Jeff Dunham

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'People come up and say they'll kill me - it's a huge compliment'
By TOMMY HOLGATE
24 Oct 2009

JEFF Dunham has been performing comedy for over twenty years. It is in the past two, though, that things have really started happening. An infamous YouTube clip - with a doll called Achmed the Dead Terrorist - was ripped from his 2007 Spark Of Insanity DVD, and has amassed a staggering 97 MILLION views. The character's catchphrase 'Silence - I kill you!' has since been made into a ringtone - one of many revenue streams that helped Jeff become comedy's third highest earner last year.

Sun Comedy caught up with the dummy-loving joker to pick apart his puppetry.

SUN: So things have blown up for you in the past couple of years. Is it true that people have started turning up to your show with their own puppets?
JD: Yeah that was quite a funny surprise when it first happened. I never thought people across the pond would care so much about what I did.

SUN: Why do you think they do care?
JD: I don't know, there's no magic formula.

I guess I do what makes me laugh, and luckily that's caught on and there's some sort of universal appeal.
Thing is, you never know how long your fifteen minutes of fame is going to be. I've been on the road since 88

SUN: That's a long fifteen minutes...
JD: Yeah but it's been a slow climb, it only kicked off after the YouTube thing. I knew Achmed would be funny, but I never thought it would blow up like that, and strike the chord that it did.

SUN: How has that YouTube clip changed things for you?
JD: It's mainly been a doorway for people to see what I do besides that character. I use the analogy that when the first DVD came out in April 06, the smoke started circling around the launchpad of the idea and the rocket was getting ready to take off. Then the next DVD came along, the rocket of the idea took off and it was flying through the atmosphere. Achmed blew it out of this stratosphere.

SUN: Do you get hassled in the street?
JD: Well put it this way, it's not easy going to Disneyland anymore. I have kids walking by going 'I kill you!'

SUN: How does that feel?
JD: It's a huge compliment. It means they are paying attention to what I do.

SUN: When did you first realise you had the ventriloquism skill?
JD: The skill of ventriloquism is something that anybody can acquire. It's like throwing a baseball or playing a musical instrument.

SUN: Go on then, how do you say 'Bobby bought a baseball', without moving your lips?
JD: The typical answer is that the ventriloquist simply re-learns to speak. Most of us use our lips to form words, whereas the ventriloquist uses different parts of their mouths to speak, like the tongue, the teeth, the upper pallet. What I concentrate on first of all is the comedy. Ventriloquism is easy, the comedy is hard.

SUN: So where does the comedy come from within the ventriloquism?
JD: There are many places to get that comedy from. Any kind of conflict. The relationship between me and the characters, or just plain old joke writing. I don't really know though. With comedy it's more like painting a painting... you know it when you see it. As long as I keep the audience laughing - and my family eating - then I'm happy!

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