Jeff Dunham is probably the best known comedian and ventriloquist out there in the market today, best known for his crazy hilarious puppets that has a unique edge of personality tones and physical appearance. Jeff Dunham is growing popularity by the millions, he had appeared on a number of television shows, and established loads of comedy specials. Jeff Dunham has been credited for reviving the art of ventriloquism and becoming the no.1 source of inspiration to all ventriloquist throughout the world. If you’re a venturing ventriloquist and you haven’t heard of this one you might want to get your head in the game.
“Dunham is the most successful comedian working in America.”
-New York Times Magazine
Jeff Dunham ranked the 3rd highest paid comedian in the whole United States on Forbes.com which he is currently between the Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, from 2008 to 2009 he had earned approximately $30,000,000 from his merchandise products and sold out performances through out the globe. His net worth now is estimated to be $45 million.
Childhood
The first time he sought out the work of ventriloquism was at the age of eight, in which young Jeff Dunham had received a ‘Mortimer Snerd Dummy'(A puppet made by the famous ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen) , and a how-to practice album as a Christmas present from his parents.
Jeff was amazed by the idea of controlling his very own ‘companion’ and the very net day he went to a local library and stole a how-to book called “Fun with Ventriloquism” in the year of 1972, all about ventriloquism and quoted in 2011 that ‘He still have it.” saying to himself he was a rebel and a thief back then. In the very next year, he promised to himself that he would not only be just a ventriloquist, but the best ventriloquist out there, devoting his whole life and going into a career in the entertainment business as a ‘professional ventriloquist’. As a way to reach his destined goal he spent long hours shredding tears and sweat from practicing in front of a mirror, observing and learning from the videos of Edgar Bergen & Jimmy Nelson, in which Edgar Bergen was his grand idol. Jeff Dunham credited that because he was an adopted “only child”, he learned to appreciate his loneliness, in which he could develop the work of his talents of creative thought much faster into the combination of his future career as a ventriloquist.
Jeff Dunham found out and started attending the Vent Haven ConVENTion, an annual gathering of ventriloquist, in which he met ventriloquist, Jimmy Nelson. Jeff Dunham competed in many competitions at the event winning them all, it wasn’t until the organizers of the conVENTion declared Jeff Dunham a “retried champion” simply because he had repeatedly won too many competitions, making other ventriloquist to afraid to compete so the organizers had told him he was ineligible to compete anymore. He later received his own section in the museum devoted only to him. Jeff Dunham is committed among the conVENTion even to today, cutting out some of his business time to attend. Jeff had never missed one conVENTion, except for one in 1972
Career
Jeff Dunham started performing in front of an annual audience as a teenager accepting as much performances as he could’ve manage, performing at comedy clubs, venues, schools, churches and even during his job at Six Flags. At one point, when he was still in middle school he performed at a memorable banquet attended by local celebrities and even Dallas Cowboy’s quarterback, Roger Staubach, using these types of performances as an advantage to hone his style in using his puppets to say things that no human being would dare to say.
“It’s amazing how these little guys can say things that mortal human could never get away with,” … “There’s some sort of unspoken license … when an outlandish things come out of an inanimate object, somehow it equals humor.”
– Jeff Dunham quoted
He started appearing on television in 1976 when a reporter known as Bill O’ Reilly started interviewing him for a local new story. He also got several contracts to advertise on television commercials for products such as Datsun dealership in Dallas, Texas & Tyler, Texas while still having having his duties at high school.
He was later granted as the emcee of a high school talent show in which he was heckled but fought the heckler and won back the audience, he became associated so much with hiscraft he co-wrote a column in his school newspaper, and will pose with his dummies for his school year book, and will pose with his dummies for his school year book,
only as an inexpensive way of a professional photo for promotional purposes, in his yearbook he was voted Most Likely To Succeed and had a career goal of ‘obtaining’
Later on he started to attend Baylor University hoping to get a degree in communications while performing throughout campus and traveling around the country during the weekends. He preformed around 100 priate shows a year. By his junior year, he was making $70,000 a year,he landed spots to open for Bob Hope and George Burns. After graduating he began to hone his act at comedy clubs where he was later struggling the perception that he wasn’t a real comedian, due to the fact he uses ‘props’.
Catch A Rising Star – his experiences at the comedy club left him with confirmation that ventriloquist serves at the bottom of the food chain, where the emcee of the club gave him almost no respect due to the fact that he was a ventriloquist. He was given a late time slot and kept postponing Jeff Dunham’s act until he eventually left.
