WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1112 - Jeff Dunham

Episode Date: April 6, 2020

A lot of comedians spend years or decades finding their voice on stage, but Jeff Dunham was very young when he settled on his comic voice. He then proceeded to throw that voice, to great success. Jeff tells Marc what attracted him to ventriloquism, how he studied it, and where he started doing it. Jeff also explains how he designs and creates new puppets, why he uses the puppets when he’s interviewed on the radio, and how he’s responded to accusations of racial insensitivity in his characters. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those, too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.

Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck nicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast.

WTF. In lockdown. Indefinitely. How are you holding up? It's weird. It's getting weirder and more... It's scarier and stranger and time becomes a smear on the calendar. Just one day into the next, don't know what day it is. I didn't know what day it was today when I woke up. I didn't know what day Saturday was. There's none of the, what is it, signposts or lampposts or signifiers or just habits that define your days.

It's fucking nuts, man. Overfocusing on cats because i don't have kids it's like wondering what they're up to i i really think it's gotten to the point where my cats are like this is getting to be a bit much with this guy here in our house all the time you know it's getting a little intense for the cats i think and just it's really a test of some kind obviously we got the mask thing now that uh here in los angeles i think all over california we gotta wear masks when we go outside i sort of started to do that before they kind of instituted as a requirement. I still am not clear on whether I should do it while I'm jogging. There's no one

out there. And if there is, I get much further than six feet away from them. I really run from people. I'll be jogging, then I'll see a person person then i'll run from them they don't know it they think i'm just jogging but i'm running from them i'm running as far away from them as i can watching some movies we watched uh the pawnbroker on criterion with rod steiger i don't know if that was on criterion was it maybe it was sydney lumet. Fucking heavy, man. I thought I'd seen it. Wasn't sure if I'd seen it. And after I watched it, I'm pretty sure I didn't see it. And complete soul obliteration. Of being in a concentration camp. Before he moved to America. And all of the baggage that would bring.

Just living his life as a pawnbroker in Harlem. But never being able to get out from under. The ongoing concentration camp in his mind. Steiger was genius. I think it's from 1965. Didn't have to be in black and white. I believe that was a choice. But man, if I did see it, I believe it traumatized me to the point where I couldn't remember seeing the whole movie.

And then we watched The Hospital, which I had seen fairly recently, Paddy Chayefsky screenplay. We just watched Fosse and Verdun, and I kind of wanted to see a Paddy Chayefsky movie. There are a couple I watch quite frequently, maybe one, Network, I watch at least once a year but i've taken to watching the hospital uh once a year as well with george c scott

because i really want to do a george c scott impression damn it i can't i'll get it you can't just go out there god damn it it. I'll get it. But that's a dark movie as well. It's a satire, which means there is something funny about it, but it's dark. So last night we had to find something light. Kind of ran through a lot of a list of 70s comedies. Seems to be the era we're kind of fucking around with. And came up with the frisco kid with gene wilder harrison ford i think it was from maybe 70

oh i don't know hold on hey google what year was the movie the Frisco Kid made? In the United States of America, The Frisco Kid came out on July 6th, 1979. Huh. 79. See, I thought it was pretty late. But Harrison Ford's pretty young. Gene Wilder is... It's just a great Gene Wilder movie. I don't know if you know the movie or how much you love Gene Wilder.

But Gene Wilder... I wanted something with some heart, with some humor. And, uh, it's, it's not that it's a great movie, but it's a great Gene Wilder movie.

The, the premise is, is that he plays the sort of runt of a yeshiva, like the worst rabbi at a yeshiva in Poland in 1850. And they send him to the United States to be the rabbi at a temple in San Francisco, 1850. So he comes over not knowing anything and tries to make his way across the country, meets Harrison Ford, who's a bank robber. They become best friends. The thing about Wilder is he really approaches the role in a very sincere way.

And it's a very beautiful and touching character. Just a lot of heart to the thing. And Gene Wilder was a beautiful performer comedically. A lot of it's schtick. A lot of it's sort of, I think it's a Robert Aldrich. I think he directed it. He directed a lot of different kinds of movies. It was probably later in his career.

But it was definitely, it was worth it. It's sweet. So today on the show, I'm going to talk to jeff dunham the ventriloquist that's a tough word for my mouth ventriloquist here's the deal i didn't realize maybe i did that he's sort of a polarizing figure for a couple of reasons and i understand one side of it from when i was younger you know is that a guy with puppets when i was coming up as a comic the fucking puppet guy got no respect at all because he was a puppet guy you know he was sort of the he was the brunt of a joke like a prop comic the puppet comic it was uh it was thought to be a i don't know if it was a hackney thing or just a kind of a mainstreamy mediocre thing but but guys like me

who were coming up as uh real stand-ups man were kind of hard on the uh the dunhams of the world both uh you know guitar acts or or puppet. But there are not that many puppet acts. Prop acts. There was a lot of prop acts. There was a lot of guitar acts. But at any given time. Oddly. For as much shit as someone like Jeff Dunham took.

Coming up. There weren't a lot of puppet guys. Modern puppet guys. There still aren't. Really. So I had to really wrestle with this. Now obviously with Jeff. You know, modern puppet guys, there still aren't really. So I had to really wrestle with this. Now, obviously, with Jeff Dunham, there was another layer of problems that some of his puppets were seen as racist. And I think that they were a little racist. And I talked to him about that.

But but that was the second level. That that was more of the indicting kind of, I'm sure the people that accused him of racism didn't like puppets either to begin with. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're two separate camps of not liking Jeff Dunham. But when the opportunity came up to interview Jeff, I, again, like I always do with my show, with comedians, the basis of this show originally was that, you know,

I interview comics and I interview people in show business mostly, but comics. And he's a comic. There's no doubt he's a comic. He holds a place in show business, in the nightclub realm, and there haven't been that many. so i had to put it into context of my sense of the history of comedy and obviously as i've gotten older i've become much more inclusive in terms of uh people who do different types of stuff there are people that do things uh

that have acts that i don't necessarily love but i talk to for different reasons but but to really talk to a ventriloquist, to talk to Jeff Dunham, somebody who I had judged negatively in my past, I had to go back into myself. Now, here we are with plenty of time to think. And I imagine some of you are using this time to think. I know I am. You know, think about who you are, where you come from come from what you like what's important to you you know why you do what you do and today wasn't a great day for me really you know today was one of those days where i really thought what if i was done you know what

i mean like i got all this downtime here i'm not thinking about stand up a lot. I'm not mad that I'm not working that much. I do this. This is still work. But really sort of like the place my brain went today was like, all right, so if we ever get through this, if life ever returns to some sort of normalcy, am I done? Could I be done? Is it okay to be done? I mean, that's going to hinge on, you know, how much of my savings disappear, but, but it was sort of a weird thought. And then it kind of frees up your brain to sort of think about, well, what, what do I want out of life? And where did I come from? I'm being kind of thoughtful or heady or, or, or nostalgic, or maybe even depressed. I'm not even sure. But when I had Jeff Dunham come over,

which was right before the social distancing started, but we were in it. We were in this sort of try to stay at home trip. But I had to really be honest with myself and in terms of how I approached him, which was there was a time, and I imagine I'm not alone in this. When I was a kid, it was probably 1970-ish, I lived in the paneled basement of our first

house in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had moved from Alaska. There was shag carpet, two beds. Me and my brother lived down there in the basement there, had its own bathroom and a little, another room attached to it, but it was a basement. But we were down there, we were down there. And that for some reason, we had a certain amount of freedom. I remember I had posters up that were inappropriate for a kid my age, given that I was seven or eight, had a poster of Dennis Hopper and Easy Rider

hanging up down there. I had the horoscope of sexual positions in a blacklight poster. I don't know why. I do not know why. That shows how perhaps irresponsible my parents were. I don't know. But the point is, there was a brief period there

where I was fascinated and loved ventriloquism. And I'm trying to think who I had seen I knew who Edgar Bergen was I had to do some research I don't know how I knew about ventriloquism but like any other kid you know it was sort of an old-timey thing even when I was a kid obviously but it was one of those things almost it was sort of a kind of a nerdy undertaking that if you could get your parents to buy the doll, you give it a try. Like if you ever were like a seven-year-old kid and you saw that, you saw the ventriloquism, why wouldn't you want to try that? And I just remember there was a period there, short, where I was mildly obsessed with it. Now, the doll, the dummy, that was sort of a kind of a big tag toy purchase. Like the ventriloquist dummy that they had back then was still kind of based on Edgar Bergen's dolls.

There was a Charlie McCarthy and a Mortimer Snurd. Those were the two I remember. And I think there was another ventriloquist, Paul Winchell, who had a dummy named Jerry Mahoney, who looked similar, similar facial features. Mortimer Snurd had kind of a doofus face. And Charlie McCarthy was more of, he had a top hat and a monocle. I remember I made my brother take Mortimer Snurd. I wanted Charlie McCarthy.

And you try it for a little while. He's a little dressed up dummies. You put your hand in the back of their head and you make them talk. And it was, you know, I mean, I don't remember how much those dolls were, but they weren't cheap. They weren't expensive. They were plastic heads. But, you know, you hear about like, you know, the mean, I don't remember how much those dolls were, but they weren't cheap. They weren't expensive. They were plastic heads. But, you know, you hear about like, you know, the real heads or you do the reading when you're a kid.

And this might be generational, like the real heads are made out of wood. And, you know, to get a real dummy and you want the real dummy, but you don't even know how to do it yet. But it doesn't last long. It didn't stick with me. But there was a period there where I thought it was fascinating and I wanted to do it. And I had a doll. I had a Charlie McCarthy doll. Now, if that doll hangs around long enough as you grow up, you know, eventually it ends up with no clothes.

And it's just this weird pillow with this ventriloquist head on it. At some point, maybe the head comes off off depending on where your life takes you in high school either it ends up a prop you know at a punk show or maybe a piece of art you know if you if you're kind of a arty kid in high school and the head the head will travel the dummy head will travel it will end up in many places that have nothing to do with its body and that have nothing to do with its original intent that have nothing to do with its original intent if it hangs around long enough and you don't give a fuck about ventriloquism you'll find other uses for the head and the doll i think i gave mine to an artist in high school

no clothes on it and i think the head ended up part of a part of a got to, you have to, it's a sad thing is you have to un-Charlie McCarthy. You have to take away the monocle. You have to strip it of its original identity to just make it the head and to have other implications, either scary or ponderous. Why is that head in that piece? What does the head have to do with that tree?

Why is there a small cage? Yeah, installations were, you know, they could go anywhere, man. But it was my interest at that time that I was able to tap into while talking to Jeff Dunham, because I was able to find them again and legitimately find them again and I became very interested in that stuff because he is the best but it's weird because I did have to overcome the only way I could overcome what was once a kind of judgmental resentment of this entertainer and he's a huge entertainer jeff dunham is is to kind of reach back into my own memory in my own childhood to find that excitement and that

curiosity and i was thrilled to do it really and it turned out to be a great talk it was very interesting to me and it is a unique skill however you want to condescend whatever you want to say about like fucking puppets it's a real craft you know and as i talk to him more you really find out where it comes from where the dummies come from and just working the face and i mean it's a it's a thing it's like magic in a way i don't love watching magic and i don't necessarily seek out ventriloquism but but when i see both of them for a little while, I'm like, holy fuck, that's crazy. How'd they do that? How do they do that?

