Web Video / The Funday Pawpet Show

Conan's Safety Show in case that TBS thing doesn't work out.

The Funday Pawpet Show is the Internet's longest running interactive live weekly puppet show. The show started netcasting in November of 1999. The show runs four hours live from 6pm to 10pm Eastern Time Sunday Nights originating from the Orlando, Florida area. The audience interacts with the performers via various online means (IRC channel in the show's early days, Twitch, VRChat and the show's official Discord server as of 2024) and artwork sent in to the show through the show's website. Being based in Orlando, the show was a favorite of many Disney Imagineers, and elements of the show have found their way into some recent productions. Basically the show is Monty Python meets the Muppets.

On September 3rd, 2017, the show went on hiatus, citing administrative issues, problems with music licensing, and lack of platform to air on. However, on September 2, 2018, it was announced that the show would be coming back, with the first broadcast of the "new" FPS airing on September 9, 2018.

Since around 2020, new segments were added to the show featuring "The Chaos Lounge", a Virtual world built by the show's creators for the popular VR "metaverse" game VRChat, where fans can interact with the show's hosts and participate in various live activities (usually party games such as Never Have I Ever and Would you Rather).

The full archives can be found on their website here.

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The show provides examples of:

• Advertising Campaigns: Yappy almost deletes 45 minutes of comedy gold as Ezra, Hugh and Arthur MST a bunch of old commercials sent in by the audience.
• Affectionate Parody: In one memorable episode, the movie Being John Malkovich is parodied as one by one each cast member discovers a mysterious doorway in back of the stage that transforms them into ferrets.
• Ambiguously Gay: Skippy "Skippages" D. Lion is an extremely camp lion with some distinctly feminine interests and mannerisms... but he gets extremely offended if anyone brings up the idea that he's gay. This leaves the fanbase torn between the idea of whether he's the Camp Gay equivalent to an Armored Closet Gay, or if he's a Camp Straight who is proud of his more feminine interests and takes offense that liking what he likes has to mean he's gay. Word of God seems to lean towards the latter interpretation.
• Amusement Park: Several of the cast members work at one, and Mutt in particular is a big fan of roller coasters.
• Babies Make Everything Better: JR and Yappy share their baby books.
• Big Eater: "The Heart Attack Grill"
• Black Comedy: Though they tend to refrain from this (one show ended abruptly when a guest crossed the rating line hard), a very literal example emerged in one situation where Blitz tires of the noise and apparently beats the constantly shrieking baby fox puppet Tantrum to death with a suspicious vibrating implement. Every bit as inappropriate yet hilarious as it sounds.
• Brain Bleach: Anything Fred Bedderhead sends to the show and/or Yappy emails to Mutt.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Quote 24◊. The first two items were mentioned just before the quote in a discussion about chickens in live theatre.
• Catchphrase: Many many many over 10 years.
  • Arthur "That's pretty spactacular!", "I'm Reeeeeeeee Calllllllllin!", "Multiboobage", "Look into my eye!"
  • Bitch Voop "Raaaaaaaaaaasvaaaaaaaaaaaar!"
  • Blitz "I don't even know what that is!" (Although this is actually more a Mutt catchphrase ABOUT Blitz), "Oooohhhhh!", "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" (at weird times like a guy Darwining down an elevator), "Oh, I know this song! It's in Rock Band!".
  • Carrot "Bashweeeeeeeee!"
  • Ezra "Wikiwikiwikiwikiwiki!"
  • Hugh Manatee "I'm endangered!" "Oh sunuvabitch! Beeblblblblblb..." (referring to beebling)
  • Javafrog "I'm into it!"
  • Lilly/Leisl "This Is My Side!"
  • Mutt "And there's nothing wrong with that," "OH MY GOD!", "I don't even know what that is!" (see above; Mutt is the usual instigator)
  • Shak "Is it full of delicious candy?" "EGGS AREN'T WATER!"
  • Everyone "Who pooted?"
• Character Tics: Several. Derp the gator has his 'jazz hands,' Hugh rolls back and forth going 'flipper flipper flipper' as well as beebling, and Ezra scoots around on his back feetfirst while making the above mentioned 'wiki wiki wiki' noise.
