History Recap / TalesFromTheCryptS4E12StrungAlong

* EvilPuppeteer: A rare case in which Joseph, the puppeteer in question, is actually rather sympathetic and plays the inversion completely straight. Joesph only turns evil after being wronged by the two unfaithful AssholeVictims he thought he could trust.

** After realizing that Ellen ''is'' cheating on him, Joseph [[DrowningMySorrows takes to drink]] and asks Koko what he should do. Koko asks him "You mean if you were you, or you were ''me''?"

** Rick and Ellen's scheme involves them cutting Koko's strings loose to make it appear that the little clown came to life. This comes back to bite the pair big time after Joseph dies, once [[PerversePuppet Koko starts moving on his own]].

* PerversePuppet / MonsterClown: Koko turns out to be one. Not only does he mentally communicate with Joseph, he comes to life after Jospeh dies to kill Rick, and manipulates Rick's dead body to kill Ellen as well.
* PlayingWithPuppets: Koko had apparently been doing this with Rick and Ellen's corpses before the police arrive.

* {{Pun}}: Koko was known crack many a pun on his old show, to the amusement of the child audience. The episode shown in the opening scene has him pointing out to Clyde that his dog got taken away because he left him in a "No Barking Zone".

[[caption-width-right:350:There's a twisted tune out there to sing; who's the one pulling all the strings?]]

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' ''(being strung up on a rack by Bones, a skeletal doctor)'' Yes! That's better. ''(notices the camera)'' Oh, hello ''boars'' and ''ghouls''. I hope you'll excuse me if I don't get up. I'm a little stiff today. Then again, I'm a little ''stiff'' '''''every''''' day! ''(giggles)'' Actually, I twisted my neck playing ''croak''-et. But it wasn't hurting the way I thought it should, so I called my chiro-''hack''-ter. Of course, some people look elsewhere for their pain, like the old man in tonight's terror tale. His idea of an anti-''die''-otic was to marry a younger woman. ''(cackles, the rack is pulled tighter, causing him to emit groans of pleasure)'' Ahhhh. I call this plasma play: '''Strung Along.'''

In the 1950s, puppeteer Joseph Renfield and his beloved characters Koko the Clown and Cowboy Clyde were huge stars on children's television. However, the march of time and a heart attack have rendered Joseph an aged has-been who stays home and makes puppets all day, occasionally talking to Koko when he hears the clown's voice in his head. His younger wife Ellen has attempted to find friends outside the house but her attempts keep failing on account of Joseph's jealousy, thus her only real social outlet is a weekly acting class. One day, Joseph receives an invitation to participate in a tribute show dedicated to the golden age of television. The news gets him excited, thinking that it might lead to a comeback. Ellen suggests that he take on a partner in order to lighten the workload on himself, and offers to ask around in her acting class.

Soon, a young puppeteer named David comes to visit Joseph. Though his experience is in animatronic puppetry rather than classic string-operated marionettes, Joseph agrees to teach him the finer points of old-school puppetry after seeing his admiration of the craft. The two get along surprisingly well, with David even suggesting updates to the material, but Ellen thinks David's choices are him trying to ruin the act. At the same time, Joseph begins to suspect that Ellen is cheating on him with someone named Rick, having overheard her on the phone, and learns from David that she has been missing her acting class for months. Joseph overhears David accusing Ellen of having an affair, finds a stash of love letters written by Rick, and flees to his workshop, where he passes out after a bout of heavy drinking. Before he falls unconscious, Joseph hears Koko's voice telling him that he'll have to take matters into his own hands.

When Joseph wakes up, he is horrified to find that Koko's strings have been cut and the little clown himself is missing. Hearing a scream from Ellen, he rushes up to the bedroom to find Koko stabbing her repeatedly with a knife. The shock causes Joseph to suffer a second heart attack and collapse. Afterwards, David enters the room, remote in hand. Ellen tells the dying Joseph that he is actually Rick, who she met in her acting class, and he and Ellen staged the murder using an animatronic double of Koko in order to scare Joseph to death in a plot to gain his fortune. As Ellen leaves the room to call an ambulance, the real Koko attacks Rick with a knife under his own power. By the time Ellen returns, Rick's dead body has been strung up like a marionette, Koko's knife in one hand, and Koko manipulates him to kill Ellen as well. When the police arrive, called by the paramedics, they find both lovers strung up from the room's canopy bed. The strings are in Koko's hands, his face now resembling Joseph's, frozen in an ear-to-ear grin as he rests on top of the canopy.