It's a how do they do that art form? It's entertainment based in how the fuck do they do that? in how the fuck do they do that hey Google how old is ventriloquism on the website the vintage news.com they say the act of ventriloquism as an entertainment starts back in the 18th century but the history of ventriloquism as a practice has been around for thousands of years. Thousands of years. So now I'm going to shift gears into my conversation with Jeff. He's got like eight Netflix specials on. He's got a lot of specials. I think that, yeah, I think there's eight of them. This is me talking to the ventriloquist, Jeff Dunn. Are you self-employed? Don't think you need business insurance?

Think again. Business insurance from Zensurance is a no-brainer for every business owner because it provides peace of mind. A lot can go wrong. A fire, cyber attack, stolen equipment, or an unhappy customer suing you. That's why you need insurance. Don't let the, I'm too small for this mindset, hold you back from protecting yourself. Zensurance provides customized business insurance policies starting at just $19 per month. Visit Zensurance today to get a free quote. Zensurance. Mind your business. Death is in our air.

This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here,

you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. But vegan, though. We can start. Oh, we don't need to talk about that. Sure we do.

Those aren't my fans. Those are not my fans. All right, whatever you want to talk about. But I think that's interesting. I mean, where'd you grow up? Texas. Barbecue. It's a big change, man.

But at home, were you're used to eating, would you call yourself, by nature, a meat eater? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. But I haven't really missed it, believe it or not. But it's also because my wife is an amazing cook and chef. Yeah. So she's doing the fancy vegan stuff. Oh, my gosh.

Some of the stuff that she comes up with really is unbelievable yeah i'm asking you because i feel like i should be doing that well you know there's just so many arguments for it and what the trouble is you get the animal rights folks mixed in there yeah and then it becomes political right and then it's just this big mess right so um it's just healthier yeah well yeah It's just healthier. Well, yeah. So when you just start at the health part of it, then I've been now this way eating like next to no meat. You know, look, if somebody comes up with a great steak and says you got to have a bite, of course you got to have a bite.

Come on, Jeff. When you're on the road, you're on the road. No, no, on the road. You know, I'm actually really, really good on the road. Is she monitoring you? No, she makes my meals. Really? I take her in, really good on the road because this is so. Is she monitoring you? No, she makes my meals. Really? I take him in a big cooler on the tour bus.

Wow, she's really doing it. You're in, buddy. And I don't cheat either. It's like, you know, I will tell her. I said I had a, you know, whatever today. And I'm completely honest. It's because I'm trying to stay healthy. Look, I'm going to be a grandfather in a month.

Is that true? Yeah. How old are you, dude? Well, I'll be 58 in a month. What, did you have a child when you were 10? She's 29. Oh, okay. Yeah, my oldest daughter's 29, and she's pregnant and in Montana and happy, and this

stupid virus thing, it's got to be horrifying for her. Oh, that's scary. Sure. Yeah. But so no, before we get to the virus, no, no, when you want to have a meat snack, what do you do? Like a swim gym or what? No, I don't do that. Beef jerky? It has to be, if I'm going to eat it, it has to No, no. When you want to have a meat snack, what do you do? Like a swim gym? No, I don't do that.

Beef jerky? It has to be, if I'm going to eat it, it has to be, yeah. It's got to be some Ruth's Chris kind of steak. Oh, yeah, sure. Amazing, right?

Yeah. But that's not often. It used to be like once a month I'd have a steak and now it's cut down to next to nothing. But I was very excited

when Burger King came out with the Impossible Burger. Impossible Burger. Apparently, there are these burgers, right, that look like hamburgers? Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, I haven't, I've eaten different versions of them, and I've tried to, I've gone out with Lynn, who you met, is not a vegetarian, but the two women I was with before her were both vegetarians.

So, I mean, I've been where you are. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, people harp, they say, Audrey and I went to Burger King right when they came out with that burger. Sure. And we posted pictures of us eating it. And people were like, it's not healthy.

Well, no, of course it's not healthy. Right. But it's just not the meat. That's it. That's right. Well, yeah, but it's like we get to go to Burger King. Right. I was so excited because I grew up with Burger King.

That was my thing. Me too, man. Do you remember the guy, the king with the white hair sitting on the Whopper? That was their logo back in the beginning. With the white hair? With white hair, yeah. It doesn't look anything like the little short guy with the red hair. I'm trying to remember.

I remember when the Big Mac came out. So, like, I remember when I was a kid, and I remember certain things. I remember when the first Wendy's happened. Wow. Yeah, but that was, I mean, I grew up in New Mexico, so I'm next to Texas. Oh, yeah. College, it was a regular thing for me to go have a triple. At Wendy's?

Triple at Wendy's, absolutely. They were the best. So greasy and square burgers. Well, it's because they fried the meat. They didn't charbroil it. It's so funny because, I mean, yeah, there was a, they fried it. They just let it sit in the oil. Yeah, they just put it on a, like, not deep fried.

Remember when they came up with the salad bar, when they put the salad bars in Wendy's? Absolutely. Yeah, like, we could get, but like- Remember when they came up with the salad bar, when they put the salad bars in Wendy's? Absolutely. Yeah. Like, we could get something healthy over here. But it's weird growing up in New Mexico right next to Texas, because there were regional places, like Piggly Wiggly. Didn't you have Piggly Wiggly? We had Piggly Wiggly.

Yeah. And what are the other ones? And then Hardee's versus- Hardee's, right? Which is- Arby's. Hardee's versus- Well, Carl's Jr.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hardee's. But you didn't have Blake's Whataburger. I don think that was no we had Whataburger you did yeah yeah yeah that was a good one yeah they still have that down in Texas yeah Whataburger too I don't think is I saw Whataburger remember Whataburger yeah yeah yeah and Whataburger yeah boy back when we were kids man weren't things better they were and that you know what's funny is one of the things I do is I collect toys. You mean your act? Yeah, thank you very much. No, I actually go back and collect toys.

eBay is an evil, evil thing. I don't get involved with it, but you do it, huh? Oh, my God. And I have a collection of toys that is all the coolest stuff we had back in the 70s. And one of my biggest videos right now is the toys that almost killed me. Like what? What do you got you know you have your own youtube channel yeah yeah this stuff okay yeah but you know what the number one toy is that for killing in the world oh yeah it's like the jarts lawn darts really do you remember those yeah yeah yeah and

there were there were these spikes of metal big plastic with spikes well there were spikes of metal with plastic wings yeah and you and they were literally like a foot long. And they were heavy. It was like a 3-8-inch diameter shaft on this thing with a point. Yeah. They're still around? No, no. They were outlawed.

You can't even buy them on eBay because they'll get in trouble. It's like selling a weapon. Really? Kids died from those things. Did you know anybody? No, I didn't know anybody that died, but I definitely got a set illegally. Sure, I remember them. I remember them.

Swip and Swides, too, felt dangerous to me. They still make those. Yeah, yeah. Do you know Wham-O's still in business? No, I didn't know that. It's got to be somebody bought it, and now they're just selling the Super Bowls. Nostalgic stuff? Yeah, well, it's Super Bowls.

Remember Super Bowls? Sure, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the little balls that bounce all over the place? Yeah, but now they have a Super Bowl, but it's sad. It doesn't bounce. Not the same? Oh, not a non-bouncing Super Bowl?

What's super about it then? Right. Well, it's sort of bouncing. Here's the thing. Here's the technical thing. When a Super Bowl, when you drop it, it would return no matter what height you dropped it from, like 95% of the height you dropped it from. Right.

And then you'd remember when you were a kid, you'd be like, what if we dropped it off a building? And it would bounce over the building. Pretty close. Yeah. So what other toys did you get? Well, the ones that would almost kill me. Man, I don't remember. Do you remember they were called Incredible Edibles?

Mm-hmm. What were those? Oh, you made them? You cooked them yourself? Yeah, you had a little oven. Yeah, and that's a thing maker was another thing. That was a little oven. Made gummy.

It was almost like gummy stuff. The Incredible Edibles were like gummy things. Yeah. And they'd come with it. So this is one of the things I did on that video. Yeah. Is I found a set that had never been opened. It was 55 years old or 52 years old.

Oh, really? And so we made it. Oh, it was a live video, I think. And I ate them. Yeah. Yeah, 52-year-old goo. Oh, did you get sick? No, I was fine.

Oh, it held up, huh? Yeah. Is that vegan, though? Yeah, I think it is, actually. No, did you get sick? No, I was fine. Oh, it held up, huh? Is that vegan, though? Yeah, I think it is, actually. No, it had to have gelatin in it. Gelatin is cow's feet, so who knows? So we were talking in the kitchen about, like, when you, in the midst of, now this is at the beginning of this coronavirus outbreak, and I assume it's going to go on for a while, so it's going to be still relevant, but two questions.

Now, outside of the canceling work, that's going to be still relevant but two questions now outside of the canceling work uh that's that's got to be sort of devastating but do you think in terms of like all right so which one of my characters which one of my puppets can talk about this i think one of them should catch it oh yeah right you're gonna have a mask by the way mark i think i actually have it right now no come on yeah no i do i think i have it i don't have any symptoms at all like i feel fine i don't have a temperature yeah i'm not maybe pretty sure you're pretty sure i have it right now. No, come on. Yeah. No, I do. I think I have it. I don't have any symptoms at all. Like, I feel fine. I don't have a temperature. Yeah. I'm not sneezing.

But you're pretty sure you got it? I'm pretty sure I have it. Sure. I think everyone's going to get it. Right. It's just, you know, I think we're trying to stop the people that might die from it from getting it. Right.

We're all trying to chip in. That's the idea. Right. But I do. I think I have it. And so now I feel better about, you know, I can't, I'm not going to catch it because I already have it. Yeah.

So I'm not worried. You moved through it. Exactly right. But the work, though, they have canceled a lot of dates already have it. Yeah, there you go. So I'm not worried. You move through it. Exactly right. But the work, though, they have canceled a lot of dates, big dates. Oh, my gosh, yeah. So most of my shows are now anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000, usually between 6,000 and 10,000 folks. Really?

Oh, yeah. So the Big Arena is, and that's a tough date because we're competing with the NBA and the NHL. Those are the same places. And they cancel, too. Yeah, they're canceling all their stuff. So now we have to rebook all the dates. And so now everybody's scrambling to try and make all these new dates fit.

Into July and stuff and August. And you hope, you know, again, who knows how long this is going to go on. But that's fascinating because I don't know that a lot of people realize that. I mean, that you do, you know, you're one of the biggest comedy acts in the country, really, right? Yeah, yeah. And now for 11 years, almost 12 years, you know, you're one of the biggest comedy acts in the country, really, right?

