As the fall of Puppet Week encircles us, our only choice left is to die well. To take as many of them with us. But first… the year was 1939, and the world was at war. One of America’s biggest celebrities was a ventriloquist doll and it was the lead in a feature film about a puppeteer swindler betraying a circus to destroy a marriage. I’m not kidding. If I was kidding I’d have said, “If your only friend was a puppet, would his wooden temptation be enough for you to put him, tuxedo and all, into my wife? Could his tiny body hold enough courage for a darkness so wet? Hi, I’m Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn.” And then I would have included a picture of Todd McFarlane like this:
But no, I’m being serious. The following is Charlie McCarthy’s You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man, more or less exactly as it appeared in theaters 84 years ago. Please enjoy this barely retouched classic.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: KNM, who through the magic of cyberspace is now pregnant with puppet crabs.