Jeff Dunham is a very famous comedian/ventriloquist. Wait, or is it ventriloquist/comedian? Dunham himself doesn’t even seem to know. With each of his comedy specials, before he starts bringing out his lineup of famed puppets, he does a solid chunk of straight stand-up comedy that sets up the rest of his show. This is when he can tell jokes about his family and personal life that his trunk full of characters later comment on tease him about. He usually gets a lot of laughs during this introduction segment, which has left me wondering whether or not he would consider a special only consisting of straight stand-up. Now we have our answer.
I recently caught up with Dunham to discuss his new special Me The People. Given the fact that he’s never released a true stand-up special in his 30+ years working in the entertainment business, I asked if it’s something he’d ever consider, and he responded with this:
I'm a true believer in you dance with who brung you, and I don't think people are coming to see me just do stand-up. But I do enjoy doing it because you're right, a lot of the standup now sets up what goes on in the rest of the show… but no, I don't think I would ever do stand-up just by myself because the ventriloquism is what brought me to where I am. And I think the audience, that's what they're paying for.
Truthfully, that response shows a level of self-awareness on the part of Dunham. After all, his characters have become just as famous as he is. Some would be more inclined to remember the names of Walter, Peanut and José Jalapeño before they remember the man bringing them to life. Not that all of his characters have been successes, as he recently told us about a few that left Dunham asking, “What the hell was I thinking?” Still, he has a way of creating charming little dummies that keep the audiences coming, and he would never deprive them of that.
He went on to tell an anecdote about none other than Pee-wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens, in order to further illustrate the importance of bringing out the puppets when people attend one of his shows:
I remember in Dallas when Pee wee's Playhouse was huge, and I grew up in Dallas, but I was up at Baylor down South and I heard that he was at a comedy club and people were so upset because he just came as Paul Reubens and he didn't do the Pee-Wee character. And people were like, ‘why do we even come see you?’
So Dunham never forgot the Paul Reubens backlash and continues to apply what he learned with that situation to this day. Reubens seems to have learned from this himself, as he’s still milking the character for all its worth, and is even currently shopping around a “dark” take on the character with the likes of the filmmakers behind Uncut Gems. When you have a character iconic enough that people break down the nuances between the film and television incarnations like folks do with Pee-wee, you’re going to experience some pushback when leaving him out of a live show.
Dunham also has a cost-effective reason for doing a chunk of stand-up at the beginning of his acts, and it’s that he doesn’t want to pay for an opener. He also said this:
But I also did it from an economic standpoint. Number one, I think I enjoy being on the road alone in my own tour bus... I didn't want to share my tour bus with an opening act, you know, I like my own space. So there was that. But there's also the economic part of it where I was paying these guys like a lot of money to open for me. And I'm like, ‘wait a minute, I'm going up there doing 15, 20, 30 minutes of stand up myself. Why do I need an opening act?’
I mean… sure. Who wants to pay for an opening act? Jeff Dunham's stand-up has become such an effective part of his overall show that it’s funny to think it started simply to save on costs and have a tour bus all to himself. Gabriel Iglesias recently told us that he had to pay a huge fine following his most recent special, so doing this stuff isn’t at all cheap.
Thankfully you can see Jeff Dunham’s new special Me The People, with his beloved puppets in hand, on Comedy Central Friday, November 25. The comedian/ventriloquist, or ventriloquist/comedian, is also going on tour, so check out his website to see if he’s coming to a city near you. If comedic puppeteering isn’t your thing, not to worry, as there’s plenty more coming to TV throughout 2022 and premieres set through 2023.
