The Ventriloquist's Dummy
Billy Goldman watches a performance by renowned ventriloquist Mr. Ingels and his dummy Morty (Don Rickles) at the Nautical Club, wanting to grow up to be a ventriloquist just like him. After giving the young man an autograph, Ingels is approached by a beautiful woman who asks if they're still on for their date, just before a fire suddenly breaks out at the club, killing the woman and making Ingels permanently injure his hand. Billy witnesses the blaze from his family's hotel room, captivated and frightened by the scene.
15 years later, the now-adult Billy (Bobcat Goldthwait) seeks out Mr. Ingels, who is now a bitter recluse, to invite him to watch him perform with his own dummy (Tim) at the Nautical Club's amateur night. After giving Billy some tips on ventriloquism, Ingels watches as Billy's act crashes and burns. After the show, Ingels tells Billy that he needs to know his audience and gently tells him to look for a different line of work. When Billy leaves, Mr. Ingels joins a woman who hit on him earlier, asking if he can buy her a drink. Billy leaves in an angry, heartbroken huff when he suddenly hears a scream. He discovers the same woman who was with Mr. Ingels seated in a car, her throat having been slashed and the body drenched with gasoline. He remembers the other woman who was killed in the fire that broke out the same night Mr. Ingels said he ruined his hand and lost his career.
Billy drives up to Mr. Ingels' house and sees him preparing to inject his ruined arm with morphine. In a fit of rage, Billy swipes the syringe and destroys it, deriding Mr. Ingels as a murderous junkie. He further reveals that he found out how Ingels killed the woman in his car and notes that he reeks of gasoline, trying to burn the body and cover up the murder just like he did 15 years ago. Mr. Ingels assures Billy that while he did indeed try and set fire to the bodies, he didn't kill the women, but rather that it was Morty.
Thinking that Mr. Ingels has an alter-ego, Billy pulls out Morty's trunk to explain that Morty is just a dummy made of wood and cloth, only for Mr. Ingels to attack him with a meat cleaver. Ingels tells Billy to look at the dummy's head, to which Billy finds is actually a mask. Ingels then removes the black cloth covering his supposedly missing hand to reveal that Morty is actually his conjoined twin brother, fused where his hand is supposed to be. Rather than being ridiculed for their appearances, the brothers decided to go into show business, but while all the women eagerly flocked to Ingels, Morty's inability to have his own girlfriend drove him mad, so he began killing them as revenge. Mr. Ingels had no choice but to retire from the spotlight, keeping Morty drugged up and hidden from the world, but since Billy destroyed the last of the morphine, Morty can no longer be stopped.
Morty proceeds to demonstrate himself as an immensely willful being, able to control Mr. Ingels to every extent of his power. After a choice remark from the struggling Billy, Mr. Ingels has enough of Morty telling him what to do and calling him the straight man of the partnership, so he uses the cleaver to separate himself from Morty. Now freed from his brother's arm, Morty proceeds to tear Mr. Ingels' throat out. Billy chases after Morty with a bat as the twin scurries around the room, and manages to knock him into a meat grinder, where he begins grinding him up. Begging to be spared, Morty tells Billy that he'll do anything for him.
Sometime later, Morty and Billy work together on a new act at the Nautical Club. Things go smoothly at first, but when a woman walks in, Morty attempts to take control of the act. As Billy struggles with Morty and reminds him about their deal, Morty fuses himself to his arm, guaranteeing that he calls all the shots now.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: If her one scene is any indication, Billy's mom is a stuffy and haughty woman who wants her son to be a doctor instead of a ventriloquist.
- Apologetic Attacker: As Morty nearly forces him to kill Billy, Ingels apologizes for what he's clearly unwilling to do.
- The Assimilator: The end of the episode has Morty fusing himself to Billy's hand so he can call all the shots between them.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Morty kills his brother, then tricks Billy into starting a new act with him, insisting that he gets to be in the spotlight again if he stays away from women for life, on the condition that Billy doesn't kill him with the meat grinder. When a gorgeous woman enters the club and Billy reminds him of their deal, Morty fuses himself to Billy's hand so he can call all the shots.
- Body Horror: Mr. Ingels and his twin brother Morty are joined together at Mr. Ingels' right hand. At the end, Morty fuses himself to Billy's hand and decides to make his life a living hell.
- Bookends: The episode begins and ends with a ventriloquist performance at the Nautical Club.
- Broken Pedestal: After spending his life worshiping Mr. Ingels, Billy rebukes him after he tells him how terrible his act was, as well as when he learns about his murders and sees him apparently preparing to inject morphine into his arm.
- Brutal Honesty: Mr. Ingels hesitantly tells Billy that his performance at the club was terrible and that he'd be much better off finding a different line of work.
- Creator Cameo: Richard Donner, who directed the episode, appears as a man at the Nautical Club's bar having a conversation with a woman while Mr. Ingels drinks. The woman herself is played by Mindy Rickles, daughter of Don Rickles (who plays Ingels).
