Puppets. Off-color humor. Off-color humor involving puppets. What could go wrong?

Well, plenty, if BurleyQ is any indication.

This exhaustingly awful entrant into the Capital Fringe Festival may appear to have a wacky, whimsical premise, but instead is the kind of show where you find yourself digging your nails into the knee of your theatergoing companion, eagerly waiting for the 50 minutes to pass. Think painfully bad jokes, laughably poor production value, frequently off-key singing, mediocre-at-best puppetry, leads with a complete absence of stage presence, and an air of self-congratulatory “edginess” that never lives up to its pretensions.

BurleyQ has one good gag — a puppet that strips. But this underwhelming climax is hardly worth the flubbed lines and pathetic attempts at humor that bring us to this point. The fact that someone’s gay isn’t inherently funny. Neither is the fact that a woman loves gin. Racial stereotypes aren’t automatically daring, either. BurleyQ’s Professor Kipley and Buttons Stafford open and close their cabaret-style performance with the grating, “It’s Cheap, But It Always Works.” Well, they’re right about the former.

Get your inappropriate puppet fix when AvenueQ makes its way to the National later this year, and steer clear of its cringe-worthy copycat. If you’d rather not heed our advice, remaining shows are at Friday at 7, Saturday at 6:30 and Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Warehouse Next Door. Tickets are available online.