Originally posted on my art blog on June 30th, 2018
The Bad Man, a short lived character that appeared on Marty’s show. He only appeared in a few episodes, mainly episodes that dealt with bad dreams, ideas about strangers, and spooky stories. Parents wrote in letters and called the studio complaining about The Bad Man being too scary for children and that he gave their children nightmares. His episodes were immediately banned and he was never heard or seen again in the show.

People wondered why the creator of Marty, a kind and gentle man that created cute and sweet characters, would suddenly make something so wrong and unnerving. In an interview, he talked about having night terrors when he was young that haunted him. When he was a teen they stopped and he didn’t have them until recently and in his night terror that night he saw what he would call “The Bad Man”. He wanted to make him to overcome his fear and he wanted to use him in an episode about nightmares/night terrors because as a child he was plagued by them and wanted to help children conquer their fears. He just didn’t realize how scary The Bad Man was for television.

Now in the Marty Museum dedicated to the now dead creator his main creations are on display but The Bad Man is not. He is in a storage room, locked away from the outside world so no one can see him. There are already rumors of the puppets moving around at night but The Bad Man is the oddest one in the rumor. In the storage room they’ll usually find him sitting on chairs, facing the door. When they are in the room with him they feel like they are being watched. The guards then move him back where he was, starring at the door. Hours pass and when they go check that room again he will be back in one of the chair. But on some nights there are times where they find him not in the storage room. They will look around the whole place until they find him sitting on the floor in front of a big mural of the creator. This has creeped out the guards the most out of anything he has done. They quickly move him back into the room and never tell anyone that had happen. But one of the guards when they saw this actually felt sadden for the puppet, thinking that maybe the puppet misses his creator and possibly wished he was loved like the other puppets. That maybe The Bad Man isn’t so bad at all.