!!This episode provides examples of:
* TheAce: Joseph is described as one of the best puppeteers to ever live, his show being a smash hit when it aired. It's for that reason that Ellen married him, and Rick/David can't wait to work with him.
* AdaptationalNameChange: Joseph's name in the comic was "Tony Zargono", while the wife was named Nora.
* AscendedFanboy: Ellen and Rick used to love watching Joseph's old show when they were kids. Years into the future, Rick became Joseph's apprentice, and Ellen became his TrophyWife.
* BaitAndSwitch: At first, the episode seems to be hinting that Koko is the villain of the episode, culminating with the scene where Joseph sees him stabbing Ellen. It then turns out that the real villains were Ellen and Rick, who deliberately induce a fatal heart attack to kill Joseph for his money, with Koko killing them in return to avenge his creator.
* BeachEpisode: Joseph and Rick/David are seen filming one of these for Koko's show during the latter's training.
* BumblingSidekick: Koko had one on his show by the name of Cowboy Clyde. Thankfully, unlike Koko, Clyde doesn't come to life and is completely harmless.
* ChekhovsGun: Koko, once possessed, uses the knife Joseph was using to sculpt a puppet head to kill Rick and Ellen.
* ChekhovsSkill: Ellen and Rick use the skills they learned in their acting class, where they met, to convince Joseph that the former is cheating on him and scare him to death with an animatronic Koko stabbing her.
* CompanionCube: Koko functions as one to Joseph, the old man talking to him and hearing his voice in his head.
* ConsultingMisterPuppet: Ever since his glory days left him, Joseph spends his time idly talking to Koko, whose voice he can hear in his head.
* CreepyCircusMusic: Koko's {{Leitmotif}}, a jolly carnival/circus riff that gets [[RecurringRiff repurposed with different instruments]] throughout the episode, depending on the mood. It gets truly creepy in the final shot of Rick and Ellen's stringed up corpses and the Joseph-faced Koko while the clown music is heard, eerily slowed down.
* DeadpanSnarker: Koko can be a pretty snarky clown most of the time, both on the show, and inside Joseph's head.
* DemonicPossession: Joseph's spirit possesses Koko as his way of getting revenge on the young couple who caused his fatal heart attack.
* DontTouchItYouIdiot: Koko (and Joseph by extension) warns Rick/David not to touch Cowboy Clyde, since he doesn't know where he's been.
* DoubleEntendre: There are a few of them humorously dropped in the ways that Joseph teaches Rick/David to manipulate a puppet's strings.
* DrowningMySorrows: Joseph does this after he finds Ellen's stash of love letters.
* EmergingFromTheShadows: Joseph introduces Koko like this when Rick first meets him. The clown marionette steps out of the darkness looking a bit ominous with its FaceFramedInShadow, but it [[MoodWhiplash quickly gets playful]] with Rick.
* EverybodyDiesEnding: None of the main characters are left alive by the end of the episode.
* EvilPuppeteer: A rare case where the puppeteer in question is rather sympathetic and plays that inversion completely straight, only turning evil after being wronged by two unfaithful AssholeVictims.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: After realizing Ellen ''is'' cheating on him, Joseph [[DrowningMySorrows drowns his sorrows]] and asks Koko what he should do. Koko asks him "You mean if you were you, or you were ''me''?"
** There's also a comment Joseph makes to David during their lesson about how the puppet and the puppeteer can become one and the same.
* FriendToAllChildren: Like many hosts and presenters on 50's children's television, Joseph had a pretty big soft spot for children. At least, he did while on air.
* GoldDigger: Ellen works with Rick, her lover, to kill Joseph so they can get their hands on his money.
* GoneHorriblyRight: Ellen and Rick wanted to convince Joseph that Koko had come to life and become a [[SerialKiller Serial Killer]]. Joseph's spirit possesses Koko himself and kills them.
* HeartbeatSoundtrack: Joseph's heart is heard furiously pumping when Ellen snaps at him for letting Rick/David change his act, and again when he finds Ellen's stash of love letters from Rick.

