Can you predict puppet? Can anyone? We’re about to goddamn find out.
Today we’re playing a deduction game of puppet climax. Pulled from thousands upon thousands of comic books, I am going to show you the opening to puppet stories. Many puppet stories. More puppet stories than you thought there could be. Your job will be to guess the ending. It’s the perfect way to measure whether you can see puppets coming or whether you’re already dead. Let’s go over the rules.
You must choose Ending A, Ending B, or Ending C for each question.
Ending A is “Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.” A lot of them will be this one.
Ending B is “Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.” It’s another very safe choice.
Ending C is a uniquely insane thing. Could it be the kind of zany absurdism that makes me such a delight, or the real answer? You won’t be able to tell.
We’ll start with a nice easy one. Puppet Story 1 comes from an issue of This Magazine is Haunted from 1954.
So we have ventriloquist Harry Trent and his dummy Zingo. They do a fun bit where the puppet threatens to kill Harry after each punchline. Jeff Dunham does a modern variation of this gag where after a joke, his puppet will turn to the crowd and list the five worst races. That’s not a clue, only a fun puppet fact. It’s time to make a decision. How does this story end?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: By Puppet Law, puppets can never lie about murder. That’s a murder puppet.
With your answer locked in, let’s see if you got it!
The answer was C! It was a murder puppet! See, all this time, Zingo was upset about the jokes made at his expense, so he got revenge by breaking his thumb off in Harry’s neck. “He definitely wasn’t killed by this obvious murder puppet, don’t even bother asking it questions,” say the two men who are definitely the shittiest detectives and best dressers on the force.
Now you’ve seen how the game works. It’s great, right? A coherent and relatable activity made by a sane man! A sane man! Here’s Puppet Story 2, a Vigilante comic from 1943. Guess! The! Puppet Ending!
A puppet is holding a cowboy hostage with his own revolver because comic books are awesome. Or are they? How did they end this?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: All of the above, plus he gets a spanking in front of a little boy dressed as a sailor. Oh man, I hope you pick this one. I hope you know I’d never type something like that from my own imagination. If I was writing a fake joke one, I’d say something more like “Spank the little naughty man in front of the sailor boy.” Oh no. Remind me to fix this before publishing, Brockway.
Oh thank Christ, it was C. So there’s a lot of madness leading to this sexual violation, but the main twist is that The Dummy (that’s his name), is not actually a dummy, but a tiny man on a pervert’s lap. He was the perfect comic book villain for 1943 because the real world already had Nazis, and the only thing worse than a Nazi is a lying ventriloquist.
I’m sure you’re doing great, but I’m going to give you another easy one. Puppet Story 3 comes from a 1952 issue of Adventures into Weird Worlds.
Laura is in love with Ventro, who is a ventriloquist, but it’s not going to work out because Ventro keeps all of his sex drive in his puppet, Kevin. Maybe I just gave you a clue? That the normal human is called Ventro, and the demon gremlin is named Kevin? And only Kevin fucks? You’d better hope it was a clue, because it’s time to guess:
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: Ventro parks outside Laura’s home and sends Kevin in to act as a surrogate for their lovemaking. They bear a child neither puppet nor man. Decades later, in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, the entry for Kevin’s Sperm spanned four pages and was mentioned 17 times in additional errata.
Of course the answer was A. Everyone saw this ending coming except for Kevin. Hooters regulars pick up signals better than this guy. The second Laura came into the ventriloquist dressing room, Kevin was so sure she was there to fuck the man’s puppet he shattered the real dummy against the floor and revealed himself. “We can be together now! Also, hi, until moments ago you thought I was your lover’s goblin doll! Where are you g– okay, bye, please don’t tell my boss or the world about this!”
This is a uniquely horny variation of Ending A. I promise none of the rest of these will be like that. The idea of a weird little freak seducing a ventriloquism fan with a phony human ventriloquist and then ripping off their puppet disguise is a tale never to be told again, and here’s Puppet Story 4 from Strange Fantasy that came out the same year.
See? This is without question some kind of murder puppet story. But I’ll give you some more details before it’s time to predict the ending.
Mignon is a “girl ventriloquist” which is a lot like a normal ventriloquist except the audience has a troubling parasocial relationship with you and your puppet. For instance, Georges Dufy has gone to see Mignon, Girl Ventriloquist, ten times, and he’s thinking what everyone is saying: “You’d be a lot prettier if you had fewer gross puppets. Boo! Sexier puppet, booo!!!” Okay, time to guess.
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: This is going to sound crazy, but I think that’s just a standard murder dummy. This ends with Georges running from puppet death, only far too slowly.
