P&J are for very young kids ;so asking adults opinions of them is as far off target as asking a young kid what their opinion of Family Guy is.
Wrong audience.
Not necessarily. That’s like saying that cartoons are for children. P & J began as an adult entertainment, and *can *be done for any age. It has it’s roots in the Italian theatre.
Peter Morris, Thanks for the link to your earlier thread.
It seems as though an American presenting a Punch and Judy show today might have a couple of uphill battles to fight. . .
Edit: Especially when confronted by the Christian Church Puppets advertised at the bottom of this thread. . .
Ignorance fought, I stand corrected.
He was doing the sound, just without the reed - that’s how his vocal cords got so town up. Personally, Punch performed with a reed is pretty much indecipherable. My Dad’s goal was entertainment, not doctrinal purity. It’s like the difference between Donald Duck and Daffy Duck. As Daffy said in Who Framed Roger Rabbit “Can anyone understand a word this duck says?”
If you want a take on “Punch & Judy” that may raise the hair on the back of your neck read “Riddley Walker”, Russell Hoban’s Post-Apocalyptic novel of Southeastern England. You’ve been warned.
Just out of curiosity but did your father ever include the bit with Punch and the Doctor? And, if so, did he strictly follow the “traditional” script or did he incorporate “doctor-patient sketch” jokes from vaudeville (e.g., “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” “Then don’t do that.”)?
[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
I think of them as a peculiarly British (or at least, European) phenomenon. I’ve never seen one (and don’t have any particular desire to), and whenever I’ve encountered mention of them, it’s been in British contexts, making me suspect that they’re something that most Brits are familiar with but few Americans are.
[/QUOTE]
Punch and Judy shows were well-known in the US until around the mid 20th century but dropped off our cultural radar after that. Today, when Americans see these shows still being performed in Britain and the rest of Europe they’re alternately horrified and puzzled.
As for me, I’ve always knew the reference but never actually saw an actual P&J show until one was recreated on a 1970s TV news documentary about violent crime in America. Up until then, I thought the shows just featured violent but goofy slapstick (like a puppet version of the Three Stooges) but the P&J bit they did is the one where Punch sadistically beats his child and wife to death and then gloats over their puppet corpses. It was like The Burning Bed but less funny.
Of course, maybe it was because the puppeteer didn’t have any sense of comic delivery or timing.
No, no doctor. Punch and Judy fighting over the Baby, who gets stretched. Punch beats Judy senseless, maybe kills her; Punch fools the Policeman; Punch fools the Hangman; Punch fools the Devil into taking the Hangman, then Punch gets dragged below by the Crocodile.
This is all from a very poor memory from my childhood. I can clearly remember bits of the text and specific lines, but don’t have a clear memory of the whole act. My Dad died when I was 16 and I just turned 50. I’m sure at one point, I had the whole show memorized.
My older brother probably remembers quite a bit of it.
It’s a morality play with a lead character who is pure id. Dad’s take on it was to get the kids yelling for the various authority figures (Policeman, Hangman, Devil) to not be fooled by Punch. It was very interactive, with Punch taunting the kids. The act never played to silence - children like violence.
Punch and Judy shows, called on this side of civilization “Guignol”, is popular in France. We’re having live reenactments of it in the streets at this time of the year with “Guignol using his big stick on nasty Policeman” every day.
Seems like, all those years,your Dad didnt have a clue about the act he was performing. That’s sad.
Punch and Judy shows are precisely about the hero punching Policemen and every authority figure… Christ.
[Boldness added.]
Punch and Judy stretching a baby like a piece of taffy is actually funny. The violence is too silly and outrageous to be taken seriously.
As for the Punch and the Doctor bit,here’s an example.
I’m from the other side of both the pond and the Channel, and as a kid I liked to watch “Kasperl” as it’s called. It’s shown regularly on Austrian TV - a studio filled with 4-5 year old kids all yelling when Kasperle asks “Are you all there?”.
Later in primary school, the policecame and did at least one sketch on proper behaviour in traffic. During public events like fairs there will often be a Kasperle show for the smaller children.
HOWEVER, the German Kasperle is quite different from Punch and Judy! The dolls are moved with the hands, yes, but the voices are normal. Most important however, is that the story lines are complelty different. Kasperl with his red hat is smart and clever. His friend Seppelwith the Tyrolian hat (called therefore Sepplhut) is rather simple. Kaspers Grandmother knits and exists as maiden(crone) in danger to be rescued. There is either a bad sorceror or robber, and a policeman.
The stories are usually: the robber steals something from Grandma, and Kasperl and Seppel find it again, and the cop arrests the robber. Violence is only beating the crocodile so it doesn’t eat anybody - it will then leave the stage in a huff - or the cop hitting the robber once with a truncheon for arrest. But not extensive violence.
What interests children mostly is the participation - the figures talk with the audience, ask them for advice and hints. So in the first act, the robber is hiding in the bushes and tells the children to keep quiet, and when Grandma comes onstage, the children will start shouting about the robber, only she doesn’t hear and understand 
Then Kasperle comes and asks the children what happened. Etc.
This is esp. pedagogic in the case of traffic training - the children tell the figures what to do and not to do, and the smart dog confirms it, and Kasperl explains why.
When children get in the upper classes of primary school - age 8 or 9 - they will often start crafting hand puppets themselves, or inheriting them from other kids, and start writing their own scripts/ perform plays for younger siblings/ neighbour kids.
Otfried Preussler wrote three children’s books that basically have the Kasperl theater figures as characters, about the Robber Hotzenplotz.
I saw my one and only Punch and Judy show the last time I went to a Renaissance Faire. That was approximately 1975 when I was a child. I kind of liked it at the time.
i saw a punch and judy show at a civil war reenactment once. Loved it. he beat the crap out of the baby for crying and threw it out the window. when the wife got home he told her her sent the baby to the cleaners. “the baby cleaners?” NO! the street cleaners!. She started crying, so he beat the crap out of her and killed her. the cop came in and punch tricked him beat the crap out of him. He tricked the hangman into the noose, then tricked the devil into taking the hangman, and beat the crap out of him. i dont remember the crocodile but i had a hoot watching it. Whenver a puppet cried they had a water hose in the puppets that soaked the audience from its eyes.
Of course this re-enactment also had an old black dude telling uncle remus stories too… good stuff.
Jesus Christ, and I thought Nazi Germany was bad.
This is a completely gratuitous attack on someone who’s not participating in the thread. I’m giving you a warning for being a jerk, which covers the other possibilities for grounds, personal insults and trolling.