Yeah, yeah. And now for 11 years, almost 12 years, we've been doing these arenas. So my 15 minutes has lasted way longer than anybody ever expected. But, no, oh, you mean not your act. You mean your fame. My 15 minutes of fame, yeah. No, the show is now two and a half hours long. Two and a half?

For a damn puppet show. How many dummies do you have? Characters? Well, I come out and I do like- What do you call them? Dummies, characters. I call them, they're dummies, but I call them characters. And then when I'm self-deprecating, I call them puppets.

Okay. Yeah, it's a puppet show for God's sake. Okay. Yeah. When you're trying to like, you're like, hey man, it's a job. You have a puppet guy. Yeah, exactly. That's what it was in the clubs.

I did almost 20 years in the comedy clubs. We must have worked together. I don't know. I think we might have missed each other. Did you do the improv chain? No, not much because, and I still won't do it. Like, they never helped me with anything. I was the type of act, Jeff, I don't think we would have really worked on the same bill.

And I don't know that the improvs, they were never that great to me. They'd give me fallout weeks and they'd always tell me how much they liked me but i didn't do the the the chain much you know i was sort of you know it was really scattered you know how i paid my dues but yeah they were not as glorious i was never like a go-to guy for the improv chain well i was you know i was at the top of that food chain for like i said for 18 years before that's before hartman right uh no robert became my manager all right so that's when that big shift come yeah i didn't think he thought much about me really yeah he i don't well i think he's all impressed now

little late little late robert is he still your manager no he moved to uh he moved to nashville and he's in still in the business yeah he's still in the business or no? Yeah, he's still in the business. California boy, you know, he and his wife and two kids, they moved out to Nashville. Well, Nashville's beautiful. You know, a guy who I like a lot as a comic, Nate Bargatze, he's out in Nashville and he stayed in Nashville. Right.

It's a real show business town. Yeah, yeah. But you live here? Yeah, I live here. Yep. All right, so let's talk about this. So I just want people to know that you're selling 5 000 to 10 000 seat arenas like where are your big markets for the for the puppet show you know thanks mark um uh it's really interesting where

you would think that i would be the slowest is actually where i would sell those tickets the fastest the northeast and the northwest that's where we sell tickets the fastest, the Northeast and the Northwest. That's where we sell tickets the fastest. We're talking like Washington, Oregon. Yeah. Idaho. Portland, Oregon, I think was my biggest show ever, like 16, 17,000 people. No kidding.

Yeah. And then up in the Northeast, oh my gosh, Boston used to be one of my best cities. Yeah. It's crazy. So where would you assume people would think that you would sell big? Texas, where I grew up.

I mean, I still do well in Dallas. I still do well in all the Texas towns. Are you Mormon-sanctioned? Can you do Utah? Do you do the Salt Lake City show? I do Salt Lake City, but I'm not sure if it's the Mormons coming to my show. No, but you would know because you could play a week at the arena. Oh, that's true.

Regan, it's a big part of his nut is doing like four or five shows at the basketball arena well my show is kind of pg-13 ish you know there's a few pushing the envelope yeah yeah there's a few f-bombs in there but it's not you know that's another thing that i i like to talk about it's it's about content to me it's not it's not content that's questionable just a few words here and there so i used to say to my girls when they were growing up it's like okay we can hear the bad words. We're not going to repeat them, but yeah, you're going to hear a few bad words in Daddy's show.

But I'm not talking about... This is Jeff Dunham, folks. He's on the edge, man. It's a blue show. No, it's not. But it's subject matter. Sure. You're using it in context. It's spice. Right, spice. Let's go back though. Let's

get to the present through going through the past because I'll be honest with you. I was fascinated with ventriloquism as a kid. I had Mortimer Snurd and I had Charlie McCarthy. That's what I started with. My brother and I each had one, but it didn't take that long before they had no clothes and they were broken. Right. But it was sort of a big deal because it's not it's not really just a toy when you get that first dummy even though the head's plastic but it's the real thing right by the way that's what i was doing the club days i was uh i had no clothes and i was broken sorry go on where you just have that that weird cotton body that's just this stuff thing? Yeah, and the hands all in one position.

It was very sad. It was sad. They're very sad without clothes. Yeah. But is that, because you're a little older than me, and certainly when we were kids, I mean, Edgar Bergen was long gone, really. Right. So how did you, are you an only child?

Yeah, I'm an only child yeah an only child oh my god yeah so you guessed it you nailed it so that's why you get the big bucks mark you know your guests before you know them so uh uh yeah and that's what i started with is just a little toy dummy how'd you know though i mean how did we know how did we know about ventriloquism what did we see do you remember there were a handful of things on tv paul winchell was still in those years doing a few things. He had his big television show many years earlier before we were conscious. Right.

And what was his dummy's name? Jerry Mahoney. Yeah, Jerry Mahoney. And Knucklehead Smith. Knucklehead Smith. Smith, Smith with an F. So he was on every once in a while, but the only way that I found out anything was to go to the library and check out a book on ventriloquism or encyclopedias because when they mentioned encyclopedias back then when they talked about ventriloquism edgar bergen and charlie mccarthy were always the

subject sure yeah because and then back in those days your family probably had the uh the encyclopedias that you bought from britannica oh yeah britannica yeah that's some high-end shit you come from a highbrow family yeah not just a world book or whatever mine were were all from, I think my parents, they were all from the 50s and stuff. What did your folks do? My dad was a real estate appraiser. My mom was just a homemaker. Are they still around? Yeah.

Mom's still hanging in there. Lost dad about three years ago. But yeah, still hanging in there. She's nuts. Yeah, in Texas, in one of those homes that they've locked down now. I think they're still doing that in Texas. They're not letting any people in right now. Oh, no.

It's all just starting. Those are the people we're trying to keep alive. Yeah. People like your mom. And it is, you know, it's kind of sad because a little bit of dementia set in. And she remembers her, you know, her first grade class. But during a conversation, I'll have to answer the same question, you know, eight times. Right.

But she knows who you are. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. That can go to, you know. Yeah. Of course. But she knows she is uh she's with it except for that short-term memory just shot out of hell so i i i kind of have fun with it and it drives the people around me crazy because she'll ask me the same question and i'll give her a different answer every time

so honey where are you going to do a show uh buffalo yeah yeah five minutes later honey where are you going to do a show this week? Oh, Poughkeepsie? Does she have the same reaction? Doesn't matter? Oh, that's great. That's great. All right, so you're this kid. You're alone.

You need friends. That's it. And I got this little dummy for Christmas one year, and I saw it in the toy store. You know what's funny? Which dummy? Who was it? Mortimer Snurd.

Oh, it was a Snurd dummy. That's a big goofy face. Yeah, yeah. But I went back to Dallas just recently to visit my mom, and I had some free time. And I drove over to where that toy store was that I got my first dummy. I had not been back there since. Still there? Yeah, yeah.

No, it's a Mexican food restaurant now, which is great. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. It was like one of those old hobby shop kind of stores. Yep, yep, exactly. It was an independent company. old hobby shop kind of stores. Yep, yep, yep. Exactly. It was an independent store. And the dummy was a high-end toy, so it was up on top somewhere?

It was high enough that I, low enough that I could reach it. Oh, okay. And so I took it. It was right before Christmas, and I picked it up. I took it to my mom and said, Mom, look at this. And she's like, oh, yeah, cute. Mm-hmm, great. Put it back.

Yeah. And there it showed up Christmas morning on the couch. Right. So you had your Mortimer's Nerd. Yeah, Mortimer's Nerd. And how old were you? I was third grade, so what are you, eight, nine years old? Oh, morning on the couch. Right. So you had your Mortimer's nerd. Yeah, Mortimer's nerd. And how old were you? I was third grade. So what are you, eight, nine years old?

Oh, wow, third grade. Yeah. So my first show was a little book report. And I remember to this day, when Biography did my biography, we went back. They actually got in the school, and we were actually able to go back to my third grade class and sit down there. And I took Mortimer with me. I still have him. The original Mortimer?

Yeah, yeah. The plastic one? you have it? Absolutely. So I took him back, and unfortunately, they didn't use that footage in the piece. Did you do a show for a bunch of kids? No, they wouldn't let us in when there was kids. They'd seen my show, apparently.

Yeah, he's going to say those words, but you don't have to say them. Exactly. You're going to make Mortimer Snurds going to be a filthy, filthy man. And like it. Yeah. So, yeah, and more snorts. You're going to be a filthy, filthy man. And like it. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah. And, you know, it just started growing from there. I mean, I did that first show and realized, whoa, because I was one of those unremarkable kids. I wasn't popular. Girls didn't pay attention. Yeah. You know what I mean? I was a little pudgy.

And team sports forget it. And now you're a guy with a puppet. Yeah, it made it worse. But you know what? I know it made it way worse. I look back on it now and I go, what the hell? Because even, okay, Mark, here's the embarrassing part. I used to have this in my act.

So when I got to junior high in seventh grade, I was doing shows, doing pretty well, doing even corporate dates, Kiwanis clubs. How old were you? Seventh grade? Yeah. Like 13? Yeah, because I would, you know, I'd get up there and I'd tell jokes and I'd make fun of the president of whatever, of the company or whatever. You could do it, huh? Yeah, and I couldn't. It was I'd get up there and I'd tell jokes and I'd make fun of the president of whatever, of the company or whatever. You could do it, huh?

Yeah, and I could. It was this kid doing pretty good jokes. So you're like a prodigy of Van Trooek's prodigy. Something like that. Yeah. But here's the sad part. This is the really sad part. When my girls found this out, they were so unbelievably embarrassed.

Really? So I wanted a headshot. And my parents weren't going to pay for me to go sit down with a photographer and get a picture with a dummy, right? Right. So when it came to school picture day, I thought, why not? So I carried my little dummy to school picture day. Oh, yeah.

This is bad. This is horrible. But it's also business thinking. It was. So here I sat down, and I put my dummy on my knee, and the guy goes, I remember this in seventh grade. He goes, you know, this is going to end up in the yearbook. And I go, yeah, I know.

It's publicity. So he shot the photo of me and the dummy. Publicity for who? Yeah. So he pulled back the camera and shot the picture of me and the dummy. So now I had one eight by 10 and a bunch of wallet sizes of my headshot. It's sitting in that weird kind of like school picture environment. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll show you the picture here in a minute if you want to see it. You still have it. But here's the, okay, that's sad enough, right? You should still use that picture. Well, that was sad enough, but here's the deal. It worked out so well.

I did it every single year. Oh my God. With the same puppet? No, no. The dummies, the dummies grew as the act grew. They got better and better. So by my senior year in high school, that was the only time I didn't do it. Why? Because you had a real picture. Well, by that time I'd figured out girls and women. You found one? Yeah, I did. I don't know. She was blind. She had no idea I had a doll in my hand. What kind of

girlfriend was your first girlfriend? Did she like what you did? She was three years older than me. Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we met at summer camp. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, it was awesome. And she liked your act?

I guess so. Yeah. My performance. Okay, so you're doing that. At seventh grade, you're doing corporates, and you're starting to make a living doing this in that form of show business. You had a strange but practical skill,

unlike a stand-up, where you could do a corporate like that, or you could do a kid's show. You had a strange but practical skill, unlike a stand-up, where you could do a corporate like that or you could do a kid's show. You could do anything, really. It's a different realm of performing. Sure. Because it's adaptable. It's adaptable.

