Photo credit: Getty Images | Comedian Jeff Dunham performs onstage during the American Country Awards 2010 held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas , Nevada . (Dec. 6, 2010)
He may not have the high profile of a Sarah Silverman , a Chris Rock or others who have film and TV to thank for making them household names, but Jeff Dunham is the biggest comedy act in the world.
That's right. The staunchly middle-American ventriloquist with such dummies as Achmed the Dead Terrorist, good ol' boy Bubba J., the very un-PC Walter the Grumpy Retiree and a crazy creature called Peanut grossed $34.6 million in 2009, ranking No. 23 on a list dominated by the likes of U2 and Bruce Springsteen , according to Pollstar , a trade publication covering the worldwide concert industry. He's one of only two comics - Dane Cook 's at No. 31 - to reach that stratosphere.
The affable ventriloquist, 48, plays Nassau Coliseum Sunday. And he's good: In a phone interview with Newsday, not once did we see his lips move.
Which comes first for a ventriloquist: the need to have different selves or just the desire to throw your voice and do comedy?
I've always approached this as standup comedy where I just happen to use the dummies as the vehicle for the humor. The only difference is I'm doing dialogue instead of monologue, and to me there are a lot of advantages to that because setup-and-punch-line is much easier. Plus, you can have relationships and develop them, so there's tension and conflict, and it can be like a little sitcom onstage.
But as for the personalities, that's all driven by whatever I think would work in the market at that particular time. Certainly, Achmed the Dead Terrorist I thought it would appeal to a bunch of people, and probably I'd be stepping on a few toes here and there, but that to me is always good comedy.
Creating characters can't all just be calculated for the marketplace.
No, they're definitely coming from somewhere [inside me]. It's like a good actor - you use your past and your relationships and the good and the bad that you've been through to build a character. And I think I do the same thing when I create characters.
Any exceptions?
The two that come to mind are Sweet Daddy D, the African-American character, and Diane, the first female character I've ever used. I'm not a hip black guy and I'm not a woman, and I don't get it. So those were two I really had to research and have other people help me write the material for, because there's nothing for me to draw on inside of me.
So what's Peanut, exactly? He's called himself a "woozle."
That term "woozle" . . . I haven't used that term in Lord knows how long. I did for a handful of years after I first designed Peanut - I was on ["The Tonight Show Starring Johnny"] Carson with him the first time in 1990 - and then after that, I didn't call him that anymore because it's a Disney character, or [originally] an A.A. Milne character from "Winnie the Pooh.
So what is he?
I don't know. I just wanted something that was kind of this wacky everyman character that could tell jokes about everything. It's funny - People come to the show loving Walter or Achmed or whatever character, but Peanut ends up being the favorite. I think we sell more Peanut merchandise even than Achmed stuff.
Oh man, Governor's [in Levittown ] was one of the places! I loved coming back every time to [owner] Jimmy Finn's place! I started working Long Island in probably the early '90s.
WHEN | WHERE: Sunday at 5 p.m., Nassau Coliseum, 1255 Hempstead Turnpike, Uniondale
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