• The Chew Toy: Poink T. Weasel
  • Carrot is a literal chew toy, he is a dog toy repurposed into being a puppet.
• Cooking Show: Parodied with Cooking With Shak.
• Clip Show: The "Acid Flashback Segments", although, since the show isn't rerun the audience enjoys them more than other show's clip show episodes.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Java, Java, Java...
• Cluster F-Bomb: A few of these lead to the Swear Jar, and a dollar per swear fine.
• Crossover: Of a sort? Ralph Hayes, Jr. is a fan of the Funday Pawpet Show, and collaborated with them to work a storyline into Nip and Tuck in which the actors are temporarily stranded in Malarkey County.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: Tantrum, the Peckers
• The Danza: Little Randy.
• Dead Air: Often invoked by name by both cast and channel alike when there are no puppets on stage.
• Dirty Old Manatee: Hugh, whose interests and subjects of affection range from women in their golden years to Carvel's Fudgie the Whale.
• Disney Theme Parks: Many of the cast work for the Mouse. Justified in that the show takes place in Orlando.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm: Blitz misses a lot of the instances of snark, sarcasm, and other such things from the cast, especially from Poink.
  Poink: "Get up on screen or I will taser you."
  Blitz: "You have a taser?" (Please note they're sitting next to each other beneath the stage and can see each other's hands.)
• Dog Walks You: Bandit frequently tries to herd the cast members and guests.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Poink often brings up situations he dubs "Ass Beating Hours," where someone, most commonly his grandmother, would catch him misbehaving in some form or fashion and administer corporal punishment...creatively. Very creatively. He's admitted to being spanked with, among other things, a douche bag, a Stretch Armstrong toy, a piece of Hot Wheels track (with the pins exposed), and The Six Million Dollar Man. He admits he often deserves them though, having been a self-admitted hellraiser in his youth.
• EasterShow: A yearly tradition
  • In this clip from the first Easter Show a plastic egg war breaks out as Ferret tries to sing "When I'm 64".
• Eek, a Mouse!!: Often Florida wildlife will invade the live webcast, leading Ezra to envoke this trope, while Mutt commands the show's border collie to "Eat it, Bandit! Eat it eat it eat it!"
• Endangered Species: Hugh Manatee.
• Everythings Better With Vixens: All the Voops, especially Lilly and BV.
• Fan Art: A tradition on the show with the Art Jam segment, where images sent in by the viewers are shared live.
• Fartillery: Yappy and JR for the most part.
  • One of Poink's more infamous examples of the trope. He not only clears the stage, he also ends up killing the live feed for a short while.
• Follow the Leader: The show has inspired many internet shows and puppet groups around the world including Pawpet West, Pawpet Rocky Mountain, Pawpet Scotland and Oh! Pawpets!, which fills in for Funday on the few weeks the show isn't broadcast live.
  • There was also the very short-lived Funday Wolf Night (i.e 4 episodes), which gained notoriety as being labeled a "troll" show and being hated by the cast of FPS (Along with the chat room) from the very moment it was announced. The creator stated that it wasn't his intention to be a "troll" but he wanted the show to be a PG, more relaxed variant of Funday Pawpet Show, but neither the show nor viewers agreed with that.
• Game Show: The show has presented versions of "Pawpet Match Game", "Pawpet Hollywood Squares", "Pawpet Deal or No Deal", Are You Smarter than a K.P.? and "Who Wants to Win Nothing and Like It?"
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Simba is challanged to eat an entire pack of Listerine breath strips.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: "Pawpets Pawpets/We will sing and dance/Pawpets Pawpets/We're not wearing pants".
• Halloween Episode: Once a Season the show celebrates on the Sunday before the 31st. One year when Halloween fell on a Sunday, Yappy set up outside cameras to catch the reactions of Trick or Treaters who encountered screams, fog .... and a giant dog mascot upon ringing the bell.
• Happy Birthday to You!: "This is your birthday song, it isn't very long." (Or the even shorter version "Birthday song, very long")
• Intercourse with You: The Pawpets do "Bad Touch"