You can do it for anything. I started doing comedy clubs when my junior or senior year in college. But here's the thing. The reason that I like what I do so much is because, unlike a monologist, now we have situational comedy. And what are the best ingredients of comedy? It's tension and conflict. Yeah, you got your characters. I can build tension and conflict into the dialogue. And what makes the act work is the

relationship on stage and my acting and my reacting and the dummies doing the same thing so it's fairly complicated where i'm acting and reacting as an actor and then the i'm making the dummy do the same thing and the opposite to me no i mean i swear the thing the weird thing about it is you know as a guy who come out of straight stand-up but like is that you know it is sort of a unique and and and fun skill to watch and you know especially when it's done well which you do do it well but for some reason and i'm sure you feel this and know this you know somehow or another you get your own you get your own uh your own category right you know you know and i did fight that i did fight that for years in the clubs well let's wait wait before we get to that yeah i want to i want to talk about dummies yep so because we i want to talk about the clubs and about the tension you know about

you know guys like me who back in the day were like dunham right so yep yep and i'd find things written on the walls are you gonna settle are you here to settle a score dunham is that what you're doing you're gonna you're gonna set all you're gonna show us all? Like, you fucking comics. You filthy social satirists. I was lonely. We fucking talked to you. Not much. We acted like we liked you, Jeff. No, no, nobody did.

It was, nobody did. I would find epithets, what's it called? Yeah, epithets. Epithets written on the walls of comedy clubs. Like, that's the Dunham. When I won stand-up comic of the year in 1997 who did that with a magazine did that no it was the big show a big tv show what's his name uh i forgot his name but yeah it was a big show forgot his name rat guy yeah yeah but when i

won that it was like the world melted it was like people were so pissed off the stand-up world melted yeah but i oh was it like a Comedy Central thing? Nope. It was Laugh-In. What the hell? Schlauter? George Schlauter? Yeah, yeah. George Schlauter.

It was his deal. Of course. So he was not happy because I campaigned for it. With the dummies? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. No, we sent, at that time, even then, I had merchandise, and we were sending stuffed peanut dolls to all the club owners because the club owners were the ones that were supposed to nominate. Oh, you fucker.

And vote. You politician. That's right. Yeah. That was 97, I think. Wow. But so, still backloading. I'm curious about the craft of dummy making.

So when you're doing Mortimer's Nerd, how old are you when you decide, and how do you decide on the first dummy? The first professional dummy? Well, like we were talking about, there was no way to find out about anything back then. I didn't know there was a ventriloquist organization, there was a ventriloquist convention. Yeah, right. You just had the book on how to do it,

and you were able to go, where did you see footage of Winchell and Bergen and that stuff? Whenever Bergen came on TV. That was it? Yeah. Because there was no YouTube. Nope.

You never went to New York to the Museum of Broadcasting? Nope. And I think that's, excuse me, I think that's what helped me is that I had nothing to compare myself to. Huh. And the only thing I had to listen to were Bergen's radio shows. Oh, the radio shows. So you could hear the patter.

You could hear the rhythm. You're great. You're jumping way ahead. I'm sorry. No, that's great. That's exactly what it was because I could sit there and listen to the routines. Yeah. And he was, you know, Bergen was the Seinfeld of his era.

Right. His radio show was number one for like 10 years. Yeah. And it's a ventriloquist on radio, which made no sense. Yeah. But he had guests on there. Sure. But it was just comedy sketches.

Yeah. It's like every other comedian. Okay. Like Jack Benny and like Bob Hope. Oh, so he would do a few of the voices and then he'd have guests do the other parts in the radio show. Yeah, it would be like little drama things.

Like W.C. Fields was a normal guest. I have guests all the time. That's where Mae West actually got kicked off the air on radio for being too suggestive. Oh, really? Yeah, she's a comedian. On Edgar Bergen's show. Absolutely.

So it was a huge show. And that was available to listen to. Well, I could find the cassettes and the albums and listen to them. And what I would do is I would sit there and I'd listen to the dialogue and I would actually type it out. Here I was as a kid, fourth, fifth grade, sixth grade, and I'd type it out. Yeah. And I'd look at it. You had no friends and you're an only child.

You had time. I had time. But I would look at it and I wouldn't understand because there were no jokes. It was not set up punchline. Right. It was all character. Right. Right. Driven. And so that was such a great lesson in- Oh, that's interesting. How to make people laugh. It wasn't like, knock, knock, who's there? Did you know that at the time or is that something you look back at and realize that's what set in?

When I really kind of figured it out was when I moved out to Los Angeles in 1988. That long? Yeah. Moved out here in 88 and i had been doing you know growing up doing church shows and shows in college and i'd do the ventriloquism thing yeah and like you said the skill is fascinating to watch right that lasts for six minutes then it's like okay now you got to make us laugh because i would come out here and you know i had a 15 minute show 15 minute act i was good middle. And I'd do the show, and I'd drink the water and make the dummy talk, and everybody would applaud.

Drink the water. Yeah, absolutely. That old standby. That's right. And I'd get laughs and accolades, and Mike Lacey loved me as a middle act. But after a few months, and following guys like Seinfeld and Leno and those guys that are there, no, you've got to make that audience laugh. You can't just do these. If you're going to be a headliner, you're going to have to. So you knew that. You, you got to make that audience laugh. You can't just do these.

If you're going to be a headliner, you're going to have to. So you knew that. You knew you were like sort of a novelty act. Yeah. That wasn't up to par with the writing or the comedy of these guys were solo acts. That's correct. Right. So that's when I realized I can do this skill.

I can do this all day long. It's like riding a bike. I need to start coming up with material that makes as many people in this room laugh as much as possible right and that's when i knew when i started doing that and people started coming back and bringing family and friends that's when it started growing i'll never forget um uh deb deborah sartell oh deb sartell i remember her who she she booked most of the improvs oh yeah right the one you probably didn't like more than Hartman. And I remember I was a middle act, and I asked her.

I said, you know, I was doing great. And I finally called her one day, and I said, when am I going to headline? And I said, because I think people are coming to see just me. She actually sighed on the phone. She goes, you think you're getting a following? I go, yeah. I said, when do you think I can headline?

She goes, I tell you what, because, because you know she'd heard this a million times right she said when the headliner can't follow you then you can headline i'm like okay and that to me was like a challenge i'm like yeah they're all right great and it was phoenix arizona at the improv in tempe i know that improv oh my god and a big that was one of the bigger ones itger ones. It was like a theater, but it was by virtue. They didn't do it on purpose. It was before they were building those huge rooms. Right. But it was just as big, almost a theater looking place. Yeah, it was one of the biggest clubs in the country.

Yeah. And I remember that particular week. I don't remember who the headliner was. Come on, you do. No, I don't remember who the headliner was. It could have been J.J. Wall. You remember J.J. Wall? I do, yeah.

Okay. So all I know is I had, what, 14, 15, 18 minutes as a middle act? 20. And it was Jose Jalapeno on a stick, my little Mexican Jalapeno. And it's him. It's my character Peanut. It's Walter. I would smoke that freaking room.

Yeah. I mean, the roof would come off the place because I only had a few minutes. And I'm the middle act. I'm not expected to be good. That's a cush position. Absolutely. The middle act is always going to put it up the headliner's ass at some point. Right.

Yeah. So when Debra started getting complaints from the headliner that they couldn't follow, it was like, yeah, that was it. Get the puppet guy. So that's where the resentment starts. That's exactly right. He's cheating, man. I'm just me. That's right.

He's got the mental problem and the four puppets. Yeah. Yeah. And look, I know what I do is goofy. I say this in my own act. I look at my own headshot and I go, really? There's a grown man sitting there with six dummies and everybody's smiling. Is this okay?

No, it's weird. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, you feel that. Yeah, I do. I know that. Okay, but let's talk about that first dummy, though. Which one was it? So Mortimer was the first plastic one. Oh're right. Yeah, you feel that. Yeah, I do. I know that. Okay, but let's talk about that first dummy, though. Which one was it? So Mortimer was the first plastic one.

Oh, right. It had a few more plastic. And then I had a professional dummy made. How'd you find that out, though? Because you said you didn't know there was a ventriloquist association. So did you lock in with those guys? Jay Johnson, who was the ventriloquist on Soap. Right.

Right? Yeah. So he was from Texas, and it was before Soap. He was playing a place called Charlie's Place in Fort Worth, Texas, where he's singing and dancing in a variety show. And so I went and saw him. My parents took me to see him. And you were like, what, seventh grade?

Yep. Okay. And he was incredibly nice to me, and he said, here's the address for the Ventriloquist Association. You can get the newsletter. So I got the newsletter, and then the newsletter told me about the convention. It was like 75, 74, 75. Wow, you must have been like, oh, man.

Yeah, it was like geek central. I mean, I get it, Mark. You're not going to hurt my feelings. No, no, no. I completely get it. I'm fascinated, actually. I'm curious about this. No one knows this.

I don't know this. And I was an only child, and nobody told me that what I was doing was really sad. Nobody told me that. But it wasn't sad, Jeff. I mean, I'm not here to – I'm sure you know you're doing fine but i mean you know you were engaged in this it was look i was fascinated with it i think a lot of us maybe if it's a generational thing i don't know if it's now but certainly back then for some reason there was still it was still around and it was still sort of this interesting you know kind of a skill and weird kind of thing well what i was going to say is growing up in dallas and richardson texas i think it was still sort of this interesting, you know, kind of skill and weird kind of thing. Well, what I was going to say is growing up in Dallas and Richardson, Texas, I think it was the school system.

It was the kids. It was the environment. It was the teachers. All people were encouraging. They were just encouraging. And I think what it was was the material that I chose. And when I would do a show, I would always make fun of the school, the principal, the teachers. In a nice way.

You weren't like, you know, like, you know, fuck the police or anything no no no no but it was making jokes about them in good taste with the dummy yeah with the dummy and I think that's why there was a little there wasn't that level of it was a level of cool because I I got voted most likely to succeed and you did yeah but but yeah but what I'm saying is it was a great environment of support sure there was nobody beating me up in the alley because i had a doll on my hand what was it but this is not a small town you're in dallas right so it was a big school yeah it was it was almost 3 000 kids for three grades almost almost a thousand a grade they were like outside they were just happy to see someone doing something special i guess but the the biggest accolade i

got was my senior year in the senior talent show i I took, I had my dummy. Everybody knew Archie. He was a professional. That's your first dummy? No, that was the first really professional one. And this is when radio controlled toys like airplanes and stuff were really becoming commonplace and not crazily expensive and reliable, the radios. So I took one of those radios. I disassembled it. I put the transmitter, I built it intoassembled it. I put the transmitter. I built it into my suit jacket. I put the controls in my hand so the dummy could move his head,

move his eyes, and move his mouth all by himself. And I could control that from the palm of my hand. I then took a wireless... You wired the dummy up? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I put the transmitter,

built it into my jacket. Yeah. And then put all the receiver and all the servos and all the crap in the dummy this was in 1979 is that how everyone does it with the eyes and stuff no no no no no this is all electronics radio control and then i took a wireless microphone uh an alav mic and i put a mute switch in my other hand yeah so that i could talk and not come over the pa so we did my act my senior talent show i'm doing the act and then he and I get an argument. The dummy and I get an argument. This is before David Strassman, another guy who does this, years before. I put him on the stage, I get mad at him. I say, fine,

you do it yourself. I'm out of here. And so I walk in the audience and I'm yelling at the, we have a videotape from it. And I'm in the middle of the audience yelling at the dummy from the audience, like I've completely lost it. And then the dummy moves his head and at the dummy from the audience like I've completely lost it and then the dummy moves his head and at the same time rolls his eyes over and said is Dunham throwing a fit and it came over the PA

and I was you know because I lit up on the mute switch and the freaking audience went nuts so 79 way ahead of its time

yeah exactly so you know that was exciting just to hear that. I don't think. Where the audience was like, what's happening? Oh, yeah. There was a couple screams and the whole thing is like. People running out.

