On the Road with Puppet the Psycho Dwarf
An intrepid AAJ Writer goes behind the scenes with the little men who are willing to bleed for your enjoyment
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Gary Arnold, who in 2006, became the vice-president of public relations for Little People of America (LPA), has been protesting Puppet’s shows since he attended one, at the Wrigleyville sports bar Slugger’s, in 2003. LPA, a national organization with more than 6,000 members, offers “support and information to people of short stature and their families,” according to its mission statement.
“It’s a detriment to image of our community,” Arnold says, “and reinforces old stereotypes of little people as entertaining solely because of our differences.” Arnold and Puppet are polar opposites, but when you mention the name of one to the other, you get the same smile of bemused exasperation.
The original name of Puppet’s group was Bloody Midgets. While he changed it to the less outrageous Half-Pint Brawlers to facilitate a broadcast deal with In-Demand Television, the group’s calling card is still the bloody brutality of the final match. The punches may be fake, and the plot lines staged, but the blood is always real; this is hardcore midget wrestling, a concept that Puppet claims he invented.
Midget wrestling itself is nothing new, although it has faded in popularity. In its heyday from the ‘50s through the ‘80s, dwarf matches were often billed as middle or opening shows for larger wrestlers, and a few midget wrestlers were able to able to gain fame. Like their large counterparts, most had a gimmick. Little Beaver wore a leather loincloth and a mohawk. Little Tokyo wore a kimono and wooden sandals and carried a fan. Lord Littlebrook of England, who wore a monocle and often carried a teacup, wrestled for almost forty years and may have been the first dwarf to become a manager in the business, at one time running the careers of up to twelve midget wrestlers.
In 1986, the WWF televised the apogee of midget wrestling’s popularity. Four midget wrestlers and two standard-sized ones staged a tag team match, as part of Wrestlemania III. Little Beaver was said to have his back broken when 400-pound behemoth King Kong Bundy body-slammed him, and he never wrestled again. After that, the WWF mostly stopped promoting dwarf matches, and the tradition almost ended, to the delight of critics like Gary Arnold.
Arnold and many others in the dwarf community are also unhappy with the term “midget” itself, which was coined by the entertainment industry in the late 1800s, at the height of the popularity of freak shows. “As that era declined,” Arnold explains, “the word midget was associated with the circus and freak shows and the little person as a form of entertainment. It evolved as a degrading, de-humanizing term.”
“Dude, we’re midgets. It’s okay,” is Puppet’s response. “I’m not a little person. I have a giant voice. I’m a leader.”
“Not everyone can be doctors; not everyone can be lawyers,” adds Kato. “I’m too short to be a professional athlete. This is the next-best thing.”
“We debate all the time,” says Puppet of Arnold. “I think he’s given up. What else is there to say? I’m not going to change my mind.”
With this, at least, Arnold agrees. “I don’t expect he’s ever going to change,” he says, “but I hope to change businesses that host him and to eliminate the audience.”
***
We’ve settled on the massive Rock n’ Roll McDonald’s west of the Loop as where Puppet will pick me up for the trip to Indianapolis. When he finally calls my cell, it’s an hour after we’re supposed to meet, and I’m in line for a sundae. “Hey bro,” he says. “We’re here. Oh, I see you.”
I scan the restaurant, but don’t see him. I look past an overweight couple, and a woman in a blouse. “Where are you?” I say into the phone.
I’m jarred off the phone when I hear an authoritative voice from below: “DOWN.”
There’s Puppet, wearing a blue Underarmour work-out jersey and shorts that come down to his crew socks. The woman in the blouse I recognize now as Cameo, who I met at the Bar Chicago show. A busty, tattooed woman of normal height, Cameo at times calls herself Puppet’s girlfriend, although Puppet’s already told me he’s married. I wonder how long Puppet has been standing four feet away from me, and curse myself for not realizing I had to lower my sight line.
Puppet laughs at my faux-pas and slaps my hand in greeting. I shake Cameo’s hand.
We head out to the rental car, a grey sedan that smells like stale cigarette smoke. “If you’re wondering how midgets drive,” Puppet says as he climb in, “I made this out of duct tape and nails.” Two rectangular poles covered in duct-tape come up to a couple of inches below the driver’s seat. In his own car, Puppet has Easy Rider Pedal Extenders, available for around $200 online; these are hand-made versions for the rental.
We hit the road, and Puppet’s mood sours instantly when we hit a snarl of traffic on a highway on-ramp. “Oh, fuck!” he screams. “Don’t these people have jobs? It’s one o’clock; who the fuck are these people!”
“The people behind you are probably saying the same thing,” I point out, trailing off towards the end. The image flashes in my head of Puppet pulling up the parking brake, hurling himself between the two front seats onto me, and executing a seated full nelson. Instead, I see in the rear-view mirror that he raises his eyebrows and slowly nods, as if my concept were one he had never considered before.
Soon, we’re stuck in traffic in a construction zone. One of the workers glances at our car, and then, turning to the other, points us out with a thumb thrown behind him. I see the word “midget” mouthed. One of the workers’ face lights up, like a little girl’s who’s just been told a pony is nearby. He mouths, “Really?” As he tries to discreetly peer over his coworker’s shoulder to our car, we begin moving again.
I’m reminded of a rant Puppet went on during his stand-up routine at the Bar Chicago show. “All you long-legged motherfuckers get boob jobs, butt jobs, nose jobs; why?” he began. “So people will stare at you. I get stared at when I go out on my front lawn to pick up my newspaper. People stop in their cars and say, ‘Hey, midget, can I take a picture?’”
