Chucky

Appearances

Original series

Chucky first appeared in the 1988 film Child's Play. In the film, a serial killer named Charles Lee Ray (Brad Dourif), known as "The Lakeshore Strangler" and also by the nickname "Chucky", uses a voodoo ritual to transfer his soul into a Good Guy brand doll after being shot by Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon). Pretending to be an inanimate object, Chucky later is given to young Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) by his mother Karen Barclay (Catherine Hicks) and begins terrorizing the family. Chucky learns that he can only become human again by possessing the first person he told his real name to- Andy. The Barclays and Norris eventually kill Chucky by setting him on fire and shooting him.

In Child's Play 2, Chucky is repaired by Play Pals Inc., creator of the Good Guy dolls, leading to his resurrection. Chucky continues his pursuit of Andy, who has been placed in foster care. Andy is terrorized at his new home and at school, leading to the deaths of his teacher (Beth Grant), case worker (Grace Zabriskie) and foster parents (Jenny Agutter, Gerrit Graham). Meanwhile, Andy's foster sister Kyle (Christine Elise) learns that Chucky is alive. Chased to the Good Guy doll factory, Andy and Kyle kill Chucky by partially melting him with molten plastic and then blowing his head up with an air-hose.

In Child's Play 3, Chucky is inadvertently resurrected eight years later when a splash of his blood is mixed with molten plastic being used to produce new Good Guy dolls. He finds that a now teenage Andy (Justin Whalin) is currently enrolled at a military academy. Chucky attempts to possess the body of a young boy named Tyler, but is stopped by Andy and his love interest Kristin de Silva (Perrey Reeves), with his body being shredded apart by a giant fan.

Chucky is reconstructed and resurrected by his former girlfriend Tiffany Valentine (Jennifer Tilly). When Tiffany learns Chucky had no intentions of marrying her, she holds him captive. Chucky escapes, kills Tiffany and transfers her soul into a female doll. Chucky explains that in order for them to transfer their souls again, they need a magical amulet called the Heart of Damballa, which was buried with his body in Hackensack, New Jersey. Tiffany calls and convinces her neighbor Jesse (Nick Stabile) to take the dolls to Hackensack.

With his girlfriend Jade (Katherine Heigl), Jesse takes the dolls to Hackensack, with Chucky and Tiffany killing multiple people along the way. The dolls also have sex one night, unknowingly impregnating Tiffany. Chucky and Tiffany take Jesse and Jade hostage to be their new host-bodies, but Tiffany has a change of heart and betrays Chucky. Chucky kills her before being shot to death by Jade. Shortly after, an infant doll crawls from Tiffany's corpse, attacking a police officer.

Reboot film

In the 2019 reboot, Chucky (voiced by Mark Hamill) is a high-tech artificially-intelligent "Buddi" doll created by the Kaslan Corporation. Primarily designed to be a life-long companion to its owner by learning from its surroundings, Buddi dolls can also connect to and operate other Kaslan products.

Chucky has his safety protocols disabled by a disgruntled Kaslan employee during the assembly process, and as a result, Chucky gradually develops violent tendencies as he tries to eliminate anyone stopping him from being "best friends" with his owner Andy Barclay (Gabriel Bateman). Together with his mother and some of his friends, Andy is eventually able to kill Chucky and burn his remains. However, another Kasland doll elsewhere begins to malfunction, hinting that Chucky's consciousness may have transferred into it.

In popular culture

A short film entitled Chucky's Vacation Slides was included on the home media release of Seed of Chucky in 2005, and in 2013, a series of short film videos titled Chucky Invades were released leading up to the DVD release of Curse of Chucky. The clips showed Chucky interrupting the events of Psycho, The Purge, Mama, and Drag Me to Hell.

Chucky has a brief cameo as a program in the OASIS virtual reality simulation in the film adaptation of Ready Player One (2018).

Chucky presented an examination of foreign language horror films for the first annual Horror Hall of Fame in 1990. In October 1998, Chucky confronted Gene Okerlund and Rick Steiner for an episode of WCW Monday Nitro and appeared on Saturday Night Live as well, both appearances were used to promote Bride of Chucky. Chucky returned to Saturday Night Live in 2022, with Sarah Sherman portraying him. Chucky appeared in the fourth episode of Robot Chicken titled "Plastic Buffet", where he is voiced by Mark Hamill. He also made various appearances in The Simpsons. In October 2021, Chucky co-hosted NXT: Halloween Havoc. Chucky returned at NXT Halloween Havoc in October 2022. A Chucky Yule Log was uploaded onto YouTube on December 22, 2022, and later on Peacock the following year.

