Puppets Who Kill is a Canadian television comedy programme produced by PWK Productions and originally broadcast on The Comedy Network. It premiered in Canada in 2002, and in Australia on The Comedy Channel in 2004. It has also been broadcast in India, South Korea and Germany. The series was on the digital network Hulu and is currently on CON TV and Tubi in the United States. PWK began as a one-man live theatre show written and performed by comedian/puppeteer John Pattison at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 1995. It later morphed into the series, using the same dark topics and featuring some of the same puppet characters. In 1999, a pilot for Puppets Who Kill was produced for the Comedy Network and broadcast in January, 2000. The network ordered the first season of 13 episodes which was produced in the fall of 2001, and held back by the network for one year - finally being broadcast in the fall of 2002. For the next 3 years a new season of the series was produced every fall. In Puppets Who Kill, Rocko the Dog, Cuddles the Comfort Doll, Buttons the Bear, and Bill the Ventriloquist Dummy are four puppets with anthropomorphic qualities including individual histories of delinquency and recidivism. Canadian courts sent each of them to a halfway house for puppets, operated by a hapless and somewhat incompetent social worker named Dan Barlow, played by Dan Redican. Characters Rocko the Dog Rocko (puppeteer Bruce Hunter), is a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking misanthrope who formerly worked on a children's television programme. The job required him to control his language and behaviour, but eventually a berserk outburst on set ended his career. He takes medication to temper his violent mood swings. Cuddles the Comfort Doll Cuddles (puppeteer Bob Martin) is a comfort doll designed to help people cope with their problems. However, as the introductory voice-over to each episode informs the viewer, it is Cuddles who is now the problem. The chronic subordination of his own needs to those of others caused him to explode one day, grab a rifle, and start shooting. Despite this eruption, Cuddles is generally the best behaved of the group, although his naivete often gets him and his fellow residents at the halfway house into trouble. He cannot handle pressure well, lacks self-assertiveness, and shows signs of a passive-aggressive personality disorder. Buttons the Bear Buttons (puppeteer James Rankin) is a