History Main / DemonicDummy

A ventriloquist is an entertainer who aims to convince an audience that a non-living thing (most commonly a humanoid puppet, or "dummy") is alive and talking. Now this act, though odd, wouldn't usually be too off-putting an entertainment – except that, nine times out of ten, whenever a ventriloquist's dummy appears in a series or movie, it will be a creature that has crawled straight out of the UncannyValley. With its jutting eyebrows, its 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 – 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 alive for real, and the ventriloquist himself either a puppet or a hapless human under the dummy's control – in fact, many Demonic Dummies are given the ability to turn humans into PeoplePuppets, sometimes [[PuppetPermutation literally]]. Another twist is to have both the ventriloquist and the dummy be two parts of a SplitPersonality, generally with the "human" personality being shy and nebbishy and the "dummy" personality being loudmouthed and hostile. Other variations of the dummy/ventriloquist relationship exist as well.

See also CreepyDoll, MurderousMannequin, PerversePuppet, KillerTeddyBear, and ConsultingMisterPuppet.

* One of the modern monsters in ''WesternAnimation/MonsterMash2000'' is an evil wind-up doll named Chicky, the Doll of Destruction. She's a CaptainErsatz of [[Film/ChildsPlay Chucky]], only differentiated by her green skin and other gender. She wears her hair in GirlishPigtails, but one of the tails is the wind-up key. Her weapon of choice is a remote control with which she can change the environment around her.

* ''Film/ChildsPlay'': A serial killer transfers his soul into a Good Guy doll named Chucky to avoid death after getting gunned down in a toy store.

** In a ShoutOut to ''Film/ChildsPlay'' above, the PlayerCharacter's assistant decides to name your first Wracky Charles.

* The opening host segment for the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode "[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S06E10TheViolentYears The Violent Years]]" involves Servo replacing his usual dome with a creepy ventriloquist doll head. Poor Crow is rendered near catatonic and with terror.

* The opening host segment for the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode "[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S06E10TheViolentYears The Violent Years]]" involves Servo replacing his usual dome with a creepy ventriloquist doll head. Poor Crow is rendered near catatonic and wailing with terror.

* The opening host segment for the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode "[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S06E10TheViolentYears The Violent Years]]" involves Servo replacing his usual dome with a creepy ventriloquist doll head. Poor Crow is [[InelegantBlubbering rendered near catatonic and wailing uncontrollably with terror.]]

* The opening host segment for the ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode "[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S06E10TheViolentYears The Violent Years]]" involves Servo replacing his usual dome with a creepy ventriloquist doll head. Poor Crow is rendered near catatonic with terror.

* ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'':
** The episode [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E98TheDummy "The Dummy"]] ends with an alcoholic ventriloquist and his fed-up dummy switching places.
** [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E148CaesarAndMe "Caesar and Me"]], in which the titular dummy convinces his owner to commit a burglary, lets him get arrested, then [[spoiler:offers to team up with a [[EnfanteTerrible creepy little girl]].]]

* Rocky from "Night of the Living Dummy III" of ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' is brought to life to save Slappy's new owners from him.

* Rocky from "Night of the Living Dummy III" from ''Series/{{Goosebumps}}'' is brought to life to be Slappy's servant. He is obedient until Trina and Dan remind him that he's family, upon which he turns against Slappy and "kills" him. Because Slappy gave him life, this means that Rocky goes back to being a regular doll.

* A few years before, on ''Series/{{Angel}}'''s parent show, [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]], Sid the Dummy from Season 1 episode [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS1E9ThePuppetShow The Puppet Show]] [[spoiler:ends up subverting the trope. He hits all the notes to make him seem demonic for the first half of the episode... but then turns out to be a good guy, albeit of the ChivalrousPervert kind, and allies with the heroes to bring down the real MonsterOfTheWeek.]]

* In ''ComicBook/{{Zatanna}}'', Zee clashed with a demonic dummy who turned out to be a murderer magically transformed into a puppet by her father decades earlier.

You've heard of [[EnemyMime monstrous mimes]] and [[MonsterClown creepy clowns]]. Well, rounding out the Unholy Trinity of [[JustForPun Vaudevillainy]] is the Demonic Dummy, otherwise known as the sinister {{ventriloquis|m}}t's doll.