- Conjoined Twins: Mr. Ingels and Morty, the latter being joined to Mr. Ingels' right arm.
- Dark Secret: In Mr. Ingels' case, his dummy Morty is actually his conjoined twin brother, who is also a woman-hating serial killer.
- Demonic Dummy: Morty is technically an example, considering the fact that he's a killer that masquerades as the dummy in Mr. Ingels act.
- Epic Fail: Billy's act at the club goes up in smoke the instant he's introduced, with Tim's head falling off and hecklers insulting him while beating him to his punchlines.
- Fiery Cover Up: Under Morty's direction, Mr. Ingels covers up the scenes of his murders by burning the location of the bodies.
- Freudian Excuse: Morty hates and kills women because they always flocked to his brother instead of him, never able to have one so long as he was stuck to Ingels' arm (and he's certainly not a looker, either which way).
- Ham-to-Ham Combat: The episode stars Bobcat Goldthwait and Don Rickles. What did you expect?
- Heel Realization: With Billy's pleading, Mr. Ingels grows tired of his wise-cracking brother barking orders and taking full credit for "being the brains of this operation", so he uses the meat cleaver to chop Morty off his arm. This unfortunately backfires in a horrible way.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Morty is a woman-hating psychopath who receives twisted satisfaction from killing them. His above mentioned Freudian Excuse gives him a reason for this behavior.
- Hero-Worshipper: As a kid, Billy idolizes Mr. Ingels and wants to be a ventriloquist just like him, despite his mother insisting that he's going to be a doctor.
- Life-or-Limb Decision: In an envious rage, Mr. Ingels cuts off the point of his arm that Morty is attached to. This unfortunately leaves Morty free to tear his brother's throat out.
- Literal-Minded: When he was a kid, Mr. Ingels playfully told Billy to look him up if he ever wanted to be a ventriloquist. The plot kicks off when Billy takes Ingels' words to heart... 15 years after that day.
- Loser Protagonist: From his appearance, his voice, his haughty parents, his failure of an act at the Nautical Club, his idol telling him what a hopeless schmuck he is, and his ultimate fate, EVERYTHING about Billy undeniably screams "loser".
- Multiple Head Case: Morty and Mr. Ingels get into a heated argument just before the latter can kill Billy. This leads him to chop Morty off of his arm with a meat cleaver... allowing Morty to move around on his own.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Billy destroys the last sample of Mr. Ingels' morphine, which is revealed to be the only thing that can stop Morty.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: As he's chopping Morty off of him, Mr. Ingels tells his brother that he's "splitting up the act."
- Rage Breaking Point / Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Morty killing Mr. Ingels by ripping out his jugular causes Billy to go on the warpath, threatening to smash Morty with a baseball bat.Billy: (pissed) ALRIGHT, YOU LITTLE FUCKER! I'M GONNA PARK YOU IN THE CHEAP FUCKING SEATS! (...) "I'M GONNA TURN YOU INTO A GREASY LITTLE SMEAR, YOU BASTARD!"
- Shout-Out:
- Morty makes his grand reveal by quoting "Here's Morty!"
- During the climatic battle between Billy and Morty, the former calls Morty an "inbred fucking Cabbage Patch Kid!"
- Spared by the Adaptation: In the comic, Morty dies in an act of Taking You with Me. In the episode, he kills Mr. Ingels without any trouble, then manages to talk Billy out of crushing him in a meat grinder.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Just before Billy and his dummy Tim go onstage at the Nautical Club, the manager predicts that he's going to crash and burn, insisting that the only people who succeed on amateur night are those who have big tits, much like the buxom blonde who came before him. Sure enough, during Billy's act, a heckler demands that "the fucking girl with the tits" be brought back out.
- This Is Gonna Suck: As Billy's amateur night performances goes up in flames, he dedicates the performance to Mr. Ingels, causing the former ventriloquist, trying to blend in, to hang down his head and walk away.
- Time Skip: The episode opens in the past, when Billy is a kid. It then skips ahead to the present day, 15 years later.
- Took a Level in Cynic / Took a Level in Jerkass: Ever since he retired and "ruined his hand" in that fire, Mr. Ingels has become a miserable recluse who hurls insults at pretty much everyone and everything.
- Ventriloquism: This is the central theme of the episode, as protagonist Billy Goldman wants to be a ventriloquist just like his idol Mr. Ingels.
- Wham Line: Mr. Ingels to Billy: "Morty's like you and me! He's real! He's flesh and blood! In fact, Morty is my brother!"
- Wham Shot: Billy finding the headless body of Morty, only to find the dummy's head is actually a mask. And then Mr. Ingels removes the cloth from his right hand, revealing his deformed conjoined twin brother to Billy.
- World of Ham: Billy, Mr. Ingels, and Morty are all known to get pretty over-the-top at times.
