I’m a big fan of stand-up comedy, but I’m pretty picky when it comes to what I enjoy most. I don’t like filth for the sake of filth (Andrew Dice Clay). Never been a fan of prop comedy (Carrot Top). And I hate, hate, hate ventriloquists.

Ventriloquists are to comedy what dentists are to medicine. They’re nowhere near as good as the real pros and going to see one is always painful. The puppets are creepy, you can always see their lips moving, and the comedy is typically the ventriloquist playing straight man to the ever-so-clever dummy, ending up as a bad impression of Laurel & Hardy or The Smothers Brothers.

Having said that, there is certainly an exception to every rule. For ventriloquists, Jeff Dunham is that exception.

If you’ve seen this guy perform before, feel free to skip today’s entry and come back Thursday when we’ll be discussing the cultural significance and societal impact of Ice Cube films. If you’re never seen Jeff Dunham before, you’re really missing something special. Ventriloquism is an art form, however annoying or shoddily practiced, and Dunham is without a doubt the best you’ll ever see. What this guy does with puppets on stage is nothing short of genius, and what he does with puppets off stage is none of your goddamn business.

I saw Jeff Dunham in a half hour special on Showtime when I was a kid, and it was one of those rare things you wish you’d recorded because you know there’s no way you’ll be able to explain why it was so amazing. “Dad! You gotta see this! There’s this guy and some puppets and one’s an old man and then there’s a jalapeno one and it’s SO HYSTERICAL!” Just doesn’t sound impressive, does it? (And I’m realizing now that this entry is a prolonged version of the same statement.) (Sorry.)

So I shut up about it and moved on with my life, which at that point was pretty much waiting to see what was on Showtime next. Hopefully soft core porn, which is all Showtime is good for anyway when you’re fourteen. (And when you’re 32, as it turns out.) (Sorry again.)

About ten years ago, I saw in the paper that Jeff Dunham was coming to Baltimore, so I took my girlfriend to go see him. She was so blown away that we got tickets for a bunch of friends for the following night. The next time he was in town, we took our families. Everyone loved the show and was amazed at Dunham’s skill. Up until last week, I hadn’t seen him since.

The down side of ventriloquism is that it doesn’t work on CD or radio, so guys like Dunham are pretty much stuck with live shows to get the word out. Busy as I’ve been during those years, I don’t get the chance to get to the shows anymore, and I must have missed any TV spots he did. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled across his new DVD last week, which is currently the #8 best seller on Amazon.com. It arrived yesterday, I watched it last night, and he’s every bit as funny and talented as I remember.

To try to sum it up quickly, the biggest thing to know is that the guy is funny. Not always the case with ventriloquists and prop comics. He does play the straight man in his act, but his characters have so much personality that it’s definitely not your standard puppet fare. These aren’t the cheeky little boy puppets you saw so often growing up. Dunham’s suitcase posse is filled out with a hostile old man, a zany alien, a jalapeno on a stick, his black “pimp” manager, and a few others. Sounds crazy, I know. And it is. Crazy funny.

And the other big thing to note is that Dunham’s gift for ventriloquism is incredible. Yeah, you can see the mechanics of it if you watch him, but you get so wrapped up in the show and the characters that the “I saw his lips move!” thing is the last thing on your mind. As an example, when I saw his live act, his finale was the alien puppet in one hand and the jalapeno guy in the other. So he’s doing his part and two puppets at once. Then he announced that he’d just gotten the alien a tiny puppet of his own.

I still don’t know how he did it, but there he was speaking for three puppets at once, occasionally also doing the muffled voices of the other puppets he’d already stuffed back into their cases. Absolute genius. The DVD contains a similar finale.

Anyway, you guys should check it out. I saw that the shortened, censored version is airing on Comedy Central this month, and the expanded, uncensored DVD is available in stores now and at Amazon via the link below.

Tags: jeff dunham, ventriloquist, ventriloquism, comedians