• Long Runner: Currently in talks with Guinness to see if they can be put in as the longest running Internet-original broadcast.
• MediaWatchseal: Seal of Disapproval
• Medium Awareness: Tantrum, of all people!
  Ezra: (Trying to determan Tantrum's sex) Tantrum, what's between your legs?
  Tantrum: All I see is an arm between my legs!
• Multiboobage: Trope Namer.
  • The best part was the Lilly with six breasts
• Must Have Caffeine: Javafrog (And to a much lesser degree, Mutt)
• My Little Phony: At one point Herbie created pony versions of the main characters for My Little Pawpet - Friendship is Awkward.
• No Mouth: Mouthless Marvin.
• Nuns Are Funny: J.R.'s Halloween costume one year.
• Once a Season: the show holds a telethon as well as having Christmas, Chistmas in July, Easter, Holloween, and 4th of July/Yappy's Birthday episodes.
• The Other Darrin: Blitz has been called 'The New Eaglebeagle' by many people, including himself.
• Oven Logic: Herbie once recounted how he tried to bake brownies, substituting more water for the eggs, "After all, eggs are water, right?" Leading Shak to exclaim "Eggs Aren't Water!" which became a semi Catch Phrase for the shark.
• Parrot Exposition: Blitz often ends up doing this thanks to his tendency to ask about things that are assumed to be common knowledge.
• Pizza Boy Special Delivery: Subverted when the cast interviewed Jeff the Pizza Guy. When asked if he is ever greeted at the door by naked women, Jeff said he has in the past (there is a nudest colony on his route), but they are generally not the women you'd want to live this trope out with.
• Poor Man's Porn: J.R. often jokes about how he had to ....improvise... growing up.
• Puppet Show
• Rascally Raccoon: Rummage. Also when the show showed clips from the movie Pom Poko
• Road Apples: Early episodes featured a green bean puppet whose dark green color came across on the Real Player screen as black, making the puppet look like a Mr Hanky Expy
• Self-Deprecation: "Hi, I'm ________, and you're wasting your time watching the Funday Pawpet Show!".
• Service Sector Stereotypes: Temp Ferret
• Shout-Out: The show got the term "Pawpet" from the little puppet shows that Snoopy would give from atop his doghouse from time to time (generally in Sunday strips).
  • Also, Forrest was first introduced as the 'actor' who played Charlie Brown's tree in A Charlie Brown Christmas.
  • One early show (#59) featured a Bullwinkle Role call with the 2000 stuffed figures.
• Sickeningly Sweet: At one point, the cast got annoyed with a handful of channel dwellers who kept complaining that the show was getting too raunchy. In response they split one episode into two parts - First half was The Squeaky Clean Pawpet & Friends Show which fit this trope, followed immediately by The Poink Show which allowed the naughty weasel to crank the raunch up to eleven.
• Smelly Skunk: Viewer Garrison, having been a part of the audience all the way back to episode 6, over the years originated many things that are now Pawpet staples such as the Art Jam (suggested back when Yappy originally rejected it as undoable as it would flood the mail server), the Arthur Awards, Bandit Cam, J.R. The Hutt, and the Sgt Yappy picture celebrating the show's first 100 episodes.
• Species Surname: •Both followed (Poink T. Ferret, Java Frog, Hump T. Camel, Hugh Manatee, Temp Ferret) and averted (Mutt Barker - illegitimate son of Bob, Arthur Bronswagger, Jimmy Noneck, Shak, Ezra Shawartz, Crappy Shawartz). One of the newest characters, Gof, has a name that stands for Gray Old Fox.
• Spinoff: The OMFG Blitz! Show
• Talkative Loon: Javafrog gets shades of this.
• The Teaser: For a while the show used thirty second cold openings featuring people such as the members of Trout Fishing in America, Benjamin Franklin, and the cast of Between the Lions saying variations of "Hi, I'm/We're ____ and you're wasting your time watching The Funday Pawpet Show.
• Telethon: Once a Season the Non-Profit show holds a telethon to help Yappy pay for the operating and music rights costs.
• This Is My Side: Because its not Xmas in July without a little light bondage.
• Visual Pun: Bawk, a chicken puppet who is larger than most of the other puppets in the cast. An entirely intentional example.
• We Didn't Start the Billy Joel Parodies: Poink and KP do one that reflects Pawpet Show happenings.
• Yet Another Christmas Carol: With The Chew Toy Poink as Scrooge.

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