What a Dummy is a syndicated television sitcom that lasted for one season in 1990 until 1991. The premise of the show was that the Brannigan family of Secaucus, New Jersey was getting advice from a talking, thinking ventriloquist's dummy named Buzz (voiced by Loren Freeman), who had been locked in a trunk for fifty years before being discovered by the family. Kaye Ballard played the family's next-door neighbor, Mrs. Treva Travalony. The animatronic puppet used for Buzz was created by special effects artists Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. of Amalgamated Dynamics, and puppeteered by Mark Rappaport.