This can’t be right. It’s another Ending A, but the specific kind of Ending A where a goblin poses as a puppet to honeypot ventriloquism fans. This could be different from Ventro’s story, though. You never know what a man as horny as Georges is going to do. Maybe he’ll look past the betrayal and lunging for a night of casual sex on the wooden debris of his celebrity crush?
One skill men don’t develop is the ability to let their suitors down gently. We need to get on with the quiz, but I’m sure you’re curious to see how they wrap this up.
She jumps out a window for him, falls on his head, and they both die. “Ha, that’s pretty fucked up,” notes one great cop. So I guess this means you were correct no matter which ending you picked. That’s how good I am at making puppet quizzes. Puppet Story 5 comes from a 1962 issue of Archie’s Madhouse.
A reporter is doing a story on a ventriloquist act. One with an unusual twist. With only this information, can you predict the ending?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: I’m no dummy. This is a third puppet honeypot sex trap. “I’m no dummy either,” a sudden creature on my lap says. “We shall be together forever,” it hisses, ripping open its little bra.
The story ends after three pages with a no-frills, classic Ending A. Only it’s delivered as a punchline, not a horror reveal. “Am I terror or comedy? Is there any difference?” asks the puppet, his ventriloquist now a lifeless heap. “Oh, that’s perfect. I’m going to use that,” says Jared Leto on the set of 2016’s Suicide Squad.
Let’s keep things moving. Puppet Story 6 is from a 1954 issue of Baffling Mysteries. It’s called “THEY STRANGLE BY NIGHT,” and I’m not making up any of these names. This is just how nerds talked in the 1950s.
. 
In this story, a wizard called upon demons of hatred to bring his puppets to life. Not for any real purpose. All he wanted was spirits, preferably evil, to “make his dolls move” with no explanation. Either life insurance in ancient Bavaria paid double when you got torn apart by puppets or this was a sex thing. Now guess.
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: This guy is so fucked. This whole town is so fucked. Or maybe he leads the puppets on fun fish-out-of-water adventu– no, I’m being crazy. This guy is fucked.
The answer was C– everyone was so fucked. He unleashes immortal strangle puppets, they come to life whenever the moon is full to hunt necks, the end. Not every puppet story has to mean something, or have a surprise. Sometimes the most Baffling Mystery of all is how a dumbshit such as this could hold down a writing job. Puppet Story 7 comes from a 1951 issue of Crime Clinic. It features this cover, a masterpiece in every possible sense:
It’s beautiful– a special moment from a show no one will ever forget. I want you to please look at it for at least thirty minutes, not for clues, but to honor the 7,000 lives we lose each day to exactly this.
The cover wasn’t a metaphor or something. This is a story about a puppet with a gun shooting into the audience. How does it end?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: I’m having a really nice time, but I’m concerned this is too many puppet comics. The fact that they exist at all is one thing, but for one man to somehow find them all? What drives such a quest? What foul god would forgive you for it? In many ways, how dare you.
The answer was B, but let me explain. See, during the ventriloquism explosion of the early ’50s, vaudeville acts were falling out of fashion. So this performer disguised himself as a dummy, infiltrated a local ventriloquist’s lap, and executed a terror attack in a scheme to bring back little person comedy acts, HA-HA! Once you know to look for it, you’ll see this is the motivator driving most puppet shows. Let’s do a bonus quiz. What ironic fate awaited this little guy?
A: Some random doctor knocked him out with the doll he was impersonating.
B: In the end, vengeance would belong… to the dummy.
C: He went and fucked himself, HA-HA!
You were right!
Great job, moving on, Puppet Story 8 comes to us from a 1952 issue of House of Mystery.
The Great Lang and “Blockhead” was a very, very strange ventriloquist act where instead of jokes, they would solve murders suggested by the crowd. I’d say this would be a bad idea for a show even if you hadn’t killed a guy and owned a loose-lipped puppet who knew about it, which is the situation here.
Sure enough, someone in the audience asks The Great Lang to solve the murder he himself committed– The Mysterious Case of The Last Guy To Own That Puppet. Now any competent ventriloquist would do exactly what he did– have the dummy accuse him of the crime, cover its mouth, then shriek as if the puppet bit him. But Lang was not performing. The puppet really was accusing him of murder, and it really did bite him. All puppets bite. Every puppet bites.
Lang did, again, what any ventriloquist would do– he gave the audience a full confession and tried to beat his own puppet to death. He was stopped only by the bravery of one head butt to the dick, the only attack comic artists knew how to draw in 1952. You’re probably saying, “Oh, that’s the whole story. I don’t need to guess the ending.” The fuck you don’t. That wasn’t the ending at all.