By the end of 1988, Dunham felt his career went as far as it could go in Texas, and he moved to Los Angeles, California never having, as he has commented, “a real job”. When he first arrived in Los Angeles, the comedy in his act bombed. Dunham attributes to his underdeveloped comedy, explaining that while the characters’ personalities were developed at that point, his jokes were not. You see the comedy world was not welcoming to ventriloquists, and his manager, Judi Brown-Marmel, did not use the word “ventriloquist” when finding bookings for him, choosing to present him as a comedy duo.
After Jeff Dunham befriended Mike Lacey, owner of The Comedy & Magic Club, Mike Lacey gave Jeff Dunham a steady schedule at the clube, where Jeff Dunham decided to sharpened his act and move away from family oriented comedy material and move toward edgier and more adult themes.
Tonight Show
In the year of 1988, Jeff Dunham was told by a talent booker, James McCawley, from the “The Tonight Show Starring Johnn Carson”, that Jeff would be given a spot on the program. Jeff Dunham was delighted that about the news, but sadly McCawley later cancelled Jeff Dunham’s appearance after he attended a performance, with Roseanne Barr, the day before the taping of “The Tonight Show”, McCawley informed Jeff on the day of the scheduled taping that he had made a mistake in the assessment of Jeff, who he said he wasn’t ready for “The Tonight Show”
Jeff Dunham decided to tighten his act at Comedy Clubs, performing the same six-minute segment with his puppet ‘Peanut’ for a total of nine times for McCawley over the next few months. After a while McCawley informed Dunham that would finally get his ‘Tonight Show’ appearance. Jeff Dunham and Peanut appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on April 6, 1990, alongside guest Bob Hope & B.B. King.
Following his bit, he was invited to sit on Johnny Carson’s couch, a mark of approval on Carson’s show.
At the the time, Dunham saw his Tonight Show appearance as his big break, but was frustrated at his parents’ initial disapproval over Jeff Dunham’s inappropriate comedy, and would suffer in the obscurity for another 12 years.
Jeff Dunham later continued his stand up at venues such as The Improv chain, and appearing in small roles on TV such as a 1996 episode of Ellen, in which he appeared with Walter. Dunham also appeared with Walter in a TV commercial for Hertz. Duham would appear on the Tonight Show a total of four times and appeared in one segment with Reba McEntire on Hot Country Nights. This exposure helped make Dunham a large theater headliner, a rare accomplishment for a ventriloquist, but later on his television appearances had dwindled along with his stage audiences.
Jeff Dunham moved back to the clubs having more than 200 appearances a year, to maintain a connection with his fan base, he would use question cards that audiences fill out before his performance to build a database, which was tailor-made for the burgeoning World Wide Web.
Though he was voted Funniest Male Standup at the American Comedy Awards in 1998, his club work kept him away from his wife and daughters between two and three weeks each month, adding strain on his marriage, relationships, and made paying bills for his expanded family difficult. By 2002, Jeff was hoping to obtain more TV work to raise his profile and ease his stand-up schedule.
Such exposure was elusive until a successful appearance on “The Best Damn Sports Show Period”, where Jeff and Walter made jokes at the expense of co-host Tom Arnold, Michael Irvin, John Salley & John Kruk, generating laughter from them, and giving Dunham much-needed exposure.
In 2003, Dunham was the front runner to replace Jimmy Kimmel on “Fox NFL Sunday”, but host Howie Long & Terry Bradshaw weren’t to eager to the the idea of being upstaged by a ventriloquist
2009 To Present
In March 2009, Jeff Dunham signed a multi-platform deal with Comedy Central and had ordered for a television show series called “The Jeff Dunham Show” that premiered on October 22, 2009. Despite having the most-watched premiere in Comedy Central history, and higher average ratings that other shows on that network intially, the show was canceled after on season, amid poor reviews, lower ratings and higher production costs than other Comedy Central shows.
Jeff Dunham’s comedy specials include “Arguing With Myself”, “Spark Of Insanity”, “Controlled Chaos”, “All Over The Map” and many more.
Dunham appeared in a guest role with Bubba J on NBC’s sitcome 30 Rock, playing a ventriloquist named Rick Wayne and his dummy Pumpkin from Stone Mountain, Georgia.
In November 2009 Jeff Dunham also appeared with Walter in “Hart To Hart”, an episode of the Disney Channel series “Sonny With A Chance”, as two security guards.
He appeared in the 2010 Steve Carell & Paul Rudd Comedy, “Dinner For Schmucks”, as Lewis, with a new puppet named Diane.
The Art Ventriliquism 