Jeff Dunham Quotes

All through college, I was searching for characters that would make me unique and set me apart from the typical ventriloquist with the typical dummy that was the little boy, cheeky hard figure like Charlie McCarthy.

I think maybe one reason why ventriloquists are looked down on is because it's very difficult to be funny. I think what happens is that people get a dummy, they learn the technique of ventriloquism, they memorize the script, they think they're in show business.

When my brother and me got into performing in the late '40s and early '50s, it was a sensational opportunity to learn from our elders. Every show we played had a dancer, a comic, a juggler, a singer, an acrobat. I came to appreciate virtuosity in all forms of the business.

I love anything to do with ventriloquism and magic.

One of my favorite things about Tom Waits is not only his songs, but when he does do live shows, it's the theatrics involved. It's like Kabuki theater, really old-fashioned theatrics. Like, standing on top of a piece of plywood lying on some cinderblocks and clapping his hands, banging on a bucket.

With my mask, I controlled all of the mouth movements with my own mouth.

I think I've got it pretty easy compared with somebody who works at a desk nine to five. I'm just working for an hour in the evening. I get a bit breathless, as I have to talk non-stop because of the puppets.

Up until college age I was using the typical little-boy dummy that sits on the knee and makes woodpecker jokes. My first original character didn't happen until later, and that was Jose the Jalapeno on a Stick.

I make napkins talk in restaurants, socks talk on car journeys. There is an awful lot of puppetry going on in the house.

I think there's a lot of, unfortunately, unfunny ventriloquists out there, so they've got a bad rap. It came after Edgar Bergen because everybody had a little cheeky boy dummy like Charlie McCarthy, and everybody decided to become a ventriloquist because Bergen had popularized it. He brought it back from the doldrums of vaudeville.

I do laugh when I hear myself saying, 'I am a ventriloquist.' I am definitely suited to it, though. I took it and ran with it quite hungrily. It is not for everyone, but it is just the chance to write for a character.

I remember clearly watching a 'Sooty Show' at a theatre and telling my mum I wanted to be up with the puppets, not in the audience.

A Las Vegas show is all-round entertainment. Which means there's some singing, some dancing, some magic, some drama - everything is rolled into that one performance.

When I was starting out in this business, that was the norm. You did it all. You looked around, and entertainers could dance, sing, play the piano, act, make you laugh.

My great-grandmother was in one of the first girl bands, in the 1920s. Their outfits were mental: velvet bloomers with big ribbons and headpieces. They were brilliant.

There's a scene in 'Singin' in the Rain' where this guy dances with a giant doll while singing 'Make 'Em Laugh.' I remember loving the pure physicality of it.

Musicals spring forth from minstrelsy, vaudeville, melodramas; it was all these things combined to create the form.

It would be quite interesting to use Kermit the Frog to act like a real frog. But it wouldn't produce captivating theatre.

One time, it was really funny, I was going on stage... and they were like, 'Oh, we didn't mic the puppet! Mic the puppet!' So, that's how I know that sometimes I do a very good job, because they think that the puppet is actually, like, real.

I dabbled in puppetry throughout college and even had my own traveling puppet show after I graduated.

Sometimes when I'm performing, whenever my puppet cracks a joke, it actually makes me laugh.

I love singing - singing was basically kind of my passion before ventriloquism.

Each couple is its own vaudeville act.

Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving.

Acting is a marvelous profession ... If you can spend enough time playing other people, you don't have to think too much about your own character and motivations.