Web Video / Dabchick

The titular character

Dabchick is a series of YouTube videos by Barnaby Dixon. They feature a bird puppet named Dabchick and his various misadventures traveling the world and interacting with other puppet characters. The series is a comedic vlog-style show with musical elements. This also includes the other videos in the same continuity that do not necessarily star or feature Dabchick, such as ones featuring the wool puppets, Manu the tribal puppet, the Bug Puppet, Philosofish, Baliwick, the Hairy Neon Boys, or the Creepy Face Puppet.

Dabchick as a character has also made appearances on The BBC.

The entire series can be viewed here.

Dabchick contains examples of:

• A Dog Named "Dog":
  • "Dabchick" is another name for little grebe, the type of water bird that the character Dabchick is.
  • The Raptor is, fittingly enough, a Velociraptor puppet.
  • The Bug Puppet is a large bipedal insect.
• The Alcoholic: Dabchick has a great affinity for many types of booze, frequently getting drunk in various episodes.
• Christmas Episode:
  • "First Christmas!" features Dabchick receiving a toy skateboard for Christmas and riding it around Barnaby's house.
  • "Dabchick Climbs a Christmas Tree" features Dabchick decorating a sentient Christmas tree.
  • "CAP'N DAB SPARROW!!!" has Dabchick singing Christmas carols, and pointing out how "Down in Yon Forest" sounds similar to the song "He's a Pirate", the theme from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.
  • "A Time For Giving", though not a part of the official Dabchick episode lineup, features Dixon's two wool puppets singing "Silent Night".
• Easter Special:
  • The first episode, "Shell We Dance?" features Dabchick dancing to impress what he thinks is another bird, but is instead a chicken decoration holding an Easter egg.
  • "Easter Egg Freeforall" has Dabchick pitted against the Raptor in an Easter Egg hunt, where he tries and fails to cheat.
  • "Easter Egg Hunting" features Dabchick shooting Easter Eggs he finds in the garden with a BB gun, claiming they are an "invasive species" and need to be dealt with.
• Ghost Story: Frequently featured in the Halloween Episodes. One involves a basement supposedly haunted by a homosexual ghost, another involves a creature that plays a horn that steals people's souls, and another seemingly sets up the ghost of a weeping woman.
• Halloween Episode:
  • "Dabchick in the Cellar" features Dabchick and Barnaby as they explore the seemingly haunted basement of Barnaby's house.
  • "A Ghost Story with Dabchick" has Dabchick telling a not-very-scary ghost story, then ending the episode with a cover of Michael Jackson's "Thriller".
  • "The Oogie Boogie Song - Recreated with Puppets", though not part of the official Dabchick episode lineup, features the Creepy Face Puppet kidnapping and torturing a Santa Claus toy, all while covering "Oogie Boogie's Song" from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
  • "Ghost Story" has Dabchick celebrating Halloween before handing things over to the Creepy Face Puppet to tell a scary story.
  • The "When Darkness Knocks" sub-series:
    • "Song of the Siren" features the Creepy Face Puppet returning again to tell another scary story, this time about sirens.
    • "The Grand-Other" is a ghost story involving cursed land, murder, and possession narrated by the Creepy Face Puppet and told with blends of wool figures and shadow puppetry.
• Medium Awareness: Dabchick is seemingly the only puppet character to acknowledge that he is a puppet (probably because most of the others cannot speak), as well as addresses the fact that they are in YouTube videos.
• The Philosopher:
  • The aptly named Philosofish, a wise and soft-spoken fish puppet who likes to talk to people about current events and offer his own philosophical view on the subjects.
  • Dabchick, to an extent. He often tries to find meaning in the things he experiences, but is either not very good at it or ends up getting distracted.
• Police Are Useless: Constable Wayne is a dimwitted and simple-minded policeman doll upholding the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA), and does so by erroneously trying to shut down channels he mistakes as "for kids". This includes Dabchick's series, where he stalks Dabchick and tries to shut down the channel for being a "toy channel" despite much evidence to the contrary that he is either too stupid or stubborn to acknowledge. This would be downplayed in some later episodes where Constable Wayne would become less antagonistic, but no less stupid.
  • This applies to a lesser extent to the one-shot character of Glugsworth, a Drinking Bird who is secretly working with Wayne to try and end Dabchick's series.
• The Singing Mute: The wool puppets do not speak normally, but can make noises to emulate music and singing.
• The Speechless: The majority of the puppets, with the exception of Dabchick, Philosofish, and the Creepy Face Puppet, do not speak and some even lack mouths. This goes for the Velociraptor, Manu, the Bug Puppet, the Furry Puppet, and the Dog Puppet.
  • Downplayed with the wool puppets, who make high-pitched noises when they sing that emulate speaking.
• St. Patrick's Day Episode: St. Dabchick's Day! features Dabchick getting drunk at a local pub to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: The subject of one of the Creepy Face Puppet's ghost stories.