Demonic Dummy: Difference between revisions

You've all heard of [[Enemy Mime|monstrous mimes]] and [[Monster Clown|creepy clowns]]. Well, rounding out the Trilogy of Horror [[Just for Pun|Vaudeville-any]] is the [['''Demonic Dummy]]''', otherwise known as the evil [[Ventriloquism|ventriloquist]]'s doll.

A ventriloquist is, [[As You Know|as you probably already know]], an entertainer who tries to convince an audience that a non-living thing (in most cases, a puppet) is alive and talking. Now this act, though odd, probably wouldn't be too offputting an entertainment -- exceptentertainment—except that nine times out of ten, when a ventriloquist's puppet appears in a series or movie, it will be a hideous, dwarven creature who crawled straight out of the [[Uncanny Valley]]. With its jutting eyebrows, shifting eyes and its sharp, mechanical rictus of a smile, the [['''Demonic Dummy]]''' occupies a prominent place in the darker recesses of the human subconscious -- itsubconscious—it is nitro-burning Nightmare Fuel for viewers both young and old.

One of the most common twists in a story which features a [['''Demonic Dummy]]''', is to have the dummy be real, and the ventriloquist either be a wooden puppet or a hapless human under the dummy's control -- incontrol—in fact, many Demonic Dummies get the ability to turn people into [[People Puppets]], sometimes ''[[Puppet Permutation|literally]]''. Another twist is to have both the ventriloquist and the dummy be two parts of a split personality (with the human being the shy and nebbish part of the personality, and the dummy the loud and abrasive half). Other variations of the dummy/ventriloquist relationship exist as well, as you'll see below...

Also, note that other types of puppet aren't safe either. Classical-style ventriloquist dummies are the most popular, but anything from a sock puppet on up can fall into this category.

** In ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'', Pinocchimon was one of the Dark Masters, and definitely lived up to this trope. He successfully manipulated Yamato into turning against the other Chosen, even briefly, and it led to a [[Divided We Fall]] situation for the rest of the [[Story Arc]].

* In ''[[Pandora Hearts]]'' Break, while not adverse to insulting people directly himself, seems to do a lot of it and threats threwthrough emily (who is ''probably'' an ordinary doll)

== ComicbooksComic Books ==

* ''The Ventriloquist'', aka Arnold (not [[Resident Evil|Albert]]) Wesker is a ''[[Batman]]'' villain whose multiple personality disorder led him to carry around an aggressive mafia-esque dummy named Scarface -- whichScarface—which became the dominant personality of the duo, abusing Wesker and ordering him around. This made Wesker a rather tragic villain, because his core personality is mild-mannered and doesn't like what Scarface is doing or the abuse Scarface heaps on him, but cannot seem to break with the idea that he and Scarface are separate individuals. In one instance, Wesker actually shoots Scarface while the dummy is still on his hand, then proceeds to not notice that his hand is bleeding.

** DC also has a really obscure Golden Age villain called The Dummy, who is [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin]]--a—a magically-animated ventriloquist's dummy.

* An early example is in the 1964 movie ''[[Devil Doll (Filmfilm)|Devil Doll]]'', which was featured in an episode of ''[[MST3KMystery Science Theater 3000]]''. The twist here is that the possessed doll itself isn't evil. Rather, the doll (named Hugo) is the hapless assistant of an evil hypnotist/ventriloquist who trapped Hugo's spirit within the doll and then killed off Hugo's human body. The doll spends most of the time under the ventriloquist's control, but eventually gains enough self-awareness to fight back and give the ventriloquist a taste of his own medicine. ''After'' he killed the ventriloquist's assistant, of course.

* ''[[ChildsChild's Play (Filmfilm)|Child's Play]]''; A serial killer transfers his soul into a Good Guy doll named Chucky to avoid death after getting gunned down in a toy store.

* Fletcher in the German-produced film ''[[Making Contact (Film)|Making Contact]]'' (released as ''Joey'' in its native Germany)), who looks like the love child of Charlie McCarthy and a deranged chimpanzee and wears a [[High-Class Glass|monocle]]. Among other things, the little nightmare puppet can shoot lightning out of his eyes, psychically control other toys and open portals to what appears to be limbo. And he tends to just growl like an angry dog in lieu of speaking (although he does [[Silent Bob|have a few lines]]).

* ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'': The Crimson Clown and Zeebo the clown. They are both a [[Monster Clown]] to boot.

* ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'''s "Smile Time" does this with puppets on a children's show.

* A comedic version is Franklin Bluth from ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]].'' When GOB wears it, he tends to [[No Indoor Voice|blurt out racist and sexist comments]] while Franklin speaks in [[Jive Turkey]]. Franklin is often used to knock out people by dipping his lips in ether and "giving some sugar" to the victim's nose.

* ''[[ALF (TV)|ALF]]'' had a ventriloquist puppet in one episode, with the puppet slowly taking the dominant part of the relationship. Though it is not entirely clear how much of that was just another of ALF's stunts to get attention and have someone to shovel the blame on.

* An episode of ''[[Tales Fromfrom the Crypt]]'' about a junkie ventriloquist. {{spoiler|His puppet was actually his conjoined twin. He uses the drugs to keep his twin sedated}}.

