Punch and Judy 1832 Book

This is a scan of a 1832 Punch and Judy script.

Predating vaudeville, Punch and Judy--with its giddy violence, its cast of stock characters, its bits and jokes and gags, its irredeemable misogyny, its clowning, its anticipation of nonsense and absurdity and mumbling as aesthetic pleasures--is also the phantom haunting the format and internal dynamics of every television sitcom. It does it first. It does it better. There is also a lurking horror within which I doubt is just a product of its times, that "we know better" now.  Its urge to offend is almost theological in scale, undoubtedly compulsive.

If the dynamics at base in Punch and Judy's relationship (Man and Woman as the comedic Straight Man vs. Clown duo, Auguste vs. Joey framework, manipulator vs. victim sketch, a level of implied and/or actual violence perpetually close to lighting up the sparkers) are the spiritual ancestor of The Honeymooners, The Honeymooners goes on to be the spiritual ancestor of all other situation comedies. If one wanted to make the case that there is a level of self-critique going on in regards to Punch's sociopathic hatred of women, it would be that Men (and here the concept Men is expressly, specifically gendered Male) are monsters.

The irredeemable tone and frequency of Punch's violent outbursts makes this very modern-seeming text curiously resistant to domestication, to colonization into a moral text or a sentimental one.

More scripts.