Not quite that. The dummy lives. Yeah. Good idea. But how long did it take you to figure out how to rig that up? Oh, just a couple weeks. Really? No big deal.

Yeah. And that was the one and only show I did that with. That's crazy. Just a senior talent show. Did you see it? Looking back on it, was it cheating? It just wasn't. It was amazing.

I guess I was starting to catch on even then. It just wasn't funny. It was like, what? Shocking. Right, right. It was shocking. Yeah. Okay, so you talk to Jay Johnson.

Yep. And he gives you the address. Now, you write them? You're a little seventh grader you write you write the association yeah and i said i'd like to be uh the guy even uh 25 years later he'd saved my letter i guess he saved everything and he said here's your letter asking to join and it was like are you kidding me yeah so he uh did they let you join oh yeah of course yeah what five bucks a year and you get the newsletter and five bucks. I don't know what it was.

Your parents threw for it. You were making money. And then the first of that set of conventions started. 1975 was the first convention, and I begged my parents left and right. Where was it? It was in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, where they have the largest collection. It's a Vent Haven Museum. It's the largest collection of ventriloquial memorabilia in the world.

I've heard of that place. Yeah, it's great. Almost 1,000 dummies in there. And people at first go, oh, my gosh, this is going to be creepy. You walk in, but it's all this Americana as well as dummies from all over the world from 100 years back. And it's actually kind of fascinating. When did the art of ventriloquism begin? Back in the days before Christ.

begin uh back in the days of uh before before christ because they'd use ventriloquism as like to make the the altars talk and you know soothsaying and all that fake oh so it was used as a racket yeah i got the hustle yeah you know like they they'd actually use it it's magic give us money right yeah and then the first dummies started coming along i don't know i guess i i there's we have pictures from the civil war era of guys sitting there with dummies. Sorry, it's the coronavirus. Sorry. Do you want me to get you water? No, I'm good.

Okay. It's too late now. Here we go. We're going down. Right on the air. You're hearing it. So you go to the convention in Kentucky. You're in eighth grade, seventh grade?

Yeah, and then they had the contest, and I kicked ass and walked away with a trophy. For best new talent or whatever? Your best junior ventriloquist for 17 years. What was the feeling when you get there to see all the other fucking ventriloquists? Were you like, I'm home? Or were you like, oh, no? Well, it was a little bit of both. Because as you can imagine, we still have that convention to this day.

Every July, it's in the same town. You're active. You're the guy. I'm on the board of the museum. Of course you are. Yeah, of course. Who else is going to be on the board you are the i am the board uh and uh we're having a fundraiser right now raising money to build the new building oh where can people go to the website i think it's vanhaven.org okay i think it is well you people if you're you're looking at for a charity to give to the maintenance of a thousand dummies in a museum in Kentucky needs a few bucks.

They're a 501C. You don't even want to know how much money I give in that place. I'm sure you're keeping it afloat. No, not that. Well, maybe. I don't know. No, not really. They're doing great.

Do you ever go in there by yourself and just like, I'm going to give this dummy a treat? They won't let me go in by myself anymore. Because I would pick up the dummies and play with them, make them talk. They're like, that's old, that's old, put it down.

Yeah, exactly. You know, a buddy and I named Bob Rumba, we would go in every year and he'd make balloon animals and so we'd take balloon animals and we'd hide them

inside dummies. It was just like, it's ridiculous fun. Yeah, that's close, good catch. You did it and then you didn't.

You took it away and then you went ahead and did it. Yeah. By the way, I use that word in my act, but I don't say it. With the old man. No, catch yeah you did it and then you you didn't you took it away and then you went ahead and did it yeah uh by the way that i use that that word in my act but i don't with the old man bubba no with bubba jay my my redneck character oh yeah he accidentally says it yeah so well see this is like that's the interesting thing about some of the characters is that you can they we know it's you right but there is something about the character you know portraying some part of american culture right that everyone

identifies with who is also struggling with uh the change that we're going through as americans sure and as as a writer people say oh you're controlling was just so you can say outlandish things to get away with it no that's not what i do yeah i create these and i've accused of being racist and with the akhmed character with uh jose jalapeno, with Achmed, with Sweet Daddy D, my African-American character. What I do is I try and create characters that people understand almost immediately. So are they stereotypes? Yeah, they are. So what I do is I create these characters.

And if I have a question or if you have a question and you pose it to one of the characters, if I'm a good writer and a good comic, every one of those characters would have a different answer and a different joke because i'm writing for that particular character and also it seems to me that the more you broaden the uh the the number of characters that you're almost doing that thing that rickles talked about where you it's not insulting everybody but at least you're representing everybody from your weird Texan white point of view. Sure. It's a little bit of tap dancing, I admit.

Yeah. But I do think that I'm celebrating those characters. Yeah, I could see that. And it's not like, when I talk about Jose, I don't make fun of him being Mexican. I don't make fun of him, whatever racist things you want to come up with. He's a freaking jalapeno on a stick. And I modeled him years ago after Slowpoke,

Speedy Gonzalez's cousin. Remember that? He was just this Mexican character. He was just slow. Slow as in speaking, not stupid. And so Jose has been that for years and years and years. And if I don't use him in a show, people get angry. Yeah, of course.

You know, it's delicate, you know, because those stereotypes, I think, to people who they may represent or the ethnicity they represent, it's a very sort of kind of narrow representation. Right. kind of a narrow representation right you know and you're dealing with these traits that are have been sort of associated with these ethnicities to to sort of keep them down or belittle them you know for a long time so like it's hard to and then i do the opposite because jose and peanut my purple crazy character are the ones that always get into it and the latest routines well peanuts just like a thing. Yeah, he's a thing. We don't know what he is. Yeah.

But the two of them get into it, and Jose always ends up on top. Yeah. So that's the way the arguments have gone. So the Mexican beats the thing. Yeah, the thing. But let me... See that?

It's like the Alamo, you guys. What? Not really. But it's the same thing when I came out with Walter, this cranky old man character, and I was in college, and people were saying, oh, you know, it's like you're when I came out with Walter, this cranky old man character. And I was in college. And people were saying, oh, you know, it's like you're making fun of old people. They're going to get upset.

Yeah. And I talked to Foxworthy. This is years ago. We had that conversation that when he first came out with You Might Be a Redneck If, people were saying, oh, you're going to make these people angry. Who, the rednecks? Yes. No, it's the exact opposite.

They loved it. And old people love Walter because they either are him or they're married to him or somebody knows somebody like him. Well, I can see that being less challenging than the ethnic character. Sure. I mean, yeah. I'm just using it as the example. Sure, sure. Because when I would be in the improv, okay, this is the Comedy Magic Club, Lacey would say, you know, I hate it when you bring out Jose.

I go, oh, bad? He goes, no, all the kitchen guys come out and watch. We'll get anything done. So it was the Mexican guys that loved Jose more than anybody. So, again. I guess there's always, I guess that's interesting because I never really thought about that, that just, like, you know, the ratio of people that are happy that they're being represented on some level ethnically versus the people that are critical of how the ethnic representation reads.

Right. And when I have Hispanic people in my audience, they're laughing the hardest at Jose. And it's great. And I have Hispanic people come up to me all the time that say, you know, I've loved Jose Jalapeno for years and years. And so it's like you're going to get it from both ways. What about the black character? How does that go? Sweet Daddy D, I made him to try and do my best, innocently and stupidly as I could, to try and make fun of racism.

I wanted to reverse it. I actually got in contact with a couple of black comics and I said, come on, give me some great white jokes. Tell me some jokes that Sweet Daddy D could tell about me and make fun of me for. And there were a handful of things that worked out, but here's the deal. Sweet Daddy D didn't work out for the same reason that my female character, Diane, didn't work out. And that's this, every character that I have as an actor actor i have to understand that and be in their heads right right and so uh bubba jay the the redneck i get peanut the wild crazy i get walter the old man even achmed the dead terrorist i understand being angry and frustrated and dead and dead yeah so uh when it came to sweet daddy d i came up with the one routine yeah and then i stopped because

when it came to ad-libbing which is one thing that I love to do in the show, I had no earthly idea what to say in any given situation. I don't understand. I can't live with it. I've never been where an African-American or black person has been. I don't get it. It's not in me. A woman, same thing.

I was in a movie called Dinner for Schmucks with Paul Rudd. Right, right, yeah. They had me create the character, and I did. And we got all the rights for me to use it in my act, which was a really expensive and long drawn out process. But after using them from her for a month, it just didn't work because I didn't think I couldn't be a female. That's interesting. So, you know, you it requires a certain amount. You are self-aware enough to know that your empathy deficit is, you know,

is reasonable. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't, I don't, you know,

you can't claim to. No, no. Black people have been through way more than me as a white guy in America has been through. And I don't, I don't, I have never lived it. And same with women,

but, but the, and the Mexican thing is just a, this, it's sort of a broad, but I limit him so much because of the character. He's a vegetable on a stick. He's a jalapeno or a pepper on a stick.

He's out for six minutes. I could hear just in the tone of your voice how many times you've had to defend this. He's a fucking vegetable. Honest, what is wrong with you people? It's not a person. It's a vegetable. But when people say, I want to interview the characters, and I say, okay, Peanut, yes. Walter, great. Let's talk to Jose.

And I say, nope. And they say, why not? And I said, because I don't – it's the same reason. There's nothing there. I don't know how to respond as a Mexican person because I don't get it. Who are you voting for, Jose? Sure, I can make wall jokes and stuff like that. Right, right, right.

Yeah. So is that a common thing that happens on morning radio? Like people want to interview the characters? Well, at first, when I first started, you know how it is in the comedy clubs when you're the headline, you've got to go do a morning radio. Now, my question is, well, right. And there's usually an audience there. There's usually at least three people there. Yeah.

And then the guy on the board. So you've got the main guy, the laughing guy, the confused lady. That's perfect, Mark. I'm talking about a jaded guy. That's exactly right. I know, I used to do a bit about it. Was that right? Yeah, the tones were like, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.

