Gary

*This article is about a character from Puppet Combo's Murder House. This should not be confused with Gary (Booty Creek Cheek Freak) from Black Eyed Priest's Booty Creek Cheek Freak.*

## Biographical Overview

### Career

Television producer
Former journalist (Novel)

## Misc. Information

### Appearances

*Murder House*

**“***I don't pay you to think, Dana. I pay you to read the goddamn script. [...] This isn't 60 Minutes, Dana. It's. Channel. Fucking. 9. We're not here to win a Pulitzer.***”**
— **Gary crushing Dana's minimum expectations**

**Gary** is a supporting character in *Murder House*.

## Description

### Appearance

Gary is a tall, overweight, middle-aged Caucasian man with balding black hair, a pencil mustache and ample chest hair. He wore a pink, loosely buttoned Hawaiian shirt, a gold chain with a dollar pendant, black circular-patterned pants, brown shoes, and silver-rimmed, orange-tinted sunglasses. He is typically seen smoking a cigarette.

Gary's alternate outfit has him wearing a white T-shirt instead of his usual dress shirt.

### Personality

Gary was, by all accounts, lazy, sleazy, sardonic, rude, and generally unpleasant to interact with, caring only about getting the much needed ratings for his work and treating his subordinates and colleagues poorly with little to no respect. He frequently butted heads with Dana, who shared his stubborn and self-centered demeanor, was uncaring of Tom, viewing him as disposable and non-essential to the operation, and switched between belittling and patronizing Emma, never bothering to learn her name, yet later making empty promises of advancing her career if she "put in the extra effort, if you know what I mean".

### History

Gary worked as a producer for Channel 9, a minor TV studio operating out of near Monroe, Michigan, as the assigned supervisor of their news network.

In late April, 1987, Gary bribed Jerry, a local real estate agent, with 100$ for permission to film on the grounds of the Murder House, the former residence of the Easter Ripper, a notorious child abductor and murderer executed two years earlier. Hoping to get the scoop of a lifetime, he took a news van with a small film crew, consisting of disgraced ex-news anchor Dana, mild-mannered cameraman Tom and a newly-hired intern assistant named Emma, to make a true crime documentary on the Easter Ripper, called "*Silenced Tears: Inside the home of serial killer Anthony Smith*".

## *Murder House*

In the late hours of May 1st, Gary and his team arrive at the Easter Ripper's house in their van. With the realtor nowhere to be found and the front door locked, he instructs Emma to find them a way in and then carry all the equipment inside. After setting everything up and turning the power back on, they shoot the first sequence on the ground floor. Seeing Emma as being more useful than he had given her credit for, he incentivizes her to keep up the good work by saying that the documentary, which, by the look of things, would amount to little more than a slideshow with commentary, was going to be a major help for her to get ahead at the channel.

Although Gary insists that the crew just has to get the basics for a sensationalist piece, he spontaneously decides to make the final product more interesting and tells Emma to put on a white blanket and run past Dana during the shoot to make it appear as if the place was haunted. He sends the intern out to get some pizzas for dinner in town while they prepare in the upstairs room. Emma returns shortly afterwards and tells Gary that the van is destroyed. Gary assumes it was the real estate agent trying to sabotage them for not yet receiving his second half of the bribe and angrily shouts for him to reveal his presence to no avail. The power then suddenly cuts again before they can continue with the shooting. With Dana unwilling to film without her lunch and annoyed at the conditions, Gary tells Emma to go find Tom.

### Death

Later on, after Emma unlocks and enters a bedroom, Gary appears in the doorway behind her. Aware of what's happening, he exclaims that Dana is dead and orders Emma to help him escape. Unfortunately for Gary, the Easter Ripper appears behind him and vertically cuts his stomach open as he turns around and leaves his corpse on the floor. Emma survives by hiding under the bed. When Emma returns after retrieving the second egg from the real estate agent's body, Gary's corpse can be found in the same room, now hanging by a chain with his stomach cavity ripped wide open, with another egg, fittingly with the reversed tarot of the Hanged Man printed on, inside of his stomach that Emma takes.

### Extended ending

In the end whole event was revealed to be part of the film. Gary's actor Dan is found inside his trailer in the backyard, laying on the bed, unable to move after eating tons of (3) pizzas since he had nothing else to do since his character died. He complains to Sarah (actress who played Emma) about the filming conditions and how he wishes to leave "this hell set" as soon as possible. When she brings up that people really did die in the house they used for the movie, Dan assures her that those are just rumors. At further interaction, Dan says that he plans to take a long hot shower after this "sleazy picture".

Gary's "corpse" can still be found hanged up in the bedroom, where Sarah comments that the prop they used looks very authentic.

## Murder House: The Book

Gary's character remains almost entirely unchanged, barring some additional scenes preceding and following the events of the game, which add to his previously unmentioned background.

* Gary was the one who inducted Emma into Channel 9's news team, claiming that it would be "a great opportunity" for her, much like he says after the first filming segment in-game.
* Before the documentary shoot, Gary was already the acting superior for Dana, Tom, and Emma, bossing them around much the same he does at the Murder House.
* Gary was present during Dana's poodle incident, for which he was at least partially to blame for, since he goaded Dana into handling the dogs despite her openly voicing her distaste for them.
* There is exposition for Gary's reason and initial urgency for wanting to make the documentary. Channel 9's rival, Channel 5, was making a 5-year anniversary special about the murder of one of their reporter's, Chip Winston, at the hands of Neokalus Burr (which is described in the Babysitter Bloodbath novelization). In an attempt to profit off of their hype-up of true crime, Gary and some other producers planned to also release a serial killer documentary, this one about the Easter Ripper.
* Gary's private life is briefly touched on when Emma enters his office in search of a phone number. Gary, back when he was younger and slimmer, used to be a journalist himself, having graduated university with an unspecified degree, and at one point, he met and shook hands with Richard Nixon during his 1969-1974 presidency. Gary is also revealed to have a daughter, but as far as Emma has heard, he has not been in close contact with her, outside the holiday season, for the last four years.
* TBA

## Trivia

* He was voiced by Dan Weissenberger, who runs the Hidden Object Guru Youtube Channel.
* The reversal of Gary's tarot, the Hanged Man, can tellingly stand for selfishness and missed opportunities.
* Before the first shoot, Gary mentions that he wants to finish the documentary before evening, as he wants to watch a sports game where the "The Bucks" are playing, since he put a bet on their victory. He is probably referring to the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, who, in real life, had a match on that date (May 1st, 1988) between the Atlanta Hawks, which the Bucks lost.
* Despite Gary being taller than Tom, when he ambushes him as the Easter Ripper, the latter seems to tower slightly over his victim.
* In the unreleased build, he is shown to have originally wore a white shirt with a necktie. The model was retextured to its current appearance, while the original one had its face changed and was used for Jerry.
* Gary's bloodied corpse model is also used in *Night of the Clowns*, for a dead body sitting on a chair at the beginning of the game, from where some handwritten instructions and a handgun can be found.
* In the extended ending, Gary was shown to have been played by an in-universe version of Dan Weissenberger.