Tie-in novelizations of Child's Play 2 and Child's Play 3 were written by author Matthew J. Costello and published in 1990 and 1991 respectively. The novelizations are notable for making some changes to the plots and Chucky's character. For example, Chucky is characterized to have an absent father and abusive mother with Dwarfism in the Child's Play 2 novelization, and his resurrection and death are substantially different in the Child's Play 3 novelization.

Beginning in 1990, Innovation Publishing released the first comic books based on the films, in the form of a three-issue adaptation of Child's Play 2. The success of the adaptation led to a monthly series of new stories starting in 1991. The series, titled Child's Play, ended in 1992 after only five issues. This was followed by a three-issue adaptation of Child's Play 3.

In 2007, Devil's Due Publishing obtained the license to publish Child's Play comics and released a one-shot crossover with Hack/Slash titled Hack/Slash vs. Chucky which takes place after the events of Seed of Chucky and features Chucky as the protagonist. This was followed by a four-issue series titled Chucky. A second volume began in early 2009 but ceased publication after only one issue.

Backstory

Events prior to Child's Play (1988)

Charles Lee Ray was born on May 1, 1958, in Hackensack, New Jersey, to Peter and Elizabeth Ray. In contrast to his claims that killing had been in his family for "generations", Charles is shown to have had a loving family growing up.

However, unknown to his parents, Charles suffered from sadistic and homicidal urges. When Charles returned home from trick-or-treating on Halloween in 1964, he noticed a razor blade stuck inside an apple. He bit into it regardless, allowing the razor to cut his mouth. On his seventh birthday in 1965, Charles behaved aggressively, using a mallet to knock a piñata to the ground and violently smash it.

Sometime later, a local serial killer known as "The Hackensack Slasher" broke into his home and killed his father. Entranced, Charles used a pocketknife to stab his mother to death, happily telling the Hackensack Slasher that he "helped." Impressed by the boy's actions, the Hackensack Slasher gave him advice on always covering his tracks. Charles was placed in the Burlington County Home for Wayward Boys. He received therapy from a woman named Dr. Amanda Mixter. Instead of helping young Charles, the psychotic Mixter encouraged him to embrace his homicidal tendencies.

Charles became known for playing with the smaller children at the home, and attempted to mold three boys into following his murderous footsteps, teaching them swear words and reading them fairy tales twisted to revolve around death. One day, he murdered a janitor and presented his body to the children, horrifying all of them with the exception of a young boy named Eddie Caputo. Charles later fled the home, leaving the janitor's severed hand behind as a gift for Eddie.

In 1986, Charles picked up a woman named Delilah and a red-headed woman from a nightclub and brought them back to a hotel. When Charles threatened the red-headed woman with a knife, he was shocked to find her sexually aroused. Ray then chose to kill Delilah instead, stabbing her and passing the knife to the red-head woman to join in. After killing her together, red-headed woman introduced herself as Tiffany. Charles (now going by "Chucky") and Tiffany became a couple and left Hackensack in 1987.

In 1988, Chucky and Tiffany had relocated to Chicago, Illinois. Chucky became an infamous serial killer known as "The Lakeshore Strangler", with both Tiffany and Eddie as accomplices. Chucky also began studying Voodoo under the guidance of a man named John Bishop.

Concept and creation

Design

Child's Play creator and co-writer Don Mancini explained that Chucky draws heavily from the My Buddy dolls: "In my original script, he was originally called Buddy, and we couldn't use it because of the 'My Buddy' doll. The director went out and got a 'My Buddy' doll, a Raggedy Ann, a Raggedy Andy, and one of those life-size baby infants. What I told [designer] Kevin Yagher was, I wanted something similar to a My Buddy doll. I described "Buddy" in my original script, now "Chucky", as wearing red-buttoned overalls, red sneakers, striped sweater, with red hair, blue eyes, and freckles. Kevin went off and sketched many designs of Chucky until the final was picked. Yagher then built the first doll from those sketches and my details".

Performance

For the first four films, Chucky was controlled by a team of nine puppeteers, led by Brock Winkless, who moved Chucky's mouth via radio control, wearing a rig that captured his mouth movement. The others were in charge of operating the doll's head, face, and limbs. By Curse of Chucky, Chucky's mouth, now performed by lead puppeteer Tony Gardner of Alterian, Inc., was now operated via a radio-control unit without the need for a rig, and the doll himself now required fewer people to bring him to life. For the first film, for scenes where Chucky had to move around in wide shots, a little-person actor in a life-sized costume, Ed Gale, would portray Chucky in scenes where the character is walking, the props on the set enlarged to fit the size of the actor.