Oh, fellas. That's awesome. Oh, my Lord, that is awesome. You just summed up every market, every morning market. Oh, my God, that's great. So, yeah. But when they'd say, and I'd bring in the dummy, they'd be like, this is radio.

Why do you have the dummy? Yeah. And I'd go, just trust me on this. Yeah, yeah. And so I'd take in Walter, and they'd introduce me, and when they were in the middle of the introduction, Walter would pop up from behind. I'd set him on my lap, and it would throw everybody off. And we were off to the races because then Walter would – I was the greatest radio guest because they said,

Do you have any questions? I go, No, just say hi. And then Walter would – I'd bring Walter out, and we'd just launch in to whatever current topic stuff was going on in the country yeah and they loved it they just had to sit there and laugh well that's funny because like the the the you know the the first instinct is to be like can you just do this without the guy but you got to have the guy yeah and and they would because you interact with that guy because that's the gift that you have is that at some point you know you're not thinking you're doing the guy well it's great to get somebody that's really jaded and really knows their their craft yeah radio guy that's been there forever yeah to make him go

actually you see him actually talking to the puppet but then the best is when the sound guy this happens so many times the sound guy or the engineer would set up my mic and then he'd be like oh and he'd be like, oh. And he'd set one in front of the dummy. And it would take everybody else a couple seconds, and I'd be like, you know, it's actually coming from me. He doesn't need one. And then, of course, that guy would catch shit for the next five months. For the rest of his career.

Exactly. I remember when Dunham was here. Exactly. This idiot put a mic in front of the puppet. Yep. And then every time i'd go back they'd bring it up and he'd be old made fun of again so when they so my recollection is like you know when you had because like i never committed to you know much anything really

uh in terms of like you know i've played guitar and done comedy a long time but whatever so you got the dummy but i remember like before i even thought about the craft, I'm like, but a real one's made out of wood. Right. You know, there was this sort of idea like this one's not real, you know? And then like how, how much is a real one?

Where do you get the real one? Right. Well, and then there's the thing about like how all the guys who have the real ones, the, the ventriloquist, they're all different. Well,

you know, the, the, the, the, the, they call them vent figures. That's the figures, yeah.

So that craft of building a dummy is incredibly complicated and lengthy, and there are a lot of skill sets that go with it. Really? Well, I'll just run through it real quick. First, you've got to create the actual head, the first head, the character. You've got to sculpt it. And when you want one, do you talk to the guy? No, no, I build everything myself.

Oh. Yeah, so I'm one of the unusual ones. There's not many guys that do that. So you don't have them made? No, no, I build everything myself. Oh. Yeah. So I'm one of the unusual ones. There's not many guys that do that. So you don't have them made? No, no, no. They're all mine. And there's legal stuff nowadays.

You know, when an artist creates something, that's technically he owns it even if he sells it. Okay, so tell me. So you start with wood or you start with a sketch? Well, nowadays what I do is I start with clay and I sculpt the perfect head. And that's the easiest way to do it. Sculpt it out of clay. Then I have a 3D scanner, a big old thing that's worth more than most cars. And I scan the head, 3D scan.

I got the file in the computer. Now I have a 3D printer and I print just the shell of the head. So now you have this plastic shell printed on the 3D printer. Then I take that and then you have to. But it's an actual plastic thing. Yeah, it's a head. It's not a printing. It comes out and it's like a toy plastic thing. Yeah, it's a head. It's not a printing. It comes out, and it's like a toy, right?

Yeah, it's a plastic head, 3D printer, full size and all that. Yeah. And then take that, and now you have to animate it. You have to cut everything out, and you have to put all the mechanics into it. What are those? Oh, you know, like the mouth and the eyes and the eyebrows. Make all those move, so that's all mechanical, and that has to be controlled by a stick, the head stick that goes underneath it.

Yeah. So each part of the face has its own... Lever. Uh-huh. Yeah. So like when this lever moves the mouth, this one does the eyes, does the eyebrows. It's a lot to think about. So yeah, there's a mechanical part of that.

And then you got to seal the head up. Then you got to paint it. So you got to paint it perfectly. Then you got to put a wig on it. You got to wig it. Then you got to build the body. You got to costume it. So there's a whole bunch of stuff. And it's, you know, it's not cost effective to put a wig on it you got to wig it then you got to build the body you got to costume it so there's a whole bunch of stuff and it's it's you know it's not cost effective to

do that for a living it's a handful of guys that do it but it's it's ridiculous yeah especially since you're doing your own apparently putting those guys out of business well i also do it because uh i got sick and tired of waiting for people because they would take years to make a head sometimes years to make a doll yeah so the first one though when did you make your first one right right the first one there was this one old guy that was really reliable that would get one done for three or four months but it was garbage it was crap you know it's just what the mouth didn't look right it's well it was it was what every beauty pageant contestant who didn't have a talent would get oh So it was reasonably priced?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. In 1975, it was $375. Oh, I heard it was like thousands. Well, that's now. That's now.

Well, I don't know. What was 350 bucks? Yeah, it wasn't thousands, but I guess that was a lot of money. Sure. Yeah. So yeah, nowadays they're thousands of bucks. So that was your first puppet and it didn't work out? That was okay.

I used them for years. But then when I got into high school and I went to the convention, I won best senior ventriloquist. And the guy that made dummies and was really good at it, they gave out what they call the, they gave the dummy to the most promising ventriloquist. Yeah. And the figure maker would do it because he thought, okay, this is going to, my creation has a chance of becoming. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I'm going to bet on this horse with my wooden guy. Exactly. Yeah. So he gave me Archie. My, it was, he became a friend for 30 something years, Alan, uh, Alan Seamock. And he gave me Archie and I used him for years and years and years. And that was a wooden head? Yep.

Well, plastic wood, plastic wood dough. Oh, so that's what it is. So, okay. I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. And then I started making them out of fiberglass. And then a few years ago I moved on to the, uh, to know what you mean. Yeah, yeah. And then I started making them out of fiberglass, and then a few years ago I moved on to the 3D printer.

Now, how many other Ventuacos make their own dummies? Next to none. Huh. Yeah. I couldn't name one today. So this is like a full kind of like all immersive art form you're in. I mean, you're not like, because that means to me that you're building, like, you know, when you have the the the creative idea to for the for the

character that you know you you know you make it out of clay so you're building your relationship yeah with this character from from nothing right and and you you you birth it right and it is an interesting process because what do you come up with first the jokes or the dummy and it's it's kind of both you know what i do now is i think okay what socially right now what would be a character that people could identify with or laugh at or with akhmed the dead terrorist is a is a an extreme example because you still use him oh yeah absolutely he kills hey but you know so here let me tell you the quick story on that though so. So it was a year after 9-11. Yeah. Nothing funny about 9-11 ever will be.

Even Titanic jokes to me are a little iffy today. Nobody could laugh at 9-11. Right. But I looked to Leno and Letterman, and they were making fun of Osama bin Laden. We didn't know where he was. We didn't know if he was dead. We didn't know if he was alive. Yeah.

Right, right. We didn't know what had happened to him. But it was a year later. So I thought, I know where he is he and i was at the top of the food chain in the comedy clubs at this time i thought i know where he is he's he's half dead he's kind of dead but he's not and he's living in a suitcase hiding out with my characters yeah my other guys right so i i thought this might work yeah so i went to there's a store do do you remember a store, Oz, here in town? A-A-H-S. It's still in business.

No. Anyway, they have all kinds of costumes, holiday stuff. So I was walking through there and there was this big bumbling plastic skeleton that looked like something out of South Park. And I thought, you know, and what I would do is I would make the cheap version of the dummy first and if it worked, then I would make the real ones. Commit. Yeah.

So I got this plastic thing, I put a moving mouth on it, I put a thing on his worked, then I would make the real ones. Commit. Yeah. So I got this plastic thing. I put a moving mouth on it. I put a thing on his head. Yeah. And I thought, I'm going to write jokes as if there are family members in the audience who lost people in 9-11. Widows, widowers, parents, kids. Yeah.

So I'm going to write the jokes and material as if they're sitting there. Yeah. What are they ready to laugh at? How are they ready to move on? Right. How would move on? Right. How would that work? Right. I wrote that material.

I then said, I'm not going to chicken out and go to Hawaii or Alaska or somebody on the far west, someplace on the far west coast. Yeah. Where it doesn't sting quite as much. Yeah. I know where it counts. I got booked at Bananas. In Jersey.

Six miles from, yep, six miles from ground zero. Yeah. So, you know, I did a Wednesday through Friday, but on Friday night I wait for the big show friday but on friday night i wait for the big show or wednesday through sunday i wait for the big show on friday night sold out completely i was the headliner the audience knew me yeah uh i couldn't have done any better i did my 45 50 minutes couldn't have been better yay now i come to the end and i go well folks there's one sentence we've all been waiting to hear and that is osama bin laden is dead huge applause yay yay cheers yeah i said well got some news for you he's here this with us this evening please welcome osama bin laden and it was like god sucked all the air out of that room it was like you could

hear those people go what the fuck is this asshole from texas gonna show us yeah right what's the guy with the puppet gonna do now exactly exactly so out of the suitcase i pulled this bumbling stupid skeleton yeah and i started running through the jokes and that's when i came up with i kill you as an ad lib yeah and it it could not have gone any better could not have gone any better and i started using them in every single show and i started getting letters from uh people in the military because then it caught on youtube and started going nuts and um uh people started thanking me for it uh the parents of people in the military uh and so there yeah i mean like it provides relief for a certain yeah i i mean i understand it man i mean and it's like uh yeah i just did a special

where you know jesus doesn't fare well in my special oh no wait what yeah yeah and uh well he didn't fare well at all to begin with but but uh you know but you know i was able to sort of put it together with you know just the idea of belief and whatever it's me and my heady shit right but like i knew heading into it that that there was a possibility of offending people so i did structure the bit so you know i took some of the weight off of that right do you know what i mean so like i don't know you know if it was muslims who pushed back or what but you know i know that there there is going to be a certain amount of people who are going to be like that's not right but the bigger issue is you know isn't that going to be like, that's not right, but the bigger issue is, you know,

isn't that going to be everything? Well, that's what happened, because I used him for a couple three years, the dead Osama. I then put him away, because Osama Bin Laden got out of the news. Then my next, my second special, Comedy Central special, came along, and I wanted another new character. Right. And so I thought, I went back in the archives, and I thought, that guy was good,

so I'm going to change him from the dead Osama to, instead of offending one dangerous guy, I'm going to offend an entire group of dangerous people. Yeah. So I came up with Ahmed the Dead Terrorist, and then I made the real version of him. Yeah. And that's when things took off. And that's when it went on YouTube and went crazy. And that's when I started getting credible death threats.

From Muslims. All over the world. People. We don't know where they were from. Well, they were from the FBI, got involved, but it was real threats. From Muslims. All over the world. People. We don't know where they were from. The FBI got involved. But it was real threats. But then when you look at my act, if you just look at a picture

and you see this guy, it's unbelievably offensive. So you think. It's until you listen to the show you go, oh my gosh, it's just a stupid failed terrorist who's fallen in love with the free world. He thinks he should be angry and should hate us, but he actually loves everything about it.

