No Dummies: Two Pros Vent About Venting
By Danny Gallagher
 

Ventriloquists Jeff Dunham and Jay Johnson have a lot more in common than the fact that they "play with dolls" for a living.

They both grew up honing their craft and their characters in Texas.

They both are known around the country as premiere ventriloquists and throw their voices into trunks full of funny, vibrant, memorable characters.

They have both reached milestones in their careers: Comedy Central will air Jeff's first one-hour special on April 8 and Image Entertainment will release his first DVD, Arguing with Myself, on April 11. Jay is touring Los Angeles with a new one-man (or should we say two-man) show titled "Jay Johnson: The Two and Only" before he goes off-Broadway to the Helen Hayes Theater in New York City.

But when it comes to "why" they throw their voices around, they become complete opposites.

Jeff, who tours the country to sold-out shows on the comedy club circuit, said he would rather be known as a funny ventriloquist than a ventriloquist who happens to be funny.

"I want them walking out thinking, 'Boy, those guys were really funny' instead of 'Gee, wasn't he a good ventriloquist?'" Jeff said. "Technically, I want to be good and proficient to be believable, but at the same time, if I'm still focusing on the characters and the jokes and the relationships, then I've succeeded in sucking the audience into my fake little world."

Jay, who is best known as the schizophrenic ventriloquist Chuck Campbell and his puppet Bob from the popular sitcom serial Soap, said he is more concerned about being a good ventriloquist than a funny one.

"I would rather for the comedy not to work than vice versa," Jay said. "I would rather the audience leave and say, 'That's the most incredible ventriloquist illusion that I've ever seen in my life but I didn't get the humor' rather than 'That's the funniest act I ever saw, but what a lousy ventriloquist.'"

Jay and not-so-silent Bob

Jay and Jeff both developed an interest in throwing their voices while growing up in Texas. Jay was born in Abernathy but moved to Richardson when he was 13. Jeff was born and raised in Richardson. Jeff begged his parents for an Edgar Bergen "Mortimer Snerd" doll he spotted in a toy store. He taught himself how to do the voice and started performing his act at Cub Scout meetings, birthday parties, and civic club functions.

"I can see why they hired me because here's this 12-, 13-, 14-year old kid who would come in with a dummy and get a few names and just start making fun of these high-powered business men and I guess it was just amusing as hell to these guys, " Jeff said. "So I started getting these corporate gigs long before I did any clubs."

Jeff studied communications at Baylor University in Waco and performed his act at gigs around the state and clubs in Los Angeles while most students were going to football games or Spring Break.

"I was going out [to L.A.] to try and get my feet wet and try to understand where I needed to progress and compete with real stand-up comics, and that's how I've always approached it: that I'm a stand-up comic who happens to use ventriloquism as the vehicle for comedy," Jeff said.

Like Jeff, Jay also had a childhood infatuation with ventriloquism and spotted a Jerry Mahoney doll, his first partner, at his Uncle Charlie's house in Roswell, New Mexico. His uncle let him keep it if he promised he would perform his act for the family. When his parents bought him his own Mr. Squeaky doll, he used his talent on a locally produced television show in high school and at Six Flags theme parks in Texas and Georgia, where he racked up 918 performances by the time he graduated.

After getting a marketing degree from North Texas State University in Denton (because his dad "was a big believer in the fact that it was called show 'business'’), he hired puppet maker and ventriloquist Art Sieving to carve him an original Mr. Squeaky. Sieving became one of his biggest mentors and part of the inspiration of his new one-man show.

"It was a much higher schooling that Art gave me than [learning how to throw your voice], " Jay said. "He was involved with the why, the why do you do that. Why did this come from such a dark background to be what it is today?"

Jay said he not only explores the relationship he had with Sieving and his puppets (he doesn't like the term, dummies) in his show, but also the history for ventriloquism, which he said had a much darker purpose.

"It's only been in modern centuries that ventriloquism has been associated with comedy and puppetry," Jay said. "Before that, it was a dark art and just like black magic, ventriloquism came from another dark art called necromancy and that was basically talking to dead people. You would go to a ventriloquist and they would channel this demon voice, a spirit voice, and that spirit voice would tell you things and you would pay them like you would pay a fortune teller."

Ventriloquism graduated to puppetry with traveling medicine shows in the late 1700s before moving to vaudeville in straight forward comedy acts and performance pieces such as "Lydia Dreams."