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Hi, my name is Krusty the Clown and I love you very much!
A Sister Trope of Creepy Doll and Demonic Dummy.
Dolls, marionettes and puppets that are either possessed by a bigger evil like demons or ghosts or alive with a murderous streak, mindlessly attacking anything in sight.
They usually appear as the Big Bad's basic cannon fodder army or just lesser enemies that just get into the heroes' path and are dispatched without much effort.
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Examples
Anime and Manga
- Ridley Sheldon in the Toei Yu-Gi-Oh! anime is a puppet master. He has life-size dolls set up outside his house to resemble a large party, and impersonates the (female) school nurse with a puppet. Of course, his deck is also based on dolls.
- Somewhere in the Japan of Ranma ½, there exists an inn famous for its haunted doll. After Ranma breaks it accidentally and reassembles it, its spirit possesses Akane, switching places with her so that Ranma's fiancée is turned into a living, silent doll. Meanwhile, the original spirit plots to kill Ranma using her body.
- Marianne from Shakugan No Shana, servant of Friagne, Shana's first major opponent.
- Mahou Sensei Negima gives us Chachamaru Zero, aka Chachazero, who at least has a decently strong sense of free will above mere "puppet". That scale of free will just happens to be on the line between grimly humorous and psychotic.
- Evangeline has also hinted that current Big Bad Fate is actually a puppet or construct of some sort.
- Puppetmon was one of the four Dark Masters and was essentially a fully autonomous marionette.
- Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure has D'bo/Divo the Cursed. His stand, Ebony Devil, is essentially a possessed doll.
Comics
- Spike: Shadow Puppet, an extension of the Smile Time episode of Angel.
- Played with in the Season 8 Buffy comics. In one issue, Dawn is turned into a porcelain doll. She's surrounded by other, living dolls, but they were made that way rather than being possessed. And none of them are particularly evil, just a bit unhinged.
Films
- Chucky from the Childs Play series is a Serial Killer whose spirit winds up in a doll and proceeds to go on a killing spree.
- The Puppet Master film series of course.
- The little girl's doll in the J-horror film Reincarnation (aka Rinne).
- The Asian horror film The Doll Master.
- "Billy", in the Saw films.
Literature
- The African Zuni warrior doll in Richard Matheson's short story "Prey". Memorably adapted as part of the made-for-TV film Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black in the '70s.
- Fablehaven's first book has Mendigo a human sized limber jack animated by the power of a demon working for the villain. However during the second book when he is released again some faeries change his loyalty to the heroes.
Live Action TV
- The Crimson Clown in Are You Afraid Of The Dark. Bonus points for being a Monster Clown, as well.
- "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," a classic Doctor Who story, had an awesomely evil puppet controlled by Magnus Greel.
- One episode of Charmed, in which Piper contracted an obscure deadly illness, showed how using the sisters' powers for personal gain could backfire: the spell which removes her fever also places it in the body of a ninja doll...which then animates and runs around the hospital, infecting everyone it can with its little katana.
- "My name is Talky Tina, and I'm going to kill you."
- Night Gallery episode "The Doll". A British Army officer must deal with a murderous doll sent by an old enemy.
- One good character in the miniseries version of The Tommyknockers is killed when her doll collection animates and attacks her.
- The infamous episode Smile Time on Angel.
Tabletop Games
- The Mutants And Masterminds META-4 universe (the default universe for 1E) had Gepetto, a psycho who could both animate puppets to make them murderous and use mind control to create People Puppets (who exhibited little glowing strings hanging from midair, controlling their motions). He's a somewhat tragic case in that the event which led to his power breakthrough also burnt down the oprphanage he ran. In his mind, he's just trying to bring the children back.
- The Ravenloft setting of Dungeons & Dragons gives us the Doll Golem, a small variety of Golem looking like a child's doll that can be used for guard duties or assassination.
- It also has "Carrionettes", which are malevolent self-aware marionette puppets that can use magical needles to trade bodies with living people. Their true purpose in existence is to swap bodies with some poor sucker, so they can enjoy being flesh and blood, and thusly they only associate with other monsters in return for the prospect of being given a victim to take for their own.
Video Games
- The Marionettes from the first Devil May Cry. They are string puppets controlled by lesser demons that wield scythes, knives, darts, and sometimes even shotguns.