He's very conflicted. He's not proud of the fact that he killed himself. Right. So he's a failed terrorist. It doesn't hurt anybody. And I even say he's not Muslim. We don't know where he's from. When Steve Carell was Gru the first time in Despicable Me, I saw him interviewed, and the interviewer said, where'd you come up with that accent?

And Steve goes, well, you know, Europe. And the guy goes, yeah. And he goes, like that. So it's the same thing with Ahmed. It's like Middle East. It's like that from somewhere. We don't know where he's from. So how did you handle the death threat? The FBI got involved, but then, youbi got involved but then you know it was

you know it just lived your life and yeah and it just kind of went away for a little bit you bring people on the road with you to watch your back and shit oh we there was extra security yeah but you know if a red dot appeared on my forehead it's like oh all right this isn't gonna work out yeah people when i want to take the audience to realize like is he really yeah no no no start talking the thing was anybody okay here's the thing that i ended up with if you're the guy that It's going to take the audience to realize, like, is he really? Yeah. If you start talking. The thing was, anybody, okay, here's the thing that I ended up with. If you're the guy that goes out and kills the puppet guy. Are you a martyr of some kind?

That's not going to go down well with your bros, right? So, and then I thought, well, maybe they're stupid enough, they'll just shoot Achmed. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. To destroy the puppet right so how many puppets you got now uh in the act six yeah but but they all have to be well-developed characters that's who are they now jose the old guy there's peanut the little purple crazy guy

there's jose jalapeno on a stick the mainstay peanut and jose yep and walter well those three have been there forever there's walter there's bu Bubba J, the white trash trailer park redneck. Yeah. Did I say Ahmed the Dead Terrorist? Not yet. That's five. Yeah. And now there's, and this is my rotating spot until I find another one. But the one I've been using right now, politically our country is obviously divided.

I have a set of conjoined twins named Rich and Happy. So you're going to piss off the conjoined twins community. Exactly. Have you got any mail from the three living sets? That's another thing, by the way. When Achmed was reaching his peak in popularity in 2008, 2009, I had it on a credible source

that there were even businessmen sitting around at lunch in Iraq and Iran going, I kill you, and laughing. Of course. Because that's how international that thing went. anyway and that's why i started being able to do shows believe me there's plenty of people within every muslim country that don't like terrorists yeah of course right you know most of them yeah but when i did a show in abu dhabi yeah oh man i was a little bit terrified because we were setting up my world tour and we're going

to go countries it was 12 different uh countries, 40 different cities all over the world. Everything, Australia, South Africa. This was one. I've done nine world tours, but this was the giant one. Yeah. And Robert, my manager at the time, said, all right, so you're going to Abu Dhabi. And I went, what? Abu Dhabi?

No. He goes, they love you there. And I go, no, they'd love to kill me there. He goes, no, no, no, no. You have to. You're sold out. I go, how many tickets? He goes, they love you there. And I go, no, they'd love to kill me there. He goes, no, no, no, no. You have to. You're sold out. I go, how many tickets? He goes, 4,000.

I'm like, and they want me to use Achmed? Yes, that's their favorite one. I'm like, no, really? So I was terrified. I really was because I didn't know what to expect. And now we get to the show, and I curtain peeked, and I thought this is going to be all expatriates it's going to be military folks that are over there they just want to see an english-speaking show nope the first two

four two to four to six rows were full of guys in the full dish dash all the white garb yeah the women were all in black with only their eyes showing and this is the yeah it was the first few rows and i'm like wow oh my lord what am i going to do but this is how small the world was they knew every character and loved it and when i pulled akhmed out it was like a fucking homecoming oh i'm not kidding they thought it was the greatest thing ever now here's how small the world is and how i get to view it through rose-colored glasses two days later i'm in the middle of tel aviv israel yeah doing the show for 4 000000 mainly Jewish folks. Yeah.

Did the exact same act. Guess who their favorite character was? Ahmed the Dead Terrorist. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it's a small world. Mark, I tend to believe that this world is,

and you're more cynical than I am, obviously. I think this world is full of really good people. Sure. And it's the handful of- I believe that. Okay. It's the handful of idiots that ruin it for everybody else. I believe that. Because every corner of the globe that I went to, and again, it's sanitized because it's my audience. They're coming to see me. I understand that.

They seem to be making more idiots though. Yeah. Well, it's just everybody has a voice now with their phone. I think that's right. I think you're right. It's like, you know, everyone sitting at home can now have some sort of global impact if they hit the right buttons. And that's my next character that I've just now finished. I can show you a picture of him, but he's going to be my internet troll. Oh, that's great. I'm announcing it here on your show. Oh, great. That's exciting.

By himself? I mean, like, is the character a knock-it-out-much kind of guy? Oh, of course not. He lives in the basement, and he writes about everybody and attacks everybody. Does he actually get the president to respond to him or anything like that? You're writing my material. I don't know. I have not explored that.

Biggest day of his life? Yeah. I just know that there's a, I mean, come on. And Andy's always on his phone. It's going to be the one. He should piss you off. Like, you know, I got through to Dunham. That's how you met him.

Is that like, you know, he kept bothering you on Twitter. That's a great idea. Yeah. That's a way to introduce him. Yeah. I have a lot of haters online. Yeah. and we have the biggest hater online ever. Right, because you actually got into an argument with him on Twitter, and you kept at it until you were like, let's meet. That's really great, Mark.

That's great. You want to see a picture? You should have it, buddy. Let me show your audience the picture. Yeah. Okay, but this is just his face. It's just the head, and it's before I've painted him. So there's that. Oh, yeah. And there's that. It's just the head, and it's before I've painted him. So there's that.

Oh, yeah. And there's that. It's kind of snared-like. Well, he's troll-like. No, I get that. But he's got that same nose. There's a little snared to him. Well, it's all have to do with the hair.

Oh, you don't know what you're going to do. But if you look in the background, see the troll back there? No, I get that. It's a troll doll. Right, right. Oh, I get it. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had to be, see the troll back there? No, I get that. It's a troll doll. Right, right. Oh, I get it. Oh, I see. I see.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You had to be careful on the copyright on that? I think the rule is you got to make them 15% different. You're asking me like I know? No, I don't know what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you make them different enough, you're fine. Well, that's exciting.

So maybe I helped you write something. Thanks. Yeah, that's great. But what about this Siamese Twins guy? So the Siamese Twins, I've been using them for a little while. There was Larry. Larry, who is the personal advisor to Donald Trump. I used him for a little while. He was in my special.

But it was great because he was conflicted as well. Would you say that he was a pro-Trump guy? Or how was that received? Well, see, that's the deal in my show is I try and go down, right down the middle as much as I can. Because I have folks from both sides of the aisle, all sides of the aisle on my show. I mean, I think that's why you're so popular.

Well, I try and do it like both Leno and Carson did, where you never really knew their politics, and you made fun of both sides. And so that's what I try and do. So this guy was conflicted. There were jokes for both ways. Rich and Happy is an extreme example. One guy's left, one guy's right. They hate each other, each other and there's always ours oh so that's it and that's

still in it yeah so now let's talk about this sort of the evolution of like you know how you weathered you know decades like you know you came up through the improv chain but you know me sort of being one of the more condescending people or more aggravated people on another point in my life sort of dismissed you or sort of isolated you. But, you know, you always caught flack from comics. Right. And this is on some level I get that the Association of Antiochus is your community, but really your community are nightclub entertainers. Absolutely.

For, you know, for whatever, however long you were doing that. Right. For 20 years or whatever. Yep. Now, like, how did you handle that? I mean, did it hurt your feelings? I didn't. Most of the time I didn't pay any attention to it because by the time I got to where people really disliked me, I was already headlining. And you know how headliners are. You're not around anybody else. But I guess being an only child, too, you were sort of used to the isolation or the lack of friends. I don't know, but it did. I just never, I never hung out with any of the crowd. I didn't hang out at the comedy store, hang out at the Melrose Improv. I just didn't. Why? Because you were married and you were okay. You were a family man or you, well, there was that you were never a party or a drinker. You never needed that, that sort of a weird affirmation from other

comics. You hit every one of those as yes. That's exactly right. I was never accepted in those years and I didn't have any friends who were comedians. That's sad. All my friends were car guys and... Car guys? Yeah.

Oh, you're a car guy? Car guy, yeah. Okay, so you collect cars? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Do you know that my neighbor across the street, Troy, he fixes cars. If I need something, I know I my neighbor across the street troy he fixes cars

well if i need something i know he's a car guy okay it's a car guy all right so yeah so i didn't i and i there was nothing to me no bigger nightmare than having to go to melrose and do a set because it was that jade improv on melrose oh boy yeah because it was that jaded hollywood set and you guys are hip and and I wasn't. So what was the feeling when you had to do one there? You go heading over like, oh, come on. Yeah, because my agents would. You have to walk by.

Oh, it was an industry. There would be industry nights, and my agents would talk me into it, and I just absolutely hated it. And I've died 1,000 deaths on that stage before. It wasn't an easy room, really. No. I never liked it. The acoustics were never great, and it wasn't easy to anyways.

Versus you come right over here near your house at the Ice House, and you'd kill. If you didn't kill, you were a moron. Yeah, if you walk out of the Ice House going like, that can't even decide whether to judge that as real. That's exactly right. But that's how I got booked on the Carson Tonight Show for the first time, was from the Ice House.

Oh, really? It'd been nine years. I had, how many years? Let's see. I first started auditioning in 86. So, no. And I got booked in 1990. Uh-huh.

And, oh, in 84. 84 to 90. Yeah. I auditioned for Jim McCauley nine times. Wow. I got eight no, no, no, no, no. What the fuck was he looking like? You know, we've done a lot of intro quests.

No, it was very simple. He says, you're not funny enough. Right. And that was another thing that kept pushing me. He says, but I can be on if I'm funny enough. He goes, absolutely. You're a great ventriloquist. You're just not.

You got to be funny when you're in front of Johnny Carson. Right. And so that's when I, you know, and then, you know, I worked and honed and honed and honed that five minutes until McCauley came and saw me at the ice house. And, of course, I killed. And you've always written your own shit? Most of the time. But no, I've had a handful of guys that have helped me throughout the years. Comics?

Yeah, yeah, of course. And comedy writers. Oh, yeah? Well, yeah. It also gets me off the blank page. No, no, I'm not judging. I mean, I know plenty of guys. You get to a certain point where, you know your business is big as your business is and you've got this variety of possibilities that uh you know you want to

keep stuff fresh you know why not hire guys who do that for a living no i ask what i do yeah but nobody ever i mean rarely does anybody ever hand me a joke oh here it is and then i do it verbatim it's always all right dialogue what comics have worked for you uh judd apatow yeah yeah he's one of the way back when he wrote a couple of really good walter jokes oh really way back in the beginning absolutely yeah yeah yeah um when he was just a writer absolutely yeah no recently judd i need some jokes dude throw you a bump if he likes you yeah exactly so coming up in the clubs we're talking about the about the Tonight Show. So, yeah, it took nine years. Yeah, it took nine years, and then I finally got it. And after that, you know, you never forget that first time walking through the curtain when Johnny's introducing you.