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: Hold on, are you a cop? You son of a bitch, are you police!? Was all of this an elaborate puppet sting operation!?
You have the keen instincts of a cocaine distributor. Yes, it was C. It makes me so happy to explain that the police hired a civilian circus performer to pose as a man’s puppet in a dangerous undercover mission to trick him into confessing to murder. Now imagine that last sentence much dumber, and smeared across 500 words and seven word bubbles, and you’ll understand the ending to “The Dummy of Death!” No time to think about it, Puppet Story 9!
The next exciting entry in this, the world’s first puppet ending guessing quiz, comes from the same comic book, House of Mystery, five years later.
“Puppets of DOOM!” is a story about a sinister puppet carver who killed you by making a puppet of you. And you know it the second you see him. If you went into this man’s home and saw his puppets, the first thing you would say is, “You have a lovely home, it’s pretty clear all these people are dead and these very puppets are responsible.” Here, I’ll show you what a normal conversation with him looked like:
“A puppet of me!? What an honor, pervert making a tiny clown grope!” Hey, I know you know this, but if someone asks to make a puppet in your likeness, it is like all puppet things– probably a murder thing, but always a sex thing. It’s time to make your guess!
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: Something here isn’t right. You goddamn son of a bitch, are you also a cop!?
The answer is C. Because let me tell you something it took me 78,912 pages to understand: if you are reading a puppet story in House of Mystery, there’s always a twist and that twist is always an undercover puppet sting operation. Puppet Story 10 comes from a 1959 issue of Journey Into Mystery, and I promise there are no cops.
Oh, I must have screwed up. This is an alien invasion story, not a puppet story. Sorry about the mistake. Maybe it would be fun to guess the ending anyway?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: One thing I know about you is you never make mistakes. This space vapor bastard is going to invade a puppet.
Jesus, the answer was C? The aliens’ plan to dominate Earth was to send down one vapor monster and hope it didn’t mind control a ventriloquist dummy? And then it mind controlled a ventriloquist dummy? I don’t buy it. No non-cop would write that. Could this comic be an undercover sting to expose my puppet hypnotizing operation? Just to be safe, code red, wake the puppets up. All cells, wake the puppets up. Remind me to fix this before publishing, Brockway.
Puppet Story 11 comes from a 1953 issue of Spellbound.
“The Death of a Puppet!” is about the producer of a murder puppet show who has killed his poor Pepé puppet so many times he’s starting to worry it has feelings and they are hurt.
Today we see paranoid loners pouring their hearts out to artificial people any time we accidentally hit the “For You” tab on Twitter. But in 1953, this was an unusual kind of guy. Is he going to snap and try to get revenge for Pepé? Is he going to be right about puppets developing emotions from too much theater? That’s for you to guess!
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: Wait, this had better not be some stupid shit like, “are not all of us puppets!?”
Aw, that’s too bad. It was C. The puppets are real, sort of. It turns out -bwaaaaaaaahhhmmmp- you were one of the puppets the whole time! With, you know, skeleton hands pulling your strings. Okay, okay, stop screaming in mortal terror. It’s time for Puppet Story 12! It comes from a 1960 issue of Strange Tales.
These men are about to shoot a ventriloquist, so you already know it’s A.
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: You wouldn’t just give me the answer, that had to have been a trick. I think this is two undercover puppet operations going terribly wrong at the same time.
Don’t overthink it. 84% of all ventriloquist dummies are tiny monsters piloting a corpse.
Let’s do a normal one from something you’ve heard of. Puppet Story 13 is from a 1956 issue of Superman.
How will the Last Son of Krypton survive being mildly marveled by a magic trick!? Could this little doll dressed like him spell the end for the Man of Steel!? Only you, The Puppet Guesser, can know!
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: It’s a 1956 Superman comic, so the doll didn’t have x-ray vision, except Superman tricked people into thinking it did so criminals would steal the doll for crime so he could use his super-ventriloquism to pointlessly make them question their sanity while he trapped them in a fence and then spent three pages “explaining” every detail of these petty, stupid, inconsequential things he did because there are 1500 traffic accidents and domestic assaults an hour in America, and Superman heard the screams from each one while he did all this.