** Joseph teaches Rick (under the alias "David") about his craft in string puppetry. Rick uses the knowledge he gains from Joseph to his own advantage when he concocts the scheme that shocks Joseph into a fatal heart attack.
** Joseph lets Ellen join a weekly acting class, which is established to be her only regular source of social interaction. Unfortunately, she becomes good enough in acting that she manages to help Rick get Joseph killed by his own heart. Worse still, it was in said acting class that Ellen ''met'' Rick.
** Part of Rick and Ellen' scheme involves them cutting Koko's strings loose to make it appear that the clown has come alive. This comes back to bite Rick and Ellen big time after Joseph dies, once [[PerversePuppet Koko starts moving on his own]].
* {{Homage}}: The episode is one to 1950s and '60s puppet shows like ''Series/HowdyDoody'', ''WesternAnimation/BeanyAndCecil'', ''Series/TopoGigio'', and several others.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Joseph yells at Ellen for her making Rick/David leave him before the big show, tearing into her for making him lose a friend. Ellen fires back that Joseph himself pushed away every friend she had for eight years.
* IgnoredExpert: When heard in Joseph's head, Koko can tell that Ellen is no good for him. When it becomes apparent that she's cheating on him, Joseph admits that his puppet was right all along.
* InstantExpert: Downplayed, but Rick/David picks up string puppetry pretty quickly, Joseph telling Ellen that he learned in two weeks what he did in two years.
* IntergenerationalRivalry: Inverted at first, then played straight. Joseph, the retired old man who sticks to string-based marionettes, and Rick/David, the young apprentice who specializes in animatronic puppetry, get along pretty well when they first meet, the former even teaching the latter about his method of puppetry. When Joseph finds evidence that Ellen's been unfaithful, and the latter seems to come up with new material for the act, tensions between the two of them get pretty strained.
* IWantMyMommy: The revival puppet show Rick/David and Joseph work on discusses the use of the trope:
-->'''Koko''': Oh, and by the way, Clyde, when you get up on the board, you're supposed to yell "Cowabunga", not "Help me mommy"!
-->'''Clyde''': Oh, thanks, Koko! And what do I yell when the board gets on top of me?
-->'''Koko''': ''That's'' when you yell "Help me mommy"!
* LargeHam: Ellen and Rick can get pretty hammy at times. It's justified since they attends a weekly acting class... where they met. It's also how they gain the skills needed to fool Joseph into suffering a heart attack.
* MalMariee: Ellen finds new love through Rick when her relationship with Joseph, who's much older than her, has hit a rut. Worse yet, Ellen's attempts at socialization outside her house are often met with Joseph's furious jealousy, with her weekly acting class being the sole exception.
* MarionetteMotion: How Rick's dead body moves when it's fully under [[PerversePuppet Koko]]'s control.
* MayDecemberRomance: Ellen, Joseph's wife, is several years (if not ''decades'') younger than him. Koko lampshades how easy it is for a young and beautiful woman to cheat on a tired old man.
* MurderTheHypotenuse: Rick and Ellen's scheme is to scare Joseph enough that he suffers a fatal heart attack.
* NiceGuy: Depression and jealousy issues aside, Joseph is a fun and kindly guy to be around, whether he's on air entertaining children, or training his new apprentice how to properly work a marionette.
* OffscreenTeleportation: Koko suddenly appears sitting on the bed when Rick looks for him, where he slashes his throat.
* PerversePuppet / MonsterClown: Koko turns out to be one. Not only does he mentally communicate with Joseph, he also kills Rick and manipulates his dead body to kill Ellen as well.

* ProperlyParanoid: Joseph has a pretty strong jealous streak and feels the need to make sure his wife isn't seeing any other guys. When it's revealed that Ellen has indeed been having an affair, his paranoia is justified.
* ProsceniumReveal: The episode begins with an InUniverse viewing of the old ''Koko the Clown Show'', which is revealed to be being watched by an aged and depressed Joseph.
* {{Pun}}: Koko was known crack many puns on his old show, to the amusement of the child audience. Like him pointing out to Clyde that the reason his dog got taken away is because he left him in a "No Barking Zone".
* RetiredBadass: Joseph returns to puppetry, albeit with an apprentice, in the hopes of having his old characters featured on a tribute to the Golden Age of Television, which could potentially result in a comeback. His training session with Rick/David shows that even after decades of being off the air, he and his old characters still have serious talent.
* ShoutOut: As detailed above, Koko the Clown shares his name with [[WesternAnimation/OutOfTheInkwell another character that was popular to audiences of children.]]
* ShowWithinAShow: ''The Koko the Clown Show'' which, judging by the amount of posters, awards, and voiceovers heard in Joseph's workshop, was a worldwide sensation when it was on air.
* TheShutIn: Joseph became an elderly shut-in after a heart attack, usually staying in his workshop and talking to Koko.
* SigningOffCatchphrase: The end of the old ''Koko the Clown Show'' episode we see at the beginning has Joseph giving one of these to the kids in the audience.
-->'''Joseph:''' Hope you had a good time, kids! And remember: "Wherever you may go, whatever you may seek, we'll all get together, same time next week!"
* TotallyRadical: Rick/David helps Joseph update the jokes of the puppet routine (like the aforementioned use of "Cowabunga"), but is met with (pretended) chagrin from Ellen.
* TrophyWife: The gold-digging Ellen revealed to be one to her husband, just before he dies.

->'''Crypt Keeper:''' ''(with his head stuck in a guillotine)'' Well, Koko may have been the puppet, but in the end, Joseph was the one who paid for ''marion-ette.'' ''(cackles)'' As for me, kiddies, it seems my pain in the neck was more serious than I thought. But I'm almost finished with my ''scare''-apy. ''(snickers)'' One more adjustment, and I'll be out of here. ''(to Bones)'' Anytime you're ready, Bones. ''(Bones raises the blade, then drops it onto the Crypt Keeper's head, which lands in a basket; he cackles)'' Now ''that's'' what I call ''pain'' in full! ''(cackles again)''

-->'''Koko''': Oh, and my the way, Clyde, when you get up on the board, you're supposed to yell "Cowabunga", not "Help me mommy"!