Potter Puppet Pals

About

Potter Puppet Pals is a popular webseries created by influential web content creator Neil Cicierega which is a spoof of the Harry Potter series of books and movies. Although Potter Puppet Pals is Neil’s original creation, there have been a number of additional Potter Puppet Pals videos created by fans. The topic of Potter Puppet Pals has been a regular on forums and boards across the internet since the release of the first videos in 2003.

Origin

Beginning late 2003,^[1] Neil Cicierega (also notable for Animutations^[4]) created his first flash animated Potter Puppet Pals video, “Bothering Snape.”^[2] In late September 2006, Neil published the first of the live action Potter Puppet Pals on his Youtube account.^[3] Shortly after, in March of 2007 Neil released Potter Puppet Pals in “The Mysterious Ticking Noise.”

This video became one of Youtube’s most popular videos for a time, accumulating over 72 million views during it’s first two years on the site and has gained over 150 million views as of April 2014.

Fan Response Animations

Just as the popularity of Harry Potter grew a following for the series and lead to parodies such as PPP, PPP’s own popularity has lead to to a wide variety of knock-offs. Whether they serve to satirize the series, pay tribute to, or add their own additional commentary, these videos together have transformed PPP into a popular webseries.

Search Insights

As seen below, Google Trends reports searches for Potter Puppet Pals has been on the decline in recent years, but had a spike in popularity in mid 2004, late 2005, and again in mid 2007. Searches for Neil also reached a peak in late 2005/early 2006.

Sources

^[1]Facebook – PotterPuppetPals

^[2]AlbinoBlackSheep – Bothering Snape Flash Animation

^[3]YouTube – NeilCicierega

^[4]Evilrailmix – Animutation