I have some bad news. It looks like it was C. Alright, let’s move o–
I guess Superman had some more to say before we wrap it up. Thanks, Superman. Great work. Next up i–
Okay, Superman. Got it. An x-ray machine under the table, and a secret accomplice. We appreciate the thorough explanation. Thank you again. The nex–
Oh my god, shut the fuck up, Superman. You smug alien asshole, are you still explaining a magic trick that took place in a comic book? Is that what you’re doing? You know when Zeus comes to Earth to get a deer pregnant? That’s a more likable use of godlike power than this, Superman. We are moving on to Puppet Story 14. It comes from a 1956 issue of Strange Tales.
In “the MAN WHO TALKED!”, a comatose man is performing both sides of a ventriloquist routine from his hospital bed, and a nurse holding enough syringes to stop his heart thought the same thing any of us would: “Hell yes, free puppetless puppet show.” How does his story end?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: This isn’t enough to go on and you know it. So I’m just going to guess his dummy is far away on a Polynesian island, saying everything he is saying, and natives are worshiping it as a god.
What? Hold on, let me check my notes. Wow, it really is C. The islanders find the haunted dummy and start a religion based on ventriloquist routine punchlines. I hate this for a lot of reasons, but at least it’s not a Superman story. Puppet Story 15 comes to us from, oh damn it, a 1963 issue of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen.
Verro the Super-Ventriloquist has created a Jimmy Olsen puppet to– you know what? Forget it. I’m already exhausted by the plot and it’s still the cover. I think you can guess the ending, though.
Ending A: It’s not this.
Ending B: There’s no way it’s this one.
Ending C: Superman is going to scream every last insane detail of some convoluted plot with at least five too many things, each of them dumb as fuck and solved with a tiny child’s idea of science.
You were absolutely right. C. I guess Verro was not an evil Superman comedian, but a space gorilla, and stopping his Jimmy Olsen dummy saved the entire planet. For more information on the doll and how it worked, please see the unhinged shouting coming from Superman’s mouth above.
Puppet Story 16 comes from a 1951 issue of Tales from the Crypt.
Morty is the most realistic puppet anyone has ever seen. It’s a dummy so lifelike, so fleshy, you’d swear it was a real boy!
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: Hmm… it wouldn’t be a twist if the lifelike puppet turned out to be a live boy. I don’t know… maybe the ventriloquist has a human head for a hand? Ha. Listen to me. I’ve finally lost it.
If you guessed C, you’re a lunatic. A lunatic with a puppet point, that is!
Puppet Story 17 comes from a 1961 issue of Tales of Suspense. Since it was the first time a ventriloquist dummy appeared in a comic, it was simply called…
“The Dummy” was about a dummy, and from that alone you know the twist.
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: It’s definitely an A or a B. What else would it be? Like… aliens who look like dummies? Fucking why? It’d be nonsense.
Of course it was a B. Even the characters in the comic saw the reveal coming. Someone from the audience did what every brave person at a ventriloquism show does– they charged the stage and accused the puppet of being a man, undressing him to prove it.
Wait, what’s this? Wooden limbs? B-but how? We were so certain.
Oh. It was two Uranusians, a big one and a small one, who traveled to Earth to become ventriloquists. That’s it? What the shit was the point of that? Sorry, I thought I was reading Tales of Suspense, not Tree Dork Team-Up.
Puppet Story 18 comes from a 1974 issue of The Unexpected!
If a ventriloquist drags a human skeleton onto the stage and makes it say, “This is the man who killed me,” it’s not a joke. Believe them. But that’s not what this comic is about. This is, believe it or not, another story about a ventriloquist act where they solve murders instead of doing comedy.
Mitch Randall is a secret murderer with a girlfriend who hates skeleton puppets. So there are a lot of reasons it was weird to take her to see the skeleton puppet who solved murders. “That guy right there is the killer. Mitch is his name,” it immediately said. “The puppet knows you’re a murderer, Mitch,” his girlfriend noticed.
Great save, Mitch. Now, how does this story end?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: We are overdue for another undercover puppet sting.
It was A! Despite being a skeleton, it was somehow a little boy with all his organs controlling a puppet wearing his dead father’s head. Not as a mask, though. His dead father’s head was balanced gently on top of the skull of a second boy-sized skeleton. Luckily, Mitch drove neck-first into a tree before having to consider all that.
Puppet Story 19 comes from a 1952 issue of Tomb of Terror. Pay close attention, you really need this point.
Ventriloquist Peter Mordann has a strangling problem. Man, woman, puppet– if you have a neck, he’s going to wring it. Please trust me that it’s extremely unusual to see this many strangulations across only four pages of comic book:
Peter strangles so much there is no time for any other character development. You know as much as you’ll ever know about him. So how does his story end?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: The tables turn on this choker when he… chokes on stage! Ha! A fitting fate for a strangler who lives by the choke!
