Rediscovery: Puppets (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year: 2014
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

Mike, Kevin, and Bill should know more than their fair share about puppets, having worked on a puppet show for a good portion of their professional careers.  But that won't stop VCI on lecturing them on how to craft and work their own!

This short is another of VCI's crafts shorts targeted at kids, and like all of its brethren it's a monotonous affair filmed in seemingly real time and told with a bored narrator.  Some of the puppet making techniques are creative, but when it comes to sculpting clay heads they should probably note that it's unlikely that yours would come out nearly as well.

"This is what plays in Tim Burton's head 24/7."

Like just about all VCI shorts, Mike, Kevin, and Bill play up the idea that they are creeped out by it.  They find the puppets scary, and sometimes play with the idea that crafting these things is some sort of satanic ritual.  There are also riffs at the expense of how bored someone would have to be to actually do any of this.  But let's think about what kids had to do in the 70's.  There were Hanna-Barbara cartoons and Pong.  So yeah, they were pretty bored.

While I wouldn't say this is one of their better VCI offerings, like just about all of them there are some great laughs to be had with this one.  The only real issue is that sometimes these shorts just seem exactly like the last, but I'm still having fun.

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