** Subverted in another episode. The puppeteer's puppet Coco does look pretty creepy, being a [[Monster Clown|clown and all]], and the puppeteer honestly believes that Coco is real in a [[Batman|Scarface]] sense. {{spoiler|He turns out to be the kind of sorta ''good guy'' that kills the ''real'' villains (the puppeteer's wife and her lover) after they cause the puppeteer to suffer a fatal heart attack. It's also implied that Coco is being possessed by the dead puppeteer himself since his new face in the end looks just like the puppeteer.}}

* ''[[The Collector (TV series)|The Collector]]'': The Devil [[The Nth Doctor|took this form once]]. The human-looking ventriloquist was ''his'' dummy.

* One episode of the German [[Sit ComSitcom]] ''[[Hausmeister Krause (TV)|Hausmeister Krause]]'' features an [[Ax Crazy]] serial killer, whose ''[[Punch and Judy|Kasperle]]'' hand-puppet urges him to "play [[The Silence of the Lambs|Hannibal]]".

* [[Doctor Steel]] used to have a ventriloquist dummy as part of his stage show; on the DVD with commentary of his live performance he says regarding it, "As you may already know, ventriloquist dummys, ''all'' ventriloquist dummys, are inherently evil."

* An experimental gigantic Tedi from [[Conkers Bad Fur Day (Video Game)|ConkersConker's Bad Fur Day]] named, em, The Experiment, was apparently controlled by his puppet of a little squirrel girl, named, ah, Little Girl (Rare weren't very good at naming things back then). Sightly subverted in that we're introduced to Little Girl first before we find out its a puppet.

* Mel from ''[[Suikoden III]]'' is a puppeteer who blames her puppet "Branky" for its rude behavior and puts it through a fair amount of abuse. (She also [[Improbable Weapon User|uses it to inflict violence upon her enemies.]]) This is one of those rare cases where a puppeteer is actually far more disturbing than the puppet.

* Case 3 of ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]: Justice For All'' introduces Trilo Quist, who isn't evil, but is pushy, loud-mouthed, and argumentative. He frequently bickers with, and even ''punches'', his meek partner Ben.

* Mr. Bear the teddy bear from ''[[Advance Wars]]: Days of Ruin''; at least if we take Penny's word for it. [[Enigmatic Minion|He seems to have his own agenda]], however, making Penny give tactical advice to the heroes on how to defeat her, not ratting out Will during an infiltration mission and eventually convincing Penny ''not'' to [[Taking You Withwith Me|collide a plane containing all of the protagonists and herself to kill them all]]. And no; he never ''actually'' talks, or does anything for that matter -- Pennymatter—Penny is just [[Ax Crazy]] and delegates half of her mind to the inner voice of Mr. Bear.

* Similar to the above, [[League of Legends]] has "Mr. Tibbers", the teddy-bear that [[Playing Withwith Fire|Annie]] carries around with her - and turns into a giant, demonic version of itself when she uses her [[Limit Break|Ultimate ability]].

* In ''[[The World Ends With You (Video Game)|The World Ends With You]]'', Shiki has an adorable cat doll she made herself, named Mr. Mew. [[Take Our Word for It|We don't get to watch]], but upon entering the Reapers' Game, she animated him via a process called ''psychomancy''. She later tells Neku that she only uses telekinesis to throw him around and levitate him in front of [[The Heartless|Noise]]--the—the doll apparently does all the slashing to ribbons on its own. Cue an ominous shot of Mr. Mew from behind. Neku begins to have thoughts and so do we.

** In a [[Shout-Out]] to ''[[ChildsChild's Play (TV series)|Child's Play]]'' above, the [[Player Character]]'s assistant decides to name your first Wracky Charles.

* In ''[[The Adventures of Sam and& Max: Freelance Police (Video Game)|Sam and Max Freelance Police]]: The Devil's Playhouse'', the power of Psychic Ventriloquism is granted by a creepy-looking dummy known as Charlie Ho-Tep. {{spoiler|In "Beyond the Alley of the Dolls", he turns out to be alive ''and'' the mastermind between the army of Sam clones that have been turning the city upside-down in an effort to find the Toys of Power.}}

* "[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series (Web Video)|Your mother plays card games in Hell!]]"

* The [[Cosmic Horror|literal]] Demonic Dummy in ''[[Ruby Quest (Roleplay)|Ruby Quest]]''.

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode, "Krusty Gets Kancelled", features a dummy named Gabbo that can apparently move and think independently of its "master". In spite of this, it's really more annoying than creepy.

* On a more humorous note, ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'' featured The Human Ton and Handy, a barely sentient 2000  lbs. [[Giant Mook]] with a green hand puppet that appeared to have a mind of its own and bossed The Human Ton around. Not to mention that Handy was considerably smarter than his handler - and all of the other supervillains they teamed up with for that matter. Intriguingly enough, for all the verbal abuse Handy put him through, The Human Ton's immediate reaction to having Handy removed was to [[Big No|scream loudly]] and faint.

* An episode of ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Animation)|Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'' has a pair of murderous ventriloquist dummies, who are only capable of saying "Kill" and "Die" respectively.

* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series (Animation)|Batman the Animated Series]]'' and ''[[The Batman (Animation)|The Batman]]'' have both used Arnold Wesker and Scarface (see entry in Comics section.) Since it's a doll and not a living creature, ''[[Batman: The Animated Series (Animation)|Batman the Animated Series]]'' used it for [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]] by killing it on screen.

* [[w:David Strassman|David Strassman]] uses a remote-controlled dummy to often disturbing effect.

* Averted by Edgar Bergen's Charlie McCarthy, who isnwasn't evil, just a little naughty. Which makes sense, because the character was originally a mildly-delinquent schoolboy, before he got put in a tuxedo and given a society upgrade.

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