A Funny Thing Happened by Mike Murphy | Script Revolution

A Funny Thing Happened

A ventriloquist starts questioning his sanity when his dummy begins speaking in Spanish during their club act, a language the ventriloquist doesn't know.

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28pp

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Based On: 
My audio play.
Synopsis/Details: 

A noted ventriloquist begins questioning his sanity when his dummy starts speaking in Spanish, a language he doesn't know. His agent comes to the conclusion that someone - another ventriloquist? - is trying to steal his act. He reasons that it was probably all in fun and will never happen again.

Days later, while following up on a TV opportunity for his client, the agent gets a call. The ventriloquist was doing his act at a club when the dummy started speaking Spanish again. The ventriloquist began screaming at the dummy angrily, before collapsing to the floor. He has been taken to the hospital.

At the hospital, we learn he had a heart attack. While convalescing at home, the ventriloquist is visited by a deliveryman with flowers. The man is actually a big fan and the amateur ventriloquist who stole the act. The two men have a screaming match, where the sick man has another heart attack and dies.

Frightened, the amateur is confronted by the dummy who says that he now belongs to him. They'll be going on the road together. The newcomer doesn't know what to think, but the dummy reminds him of one fact: If you ever think about leaving me in some podunk town after a gig, just that remember that I don't need to sleep. You do.

Submitted: May 3, 2019
Last Updated: October 16, 2024

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The Writer: Mike Murphy

Mike, a four-time Parsec Awards finalist, has had over 150 audio plays produced in the U.S. and overseas. He’s won a dozen Moondance International Film Festival Awards (winner, finalist, and semi-finalist) in their TV pilot, audio play, short screenplay, and short story categories. A more complete list of awards is presented below by year. In 2025, his TV pilot script Milly Foster, Macabre Investigator was a quarter-finalist in the Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Awards (Season 9). In the same year, Mike's screenplay Die Laughing was a semi-finalist in the 2025 New York International Screenplay Awards. In 2020, his screenplay Die Laughing was a semi-finalist in the Unique Voices Screenplay... Go to bio

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