- Later in the game, you encounter the Fetishes, which are basically fire-breathing voodoo dolls on steroids.
- Final Fantasy IV has Calca/Calco, Brina/Brena and their "fused" form Calcabrina/Calcobrena. Controlled by Golbez, the dolls attacked Cecil and Co. when they tried to retrieve the Earth Crystal. They even have their own musical theme called "Dancing Calcabrina".
- - For Rydia's chapter of sequel, Calca and Brina are part of Rydia's party.
- Silent Hill 2 has the Mannequin, a living sewing dummy (to be more precise: two very feminine looking lower halves joined together) and a very common nuisance throught the game. Silent Hill Origins has Ariel, a distorted little puppet found in the Artaurd Theater. Ariel hangs upside down from the ceiling and tries to kill Travis by breaking his neck.
- The Wracky species from Monster Rancher 2. This Troper's personal favorite breed of Wracky can be summed up perfectly by its name: Satan Claus.
- Super Mario RPG features two perverse puppets as regular enemies: Remo Con in Booster's Tower and Puppox in Smithy's Factory. But it also subverts the trope by having Geno, a celestial being animating the body of a child's toy, as one of the heroes in your party.
- The first boss of SRPG Shining Force is a Marionette left by Wicked Witch Mishaela in the Circus at Rindo. Not only that, but the other monsters you face in said big top also include mannequins, spell-casting puppets and knife-wielding clowns.
- Elsie and Frances in Metal Gear Acid are a pair of bantering puppets who manage to hijack a plane. They're being controlled by Lena.
- The Smilin' Sam and Handsome Tom enemies from Earthbound.
- Killer doll enemies in Zombies Ate My Neighbors that throw hatchets at you. Sometimes when you kill them you have to fight their burning remains, which are faster.
- The Puppit (sp?) enemies in the Subspace Emissary mode of Super Smash Bros Brawl. Their description just makes them creepier.
- Here, let me help. A marionette enemy, suspended from above by piano strings. A Puppit proves vicious with long, sharp claws and a mysterious beam emitted from its eyes. You would think, based on the exterior wood pattern, that it's made of wood, but no one is sure. More importantly, who is the one manipulating those piano strings?! What an enemy! Mystery abounds!
- Arcana Heart has Elfriede, Lieselotte's dead sister who possesses a legless marionette that Lieselotte carries around, giving it glowing eyes and an appearance that evokes the image of a Stringy Haired Ghost Girl as it crawls around on the floor with its long-read hair splayed all over its face, trying to claw at Liese's opponent while shrieking and cackling.
- The Pokemon Banette is apparently a toy brought to life by its grudge of being thrown away.
- Secret Of Evermore had two marionettes, Mephista and Old Nick, who at first were merely corruptive influences on the King of Ebon Keep by keeping him hypnotized and watching their show endlessly while the false Queen ran the show. Later, they become possessed by a monster named Mungola and proceed to become a boss fight. Extra points because "Mephisto" (Mephista is a female doll) and "Old Nick" are both pseudonyms for Satan.
- Dragon Quest has a monster known (at least in one translation) as Puppetor. It serves as a boss monster (and potential party member) in Dragon Quest Monsters 2.
Web Comics
Web Original
Western Animation
- In an episode of Darkwing Duck called "The Haunting of Mr. Banana Brain", the evil spirit Paddywhack possesses Quackerjack's doll, Mr. Banana Brain. As he causes trouble alongside the demented toymaker, he grows, feeding from the negative emotions around himself.
- It's interesting to note that Quackerjack failed to realize that Mr. Banana Brain was possessed.
- Krusty the Killing Doll.
- Also on The Simpsons, the fictional movie The Redeadening featured one of these.
- And the doll Funzo, which destroys other toys. (It was programmed to do that however, and has no will of its own.)
- In the Kim Possible movie 'So The Drama' Drakken's take over the world plot involves mass marketing tiny toy puppets called Diablo's who turn into gigantic killing robots. There's a hilariously bizarre scene at the end when they are stopped and revert back to their (arguably) cute puppet selves where a young girl who had just been menaced by one grabs the puppet joyfully as her mother looks on with disbelief.
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