Puppet History is a game show YouTube series produced by Ryan Bergara, Steven Lim, and Shane Madej through their company, Watcher Entertainment. Bergara, Lim, and Madej met when they worked at BuzzFeed but later left to seek more artistic control. Bergara and Madej are best known from their series BuzzFeed Unsolved.
Puppet History began in January 2020. 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. 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. A season six was announced on Shane Madej's social media and was released on July 7, 2023.
Format
The show begins with the Professor, a blue puppet, greeting the guests from a puppet theater stage. The contestants are almost always Ryan Bergara and one other person. The Professor then tells a story about history. He stops every few minutes to ask the two guests questions, which are sometimes multiple choice; whoever answers correctly, or as close to correctly as possible, receives points (referred to as "jelly beans").
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" in his opening speech and at other times during the episode.
The Professor encourages the guests to tell jokes and is often more attentive towards the guests than to Bergara. 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.
For the first four seasons, the Professor claims that the algorithm has awarded the cup and title of "History Master" to the guest contestants, regardless of who actually acquired more points. 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, actually an evil holographic doppelganger, to steal Bergara's flesh and use it as a body.
In season six, the algorithm machine has been 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", with misspellings thereof.
Characters
Each episode includes: The Professor, a blue puppet voiced by Shane Madej. Ryan Bergara, as himself. A guest contestant, typically another YouTuber. At least one other puppet, also voiced by Shane Madej. (Pre-season 6) A genie who pursues the Professor through time and space, played in live-action by Shane Madej. (Post-season 4) Dinosara and Dinosir, a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Pteranodon voiced by Joyce Louis-Jean and Garrett Watts respectively. (Season 5) Concupiscence McNasty, a holographic clone of the Professor voiced by Shane Madej.
Episodes
In season one, Bergara and the other contestant sat in chairs in the same room as the puppet theater. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, seasons two and three were carried out virtually and the show was named Puppet History: Online University. In season 4, the show returned to being in person. Each episode also has a musical guest puppet who sings at the end, which is usually but not always an object, animal or other entity relevant to the episode's subject matter.
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. 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.