You’re right, it’s C! Or it would have been if the story ended here. Instead, Peter gets into an argument with his puppet backstage and decides to kill himself. And, of course, our lifelong strangler finishes himself off with one final…
… stab to the heart with some knife he found. Don’t blame yourself for getting this wrong. No one saw this coming. Let’s do a fun one. You will fall in love with…
Puppet Story 20 is “The VAMPIRE PUPPET” from a 1952 issue of Witchcraft. He’s our precious, adorable boy. He’s two words blurted out by a horror writer a month behind deadline. He’s how a Mormon driver screams “motherfucker.” He is all this and more, and you must guess his fate, puppet quizzler!
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: Ha, this little bat fella has no fucking chance against an old lady with a mallet.
It was C. The VAMPIRE PUPPET was not designed for battle. What confused fiend drank the blood of a puppet to begin with? Can I hear myself? Should we stop this? We should stop. We need to stop this.
Puppet Story 21 comes from a 1948 issue of Adventures into the Unknown.
Quick! How does “KILL, PUPPETS, KILL!” end?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: BURN, PUPPETS… BURN!
As a matter of fact, it was C. Ralph’s quick thinking led him to the library where he looked up ghosts and got the idea to shoot the puppets with a flamethrower. Oh, Ralph! What a victory against puppets! What a great one to end on!
Puppet Story 22 comes from a 1953 issue of Adventures into the Unknown.
There is something suspicious about the dummy Oswald Foop.
Sometimes Oswald Foop moves by himself, which is unusual for a puppet. He also bites any flesh that gets near his mouth, which is not.
On stage, Oswald Foop often goes off script to scream about the ancient wizard who put his soul in this accursed puppet body. Most people wouldn’t notice these red flags, especially not a ventriloquist’s girlfriend, and yet even she starts to suspect this evil talking puppet is the thing he claims to be.
She was right! Oswald Foop is coming for her! What happens next!?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: This worked last time, maybe it will again! BURN, PUPPETS… BURN!
Hell yes! It was C again!
We can’t stop now. We are on a puppet-burning roll! Puppet Story 23 comes from a 1952 issue of Worlds of Fear.
It’s about a dick puppet named The Devil Puppet who comes to life and throws things at his puppeteer. How does his story end?
Ending A: Burn that little prick.
Ending B: Burn, puppet!
Ending C: BURN!
Yes! It looks like The Devil Puppet’s puppeteer went a little nuts in the process, but it’s still a big win. This is the third puppet in a row to burn to ash in agony, begging for its life. The perfect way to end a puppet story ending quiz article.
Oh no, why are these words forming another paragraph? Puppet Story 24 comes from a 1954 issue of Adventures Into the Unknown.
Okay, so the puppets are making fun of this guy for murdering. It looks like they’re doing a “Tell-Tale Heart” only with puppets and puppet dick smashing. That should be enough for you to make an educated guess about the ending.
Ending A: Burn, puppets, burn!
Ending B: Four in a row!
Ending C: BURN, PUPPETS, BURN! FOUR IN A ROW!
You were way off. For on this day, it is the puppets who burn their enemies! Fortunately, the murderer’s non-wooden body burns slowly enough for him to decide on the perfect last word: “YEEAAHH!”
I feel like this puppet article is really murder-heavy. Before we go, let’s end on a cute one. Puppet Story 25 comes from a 1975 issue of Reggie and Me.
I guess this one doesn’t work for a puppet ending guessing quiz because the first line was already the ending. Let me try again. Puppet Story 26 comes from a 1977 issue of Reggie’s Wise Guy Jokes.
So the setup is Archie and Jughead are at a costume party. Fun! How does this end?
Ending A: Gasp, the puppet is actually the puppet master.
Ending B: Aiiieee, that puppet is a small human.
Ending C: Probably the same goddamn joke about Archie being the dummy.
Damn it, I knew it was going to be C. Which also makes it an A. And I guess it was always technically a B. Forget it, we’re not ending on that one! Puppet Story 27 comes from a 1979 issue of Everything’s Archie.
No, what is happening? Reggie made an Archie Doll? And carried it around where people could see him!? And the first person who does says, “Hey, terrific!” rather than, “Hey, pervert!” And his response is the same dummy joke he’s been making for four years!? No, I refuse this. I do not accept it. P-puppppet Stooory 28 comes f-from a 1978 isssue of Reggie’s Wiiiiiiiiiiiisseeee Guuuuuuuuu
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