And, you know, you knew your life was going to change and be different. And it didn't change that much. It was just this stamp of grade A. Like, okay. And I got invited to the couch the first time. And Walter, you know, just Freddy DeCordova said to me, you know, you got this Walter character? I go, yeah, I'm not doing him tonight. He goes, no, but put him behind the couch just in case you get invited over.

I go, Mr. DeCordova, there's no way I'm going to get invited over on my first time. He knew. And he goes, put him behind the couch. Just trust me. Walter, I mean, Johnny would love Walter. Yeah. And that was the best part of the show. I did my bit with Peanut and drank the water and did the whole thing. And then they called me over. Yeah. And that was the best part of the show. I did my bit with Peanut and drank the water and did the whole thing.

And then they called me over. Yeah. And then Carson called me over to the couch and I pull Walter out and I go, you know where we are? And he goes, yeah, I don't give a damn. And I go, it's the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Well, la-dee-da. And he looks over at Ed and he goes, don't you have some envelopes to lick?

You know, because of, you know, Publisher's hearing. Publisher's hearing, yeah. Absolutely. And I said, at the end of the show, there were a handful of lines that were great, but at the end of the show, when we're in commercial break, I turned to Johnny Carson and I said,

Mr. Carson, would it be okay if you thank me for coming because I have a joke with Walter? And he's like, yeah, don't worry about it. I'll thank you for coming. So have a joke with Walter. And he's like, yeah, don't worry about it. I'll thank you for coming. So he set it up perfectly. We come back from commercial and he goes, and Jeff, thank you and Walter for coming to the show.

Hope we can come back again soon. And Walter turns to Carson, to Johnny Carson, and says, yeah, it'll be a cold day in hell before you get me back here. Oh, my God. Talk about taking a chance. And Carson laughed, I mean, laughed really hard. And that was like, that was it. And how many times did you do it with him?

Five. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you really got in under the wire there, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. Yeah, it was interesting. Here's one of the worst times, though.

This story's terrible. So you remember Carson's son died. He went off a cliff in a car accident yeah so they canceled the show uh so i think it was two weeks later mccauley called me and he says uh i need you to do a favor for johnny i go what's that he says johnny's coming back tonight yeah and he has his bit where he's going to show his son's photographs but if he bails on the bit i need you to be standing by ready to go. I'm like, you want me to come back on the show where

Carson comes back after his son's died and you want me to do stand-up with my dummy? He goes, yeah. I go, this is not the greatest night to be on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He goes, do it for Johnny. I'm like, okay. So I'm back there in the green room and about 20 minutes into the show,

Macaulay comes back, and he goes, you're off the hook. He's going to do the pictures. You don't have to do the show. I'm like, thank God. Wow. Yeah. And did you see Johnny that night or no?

Yeah, I told him. I told him to give him my condolences and all that stuff. Now, all right, well, okay, since you were able to somehow, but I do sense that you know obviously it wasn't great for you all those years you know in terms of us well i didn't hang out with anybody no i get it but i didn't care the fact that the stress of going to melrose i know you didn't care but it's it's still like you were driving to melrose going like that yeah but that

was only a handful of times most of the time i was on the road but when you read those epithets nothing uh yeah that and i that was in tulsa oklahoma and it was written by oh i have to think about this i don't remember who wrote it but i you do i don't i don't i if i if it was multiple choice i could tell you but i can't remember but it was like what the what what's your problem i'm just doing my show it was just something like after i'd won the comic of the year was like you know's your problem? I'm just doing my show. What was the epithet? It was just something like, after I'd won the comic of the year, it was like, you know, the same thing you said. Just a hack and, you know, he's got a puppet and all that stuff. But you know what? Maybe this isn't the best example, but Carrick Topp was kicking ass.

Well, I remember when he became Comedy Central's, like, the best comic of the year, like, the year Hicks died. You know, that was a real controversy. Yeah, exactly. But he was selling tickets. Sure. That was a real controversy. Exactly. But he was selling tickets. He was selling out clubs. And to me, it's like I get the straight monology and I do 30 minutes of stand-up all by myself at the beginning of my show.

That's all I do is my stand-up. And my special, second special, Comedy Central special, we shot an hour and 47 minutes of material and 30 minutes of it was my stand-up. It was just about my kids and being a father and all that stuff. And we kept it in the edit and showed it to them. And they said, we want two versions. We want the hour and a half version where Def does his standup and then the edited down version where it's mainly the ventriloquism.

So they loved it. And they played that thing over and over. So I love doing just straight standup comedy. I don't know that I ever called you a hack. But for some reason, I felt that I was a purist of some kind. Sure. And as I got older, you start to realize we're all under the entertainer umbrella somehow. And there's a long tradition of it.

Like, you know, I've softened only, you know, it was like the judgment really had to do with the same as guitar acts or anybody else. Sure. Even like Carrot Top has got a sort of brilliance to whatever the hell he's doing out there in the desert. Right. But, you know. If you see his show, it is amazing. I did see it. My wife and I went when I was living there for eight months, and I couldn't believe it.

It was just like. Non-stop. Yeah, that's the thing. I live on the laughs per minute, and's how i've formed made my act now is you could put a stopwatch on a stand-up on when he's doing a spot on the tonight show whatever and if he gets a laugh every six to ten seconds yeah he's doing great if it's every 15 seconds so he's getting four laughs a minute he's dying so when i what if it's like 15 seconds but he ends so huge I of course there are exceptions you know what I'm saying

yeah sure so you say look at you you got a little attitude too don't you but I would put a stopwatch to that to guys and I'd go yeah this is a formula

so I started writing my act building the Tonight Show bits so I would have a laugh every 6 to 10 seconds yeah and that's how I was able to do that many spots on there.

Right. And so now when I write my act, it's the same way. It has to have that many laughs in the show. And again, I think that's why people keep coming back and bringing family and friends over and over again because you really get your value when you're laughing that much. And also the puppets. Yeah.

But there's storytelling in there as well. It's like watching a play. You know, because like they like, oh, now he's going to bring out that other guy. Yeah. And it is weird that they all have their following. They all get their big screams. Yeah. So it is an odd thing.

I get it. But the suspension of disbelief, just like a good magician, it really is fun. Yeah. Well, no, I mean, I'll take that to heart that, you know, okay, I'll try to get one every six seconds. I think I do it relatively innately, but maybe that's what I'm missing. But, you know, it's the same thing with Cosby. He was a storyteller and, you know, growing up, you know, people say, who's your favorite

comic? And that way, to me, one of the only albums my mother would let me have. Yeah. Pre-knowing he was a rapist, Cosby. Of course. No, you got to say that. You kind of do. be no you got to say that you know of course i mean i feel yeah i mean he had a tremendous impact on me you know 10 years ago even just watching uh bill cosby himself you know like we're like you can just sit down you can you

have control of the situation right and that was the special that sadly that's what brought him down yeah yeah exactly nice but that that is the special that made that's what brought him down yeah yeah exactly nice but that that is the special that made him and uh we didn't know all that at the time but at the time he was a guy to look up to because he was you know he had more comedy albums than anybody but yeah and even but the point being that even these long-form guys you know had the jokes every you know you could be telling a story and have a joke every six seconds. I guess. No, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Maybe not quite six seconds, but maybe you're offered a little bit of leeway when you're telling a story.

But there's jokes within the long form all the way through. I mean, that's why I have a problem with people saying, like, you're a storyteller or whatever. A lot of great stand-ups were long-form stand-ups. Sure. And the jokes are in there. Right. They're strung all the way through it. Well, I used to not have much respect for Leno when I saw him on The Tonight Show because I'd never seen him live.

Then I went and saw him live, and it was like, oh, my gosh. Real puncher. Yeah. And his stories are unbelievable. And he's the real deal. And I never realized that until I went and saw him live. What did you think of like Willie and Lester or Otto and

Otto and George oh my gosh yeah Otto and George is like the filthiest ventriloquist ever you think he was good though oh well technically no

but he was good because it was just like it was I mean he would kill he would kill so dirty yeah but it was

some of the lines were like how do you even think of that yeah yeah he's a dirty boy. Exactly. Willie Tyler and Lester, great. I mean, you know, I'm not into singing. Right.

And to me, it's great if you entertain the audience. Again, we're back to that. It's great. But I just, again, I approach it more of a stand-up, and I'm telling jokes. Right. But you've got to know how to drink the water. I stopped doing that a long time ago. You know, I tried to bring it.

It's a rite of passage, though, right? It is, but I did try and bring it back a few years ago just because it was such a big bit, and I felt like such a chump on stage doing it. I really did. It would be like Seinfeld going, you know, I used to juggle. Yeah.

So here we go. Kind of, but it's sort of like, you know, it is, but unlike standup, unlike it, it is the mark of, of, of, of, of, of someone who's good at what you do. Like, you know, like, like there, I think there, it's like a, you know, a gymnast or, you know, when they do a triple, whatever, whatever it is. Yeah.

Like, I think a lot of people are like, I don't know, but I wonder if he can drink the water. Right. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I guess. But I, I also look at what people are like, I don't know. I wonder if he can drink the water. Right? Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I guess. But I also look at what I do like South Park. This is the worst animation when they were actually cutting pieces of paper out.

It's the worst animation ever. But the writing was so great and the characters were so great. Who cares? I would rather see a horrible juggler that can't juggle anything or a magician that can't pull off a thing that's funny than I would that's amazing that can juggle eight things at once. Who cares? I want to see the guy drop it and fall on his face

and say something funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, once. And hopefully on purpose. It gets a little rough when they just keep dropping shit and you're like, I think we got to go. Click. Well, good luck working on it. You got plenty of time to develop whichever character is going to deal with coronavirus.

You're going to have a little time off. Yeah, but Mark, I will say that is a brilliant idea that he was one of my haters online. There you go. That's really funny. Run with it. Thanks. Great talking to you, man. Appreciate it.

thanks great talking to you man appreciate it now see i enjoyed that immensely to be quite honest with you guy makes his own heads makes his own puppets uh you can go to stitcher premium to pick premium service and get you all 1100 plus episodes of WTF you can watch my special on Netflix my three specials on Netflix my most recent one being End Times Fun and stay safe try not to lose your minds now I'm going to play three chords

with maybe a fourth chord dropped in. Thank you. Thank you. Boomer lives. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls. Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region.

See app for details. Discover the timeless elegance of cozy where furniture meets innovation. Designed in Canada, the sofa collections are not just elegant, they're modular, designed to adapt and evolve with your life. Reconfigure them anytime for a fresh look or a new space. Experience the cozy difference with furniture that grows with you, delivered to your door quickly and for free. Assembly is a breeze, setting you up for years of comfort and style. Don't break the bank. Cozy's Direct2 model ensures that quality and value go hand in hand.

Transform your living space today with Cozy. Visit Cozy.ca, that's C-O-Z-E-Y, and start customizing your furniture.