Puppet History is an American comedy game show YouTube series created by Shane Madej and produced by Madej, Ryan Bergara, and Steven Lim. The show premiered on January 10, 2020 on the Watcher Entertainment YouTube channel.[1]
The show's premise sees a colorful puppet historian known as the Professor presenting a game show about one or two distinctive persons or events from history.[2] The two contestants answer questions, and the Professor gives them points; the contestant with the most points wins the title of "History Wizard" and a hat. Before season six, the contestant with the most points won the title of "History Master" and a small trophy.[3][4]
The show received an Honoree Award at the 2022 Webby Awards for a Science & Education Channel.[5]
Format
The show begins with the Professor, a blue puppet, greeting the guests from a puppet theater stage.[6] The contestants are almost always Ryan Bergara and another special guest. The Professor then tells a story about a historical event or figure. He stops every few minutes to ask the two guests questions; whoever answers correctly, or as close to correctly as possible, receives points (referred to as "jelly beans").[4][7]
The scoring is relatively loose, and a contestant may be awarded more than one point, or just half a point, for their answer, as well as extra points being awarded as the Professor sees fit. The show presents parts of the story and answers to some questions through reenactments of scenes using paper cutouts of people from history. The prize is a small plastic trophy containing jelly beans or another small prize. The Professor refers to it as the 'coveted cup and title of History Master.'[8]
The Professor encourages the guests to tell jokes and is often more attentive towards the guests than to Bergara, often awarding points to guests with jokes. Before the end of the show, the Professor leaves to "tally the score" using "our complex victory algorithm," and another puppet or puppets come onto the stage and sing a song about the historical event.[7]
For the first four seasons, the Professor claimed that the algorithm awarded the cup and title of "History Master" to the guest contestants, regardless of who actually acquired more points.[a] In season five, this trend was inverted, and Bergara won almost every episode (with the exception of episode six) regardless of his point total. However, due to a "supply chain issue" in sourcing the trophies, Bergara instead won a Puppet History-themed moisturizer every episode (except episode 5, when a "Yankee Dodge"-flavored vape was presented as prize). This is later revealed to be a plot by the Professor, later revealed to be an evil holographic doppelganger, to steal Bergara's flesh and use it as a body.
In season six, the algorithm machine was destroyed and replaced by the Professor's adoptive dinosaur parents who serve as judges and hand out hats as prizes, referred to as the "coveted cap and title of History Wizard". The guests receive a hat with the words "history wizard" written on it, while Bergara receives a hat saying "beef" (a reference to his name as a pun on "burger"), with misspellings thereof.
Cast and Characters
- Shane Madej as The Professor, a blue puppet and host of the show.
- Madej also voices Concupiscence McNasty, a holographic clone of the Professor, during the fifth season
- Madej also portrays a genie that pursues the Professor through time and space (season 1-5).
- Madej also portrays a variety of other puppets throughout the series. Each episode features a new puppet, based on the subject in which they perform a song based on the event.
- Ryan Bergara as himself.
- Joyce Louis-Jean as Dinosara (season 5-6), a Tyrannosaurus rex and the adoptive mother of the Professor.
- Garrett Watts as Dinosir (season 5-6), a Pteranodon and the adoptive father of the Professor.
The Professor
The Professor is a small hand puppet with blue fur and a white nose. He usually wears a safari hat and jacket and carries a satchel.[7] He wears glasses and a bow tie. Sometimes, he wears other costumes. For example, in the episode about Ching Shih, he wore a three-cornered pirate hat, and in the episode about the 1904 Summer Olympics he wears a women's gymnastics leotard.
Originally an educational game show, the show developed deep lore over time. The Professor sometimes talks about his life through wrong answers to the multiple-choice questions. These answers say the Professor found a magic lamp that had a magical genie inside it. He wished for the genie to turn a "seemingly ordinary household object", revealed to be the Professor's satchel, into a secret time machine. The genie did so, but was also "a total prick about it." In other episodes, the Professor mentions visiting the past and meeting people from history. At times he talks about the genie chasing him through time, due to the effects from time-traveling bringing the various singing guest puppets to life.
In Season 4, the Professor declares he has placed a restraining order on the Genie, and there will be no genie lore revealed in the answers for the season. In the last episode of Season 4, the Professor goes back in time to the Cretaceous period due to a conspirancy involving Ryan Bergara, Asmodeus, Satan and the genie. A T-rex eats him. Words on the screen tell the audience that the Professor is canonically dead.[9] In the Puppet History Holiday Spectacular, many of the puppets seen earlier in the show acknowledge his death and sing a song in his honor.
It is revealed in season 5, the Professor is somehow alive, and the puppet theater is connected to a mysterious electronic box which he warns the guests not to touch or talk about. He is later revealed to be a hologram originally created by the cycloptic purple puppet version of God to deliver the Professor's eulogy, but elected by the puppets to host the show. The real Professor is revealed to have somehow revived, albeit much larger, and hatched from an egg laid by the T-rex that ate him, who is married to some kind of pterosaur.[7] The holographic Professor revealed his plans of skinning Ryan and wearing his flesh. The two fought and Ryan rubbed the genie lamp to bring the Professor and his new dinosaur parents from the Cretaceous period just as the meteor is about to strike, and kills the hologram by defenestration.
The Professor made a full return to host in the sixth season, with the hologram machine destroyed. The genie is completely absent from this season.
Episodes
| Season | Episodes | Originally aired | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First aired | Last aired | |||
| 1 | 4 | January 10, 2020 | May 22, 2020 | |
| 2 | 8 | August 14, 2020 | October 2, 2020 | |
| 3 | 6 | March 12, 2021 | April 23, 2021 | |
| 4 | 6 | August 27, 2021 | October 3, 2021 | |
| 5 | 6 | November 11, 2022 | December 16, 2022 | |
| 6 | 6 | July 7, 2023 | August 11, 2023 | |
Notes
- ^ For instance, in the episode "Ziryab: The World's First Rock Star", guest Zach Kornfeld answered no questions correctly and still won. However, the episode "Stealing The World's Most Expensive Necklace" ended in a tie, which Bergara still lost.
References
- ^ "'Buzzfeed Unsolved' to 'Ghost Files': Ryan and Shane's triumph over the corporate machine". ‘Buzzfeed Unsolved’ to ‘Ghost Files’: Ryan and Shane’s triumph over the corporate machine - The Miami Student. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
- ^ "Ex-BuzzFeed Video Staffers Launch Watcher Entertainment Digital Studio (EXCLUSIVE)". Yahoo Entertainment. 2019-12-09. Retrieved 2024-02-05.
- ^ Pierce-Bohen, Kayleena (2021-12-11). "10 Best Historical Web Series". ScreenRant. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
- ^ a b Bass, Sophie (2023-03-22). "Review: 'Puppet History'". Writing in the Media. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
- ^ "NEW Webby Gallery + Index". NEW Webby Gallery + Index. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
- ^ Liu, Katie (2020-10-22). "This Is My Jam: Watcher Entertainment". North by Northwestern. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
- ^ a b c d "Puppets Revolutionizing Online Media". Puppets Revolutionizing Online Media - The Bullhorn News. Retrieved 2024-02-06.
- ^ Carino, Isabel (2020-05-20). "Watcher Entertainment Is the Next Big Digital Media Company and Here's Why". Medium. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
- ^ Wilson, Andy (October 4, 2021). "Did Puppet History Season 4 Finale Just Kill Off a Main Character?". Bleeding Cool. Retrieved May 20, 2022.