and had not realised this use for it.

As for the rest of your improvements... well, I'll have to look at those when I have more time.

update: I've looked at them now, and they all seem pretty straightforward; you just did a more thorough job of golfing than I.

---

$;=sub{$/};@;=map{my($a,$b)=($_,$;);$;=sub{$a.$b->()}}
split//,".rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ";$\=$ ;->();print$/
[download]

Well, I figured someone else would deobfuscate this, but since nobody else has, here's an explantion for posterity. First off, there are really very few clever or sneaky "tricks" in this one to hide what's going on, other than removing the comments and renaming the variables tersely; most of it's just straightforward dense logic and a little golf...

$;=sub{$/};@;=map{my($a,$b)=($_,$;);$;=sub{$a.$b->()}}
split//,".rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ";$\=$ ;->();print$/
[download]

tell me how to create stickmen and print them out

Another amazing obfu. ++