[3] In response to increasing requests for live demonstrations, in 1997 Morley enlisted fellow Australian, David "Friendy" Friend, to devise a performance show consisting of body-based genital comedy.

Puppetry of the Penis was first performed on stage at the 1998 Melbourne International Comedy Festival in Australia, featuring the creators, Morley and Friend, as the premiere cast.

[7] The show has since appeared on the international stage, featuring productions in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe, Canada, the United States, South Africa and Argentina.

[2][8] The duo has recruited supporting production teams and actors across Australia, the UK and the U.S., allowing international performance demands to be met.

[4] Morley's first demonstration, held in a garage in 1997, was received well by audience members, and encouraged him to pursue the creation of a stage show in which to showcase the tricks.

[4] Morley originally intended to recruit his brother to perform the act alongside him, however he had already committed to a part on the Australian TV show Neighbours.

[15] The tricks include the Big Mac, the Loch Ness Monster, the wristwatch, the pelican, the Eiffel Tower, the hamburger, the bulldog, the windsurfer and others.

[8] Puppetry of the Penis returned to tour Australia in March 2001, with a new cast consisting of Daniel Lewry, Steve Harrison and Jim MacGregor, under the management of Ross Mollison Productions.

The show continued to perform each year at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, hosted at the Athenaeum Theatre, produced by A-List Entertainment production company.

[7][12] This was followed by performances in New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Norway, The Netherlands, Argentina, Switzerland and Iceland.

The original creators, Morley and Friend, starred in the production, which featured an opening stand-up comedy act by Wendy Vousden.

[22] The cast consisted of Rich Binning, Chris Cannon, Christopher Goodwin and Gavin Stewart, with opening acts by Rachel Feinstein, Giulia Rozzi and Amy Schumer.

Lyn Gardner of The Guardian called the production a "gently witty, surprisingly charming little show", and remarked that the material was handled with "a high degree of decorum".

[24] British critic Jill Sharp called the show a "theatrical extravaganza, celebrating with tongue-in-cheek innocence the flexibility of the phallus".

Conservative art critic Roger Kimball of the New Criterion magazine called the production as "a juvenile example of the normalisation of deviance", likening it to toilet humour.

[18] Performance shows outside the pornography industry that feature genitalia risk breaching obscenity laws, even when legitimatised as genuine works of art.

[28] While the council was not able to prohibit performances of the show in other venues in the municipal, city authorities retained the power to ban the production at the civic opera house.

Despite reviewing the ban at the request of Executive Producer Thomas Milazzo, the councils ultimately refused to allow the show to use their facilities.

[31] Due to controversies surrounding the show, Salt Lake City's NBC affiliate station, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, refused to broadcast the program.

[8][31] In August 2004, during a U.S. tour of the production, Chicago Citizens for Community advocacy group filed a complaint, claiming that the show was "illegal and subject to law enforcement".

[26] On 4 October 2002, Morley and Friend were interviewed on KRON-TV's Morning News show to promote performances of Puppetry of the Penis in San Francisco.

[20][33] The Enforcement Bureau of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received a complaint from a viewer[15] and launched an investigation into alleged television broadcast indecency.

[34] The council concluded that the depictions of penises in the episode did not contravene its policies around nudity, as it was relevant and appropriate within the narrative context, but it found The Comedy Network culpable for not running a viewer advisory around the use of four-letter words in the dialogue.

It featured new performers Brett Hartin and Aaron Bloomfield, and showcased home videos from the United States tour of the production.