Puppets Who Kill is a Canadian television comedy series produced by PWK Productions and originally broadcast on The Comedy Network. It premiered in Canada in 2002, and Australia on The Comedy Channel in 2004. It has also been broadcast in India, South Korea and Germany. The series was on the digital network Hulu and is currently on CONtv and Tubi in the United States.

PWK began as a one-man live theatre show written and performed by comedian/puppeteer John Pattison at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 1995. It later morphed into the series, using the same dark topics and featuring some of the same puppet characters. In 1999, a pilot for Puppets Who Kill was produced for the Comedy Network and broadcast in January 2000. The network ordered the first season of 13 episodes, which was produced in the fall of 2001, held back by the network for one year, and finally broadcast in the fall of 2002. For the next 3 years, a new season of the series was produced every fall.

In Puppets Who Kill, Rocko the Dog, Cuddles the Comfort Doll, Buttons the Bear, and Bill the Ventriloquist Dummy are four puppets with anthropomorphic qualities including individual histories of delinquency and recidivism. Canadian courts sent each of them to a halfway house for puppets, operated by a hapless and somewhat incompetent social worker named Dan Barlow, played by Dan Redican.

Rocko (puppeteer Bruce Hunter), is a foul-mouthed, chain-smoking Miniature Schnauzer who formerly worked on a children's television program. The job required him to control his language and behavior, but eventually, a berserk outburst on set ended his career. He takes medication to temper his violent mood swings.

Cuddles (puppeteer Bob Martin) is a comfort doll designed to help people cope with their problems. However, as the introductory voice-over to each episode informs the viewer, it is Cuddles who is now the problem. The chronic subordination of his own needs to those of others caused him to explode one day, grab a rifle, and start shooting. Despite this eruption, Cuddles is generally the best-behaved of the group, although his naivete often gets him and his fellow residents at the halfway house into trouble. He cannot handle pressure well, lacks self-assertiveness, and shows signs of a passive-aggressive personality disorder.

Buttons (puppeteer James Rankin) is a teddy bear with eyes consisting of two buttons. Unlike the others, Buttons is not so much a killer as a lover. In fact, he is a womanizer with no sense of sexual propriety who is remarkably successful in attracting eager human females. Buttons lives by the hedonistic motto "If it feels good, do it". He once had a lucrative corporate sponsorship deal with the Happy Elf Peanut Butter Company, but the sponsor exercised the "moral turpitude" clause in his contract once details of his promiscuous behavior leaked to the press.

Bill (puppeteer Gord Robertson) is a ventriloquist's dummy with a menacing smile and psychopathic tendencies. Fifty-eight of his partners have died in "accidents". Bill's nemesis is the Rasputin-like Curious Bob (John Hemphill), a former partner whom Bill has unsuccessfully attempted to murder on four occasions. In an episode featuring Bill's trial, his adoptive mother relates facts about his past that indicate the possible sources of his homicidal vengefulness; for example, that Bill had some bowel problems as a child and would defecate in his pants, thus earning him the nickname "poopy pants" from his peers. Bill also has a small penis and oddly shaped gonads which his maker gave him in order to encourage humility but which instead produced only more humiliation for Bill, perhaps explaining his gruesome hobby of collecting the testicles of men who have somehow been mysteriously deprived of them. Bill was at some point castrated himself, and is now a eunuch.

Dan Barlow is a social worker who runs the halfway house where the puppets live but who shows himself ill-suited to his particular vocation. He has difficulty with his moral compass, finds himself easily swept up in events, and often makes poor decisions. Although he genuinely cares about his charges, Dan's primary concern is keeping the halfway house open thus preserving his job.