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.

Jeff Dunham

I think all the garbage in the world is thanks to a very small handful of idiots.

We just got a tour bus. I didn't know tour buses could be this nice. It's just me, Brian Haner the guitar guy, the tour manager and a writer. We laugh ourselves silly. Apparently we're going to have a road dog, a miniature pincher. It's the smallest they've ever seen. How masculine am I going to look, working with dolls and a miniature dog?

Jeff Dunham

Work Age Writer

When I was eight years old, I got a dummy for Christmas and started teaching myself. I got books and records and sat in front of the bathroom mirror, practising. I did my first show in the third grade and just kept going; there was no reason to quit.

Jeff Dunham

Christmas Art Years

I'm not trying to teach anybody anything, I'm not trying to say anything, I have no political motive whatsoever. My motive is just the big laugh.

Jeff Dunham

Yin Whatsoever Us

Growing up doing those Kiwanis Clubs, doing those Cub Scout banquets, doing those church shows, I learned to find that sensibility that most people could laugh at - that all ages and demographics could laugh at.

Jeff Dunham

Age Wing Win

Family time was very difficult when my girls were little, but I never missed a birthday; I was there for every major event.

Jeff Dunham

Time Family Birthday

I'm guilty of being fascinated by gadgets and toys and technology, but any penny that I spend, I try to make it be a part of what I do for a living. Because then you are forwarding. You are forwarding that art, forwarding that career ahead.

Jeff Dunham

War Technology Car

It's strange because even in the vaudeville days, ventriloquists were never the main attraction. They were the guys brought out to stand in front of the curtain while sets were being changed. Ventriloquism wasn't even celebrated as an art until Edgar Bergen came along in the 1930s.

Jeff Dunham

Change Art While

What I do for a living is whimsical and fun and ridiculous. I'm supposed to make people laugh. We all have that child in us. For many people, that child gets pushed into a corner. But if you want to be creative, that little kid can never go away.

Jeff Dunham

You Whimsical Whim

I had a happy, dramafree youth, growing up in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Dallas, Texas. The only thing that was slightly unusual compared to most of my friends was that I was an only child... I don't think that's why my parents gave me a dummy, at least they've never copped to it.

Jeff Dunham

Youth You Wing

It's amazing how these little guys can say things that a mortal human could never get away with. There's some sort of unspoken license... when outlandish things come out of an inanimate object, somehow it equals humor.

Jeff Dunham

Humor Amazing Wit

When I was in third grade I taught myself ventriloquism... What's hard is to learn to be an entertainer and make people laugh. I was a few years out of college before I felt I had enough material. Then in 1988 I moved to L.A. and started to do some shows at comedy clubs.

Jeff Dunham

Art Years Year

The best place to find material is in real life. I've always maintained that it's not until the mid-20s that you have enough of a life to draw from. There's nothing better for a comic than to go through some bad stuff - and some good stuff, like getting married.

Jeff Dunham

Life Good You

I taught myself computer. Then Macintosh came along, and it became a really bad addiction. If I wasn't in show business, I'd have pocket protectors growing out of my chest. I do everything on it. It's kinda sick.

Jeff Dunham

Business Wing Win

A comedian needs to have his own filters, needs to know his audience, how far he can push things.

Jeff Dunham

Us Things Thing

The magic in performing as an entertaining ventriloquist happens when the characters come to life and the interaction between the separate personalities on stage becomes 'real.' Then don't forget that the act has to be funny, and to me, being funny and entertaining any given audience is more important than anything.

Jeff Dunham

Life Funny Age

I'm a Macintosh nut. I got my PowerBook, so if I'm not writing jokes, I'm working on that.

Jeff Dunham

Work Power Writing

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.

Jeff Dunham

Car Art Would

It's a survival thing. I don't do anything to be artistic or just because I like it.

Jeff Dunham

Art Use Us

I was a shy little kid, and getting up in front of people and making them laugh and being able to carry on a dialogue rather than a monologue was something that was pretty interesting to me because you could set yourself up - you could ask a question and then answer it.

Jeff Dunham

Car Yourself Yours

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.

Jeff Dunham

There are not that many ventriloquists out there who build their own characters. I love that because they are uniquely mine.

Jeff Dunham

Math? Forget about it. If I add four plus eight plus six, I have to count on my fingers. I guess I'm hooked up differently.

Jeff Dunham

I've always said that instead of watching a guy juggle seven things amazingly I would rather see a really bad juggler who's really funny.

Jeff Dunham

My mother and my father have always supported me. Now in their eighties, they actually clamor onto the tour bus with me once or twice a year so they can watch the performances and hear the crowds. Traveling with eighty-something-year-olds on a tour bus... there has to be some sort of reality show in that.

Jeff Dunham

Growing up, I thought it would be great if I could do big theaters. Now we're doing arenas.

Jeff Dunham

My goal in any show is to make people laugh. That's the No. 1 thing. Everything else pales in comparison to that.

Jeff Dunham

I've skewered whites, blacks, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, Muslims, gays, straights, rednecks, addicts, the elderly, and my wife. As a standup comic, it is my job to make sure the majority of people laugh, and I believe that comedy is the last true form of free speech.

Jeff Dunham

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.

Jeff Dunham

In 1980, when I graduated from high school, my goal was to be on 'The Tonight Show' with Johnny Carson at least once before our ten-year class reunion. Our class reunion was in June of 1990, and I was on 'The Tonight Show' in April 1990, so I made it by a few months.

Jeff Dunham

As humans we like to laugh at our fears, we like to whistle in the dark.

Jeff Dunham

Stand-up comedy is tough right now. Anybody can come to a concert, tape you, and put you up on the Internet. You either fight it or embrace it.

Jeff Dunham

I'm a geek to the bone.

Jeff Dunham

I try to make the majority of my audience laugh. That's my audience. They'll laugh at the dead terrorist.

Jeff Dunham

But the mechanics of learning to 'throw your voice' are pretty simple. Anyone with a tongue, an upper palate, teeth, and a normal speaking voice can learn ventriloquism.

Jeff Dunham

The only way a ventriloquist speaks differently is that he forgoes using his or her lips, and learns to reproduce sounds using the tongue, upper palate, and teeth only. Those 'difficult' letters are B, F, M, P, V, W, and Y.

Jeff Dunham

A lot of my best stuff is just ad libs on stage, and that's one thing that I've gotten back to at the live show.

Jeff Dunham

I try to make the majority of my audience laugh.

Jeff Dunham

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.

Jeff Dunham

I'm a pretty good ventriloquist, but it's the entertainment value and the laughs that keep people sitting there and wanting more.

Jeff Dunham

My parents never discouraged me. There were a couple times when my dad criticized a couple things that I did, but it was nothing. So through the bad shows, I never wanted to quit.

Jeff Dunham

I'll come up with an idea for a character, and I'll write some jokes and make sure that that character is going to have some legs to it - that it's really going to work. If I can come up with jokes and material that I think will work, then I make a cheap version of the doll. Achmed started out just being this little plastic toy from the store.

Jeff Dunham

There's some sort of unspoken license... when outlandish things come out of an inanimate object, somehow it equals humor.

Jeff Dunham

I've never been truly hammered... Never. Not even in college. I was too busy driving or flying away on weekends doing shows around Texas and the country.

Jeff Dunham

I honestly go back and forth in my head about using advanced and innovative technologies for creating my characters. There's something more 'real' and charming when the characters aren't perfect. It's the difference between anything that's built by a computer and machine versus the same thing being made by hand.

Jeff Dunham