Worst/creepiest puppets/puppeteer work

[Drtooth]

Here's another weird one courtesy of Cringevenom:

Now, if you're looking for unintentional racist tones in that one, I have to give them credit for keeping them subtle. A lesser show would have botched this up even worse. The Snowman's puppeteer's arm is constantly visible in the first scene. Other than that, I'd say he's the best looking Puppet on that show. Is the other kid supposed to sound like he was recorded on the phone in a bathroom? The weird thing is, the most unintentionally funny bit from this clip comes from the uploader's editing with the I Love Lucy parody sketch.

 

[Luke kun]

The most disturbing puppets I recall seeing are the puppet versions of The Wiggles. I saw them on YouTube because the video came up in the related videos while I was looking for Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock videos.

It must be the giant eyes and those freaky smiles. Anything that looks that happy must be up to somethin'!

Looks like Woody from Toy Story on drugs.

OK, Little Marcy is a creepy puppet. (But I like her.)

 

[Drtooth]

Here's yet another from that..I dunno what it's called series.

Okay... observations. This program must have some money to be able to get the rights to perform a Neil Diamond song. Even if the characters are just screeching through it. And this is what really gets me...

All the puppets have a sliding level of extremely amateurish to modestly amateurish... except the Magnum, P.I. puppet! That looks, dare I say...PROFESSIONAL! Henson quality almost, dare I say.

 

[mr3urious]

And that black kid puppet still has the literal phoned-in voice! Is there any reason why he sounds like that?

 

[Drtooth]

OH! I get it. He's supposed to sound like a radio.



that's... that's not funny.

 

[Luke kun]

Behold!

 

[mr3urious]

I think I know how those full-bodied puppets from the earlier Good News Network clip were operated. I actually read up about how the Barney the Dinosaur suit from the TV show onwards ingeniously has the wearer grip a rod inside the suit with his/her teeth and bob their head up and down to move his lower jaw, so maybe that's how it's done here.

Great. Now I'm actually appreciating something about that disgrace to T. rexes everywhere.

 

[Drtooth]

I'll give Good News this:

It seems like they try. Try and fail, try and almost make it, but unlike most of these Christian shows, they try. The puppets seem to run between not great and (in the case of the Magnum) actually decent. Seems that they at least attempt humor without getting too heavy handed, like a certain purple guy with his eyes close together. Still belongs here because it's awkward overall and has Muppet character ripoffs, but at least it isn't these creepy ventriloquist dummy type shows.

 

[mr3urious]

Still belongs here because it's awkward overall and has Muppet character ripoffs, but at least it isn't these creepy ventriloquist dummy type shows.

Though Gary Cahuenga from Muppets Tonight actually managed to have a lot more life and a lot less of an uncanny valley feel to him somehow. I suppose it's the fact that he can actually move his arms that makes it so.

 

[Drtooth]

The constant cliche hovering over Ventriloquism is the whole bit about how they look creepy. On the one hand... they sure do. On the other hand, great ventriloquists would bring so much life into them (Charlie and Edgar, not to mention Paul Winchell's crew) they could be endearing.

Same can't be said for these below the budget Christian shows. They obviously buy these dummies on the cheap, so they don't have to make and build actual puppet puppets. They look far too generic to be actually built. Though if they actually do make them, I'll give them some credit there. Even then, well... that kind of ventriloquism is kinda out of touchy. It gives it such a creepy unironic vibe and then when they try to make them children talking about how awful the world is so they can make a religious point, it's a hundred times worse.