Archive for May, 2009
Jeff Dunham
Jeff Dunham is an American ventriloquist and stand-up comedian who has also appeared on numerous television shows, including Star Search, Late Show with David Letterman, Comedy Central Presents and The Tonight Show. He is familiar to Comedy Central audiences for his three specials on that network: Jeff Dunham: Arguing With Myself, Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity, and Jeff Dunham’s Very Special Christmas Special. His style has been described as “a dressed-down, more digestible version of Don Rickles with multiple personality disorder.”
Walter
Walter is a retired, grumpy old man with arms always crossed in discontent. He has a brash, negative and often sarcastic view on today’s world. He is a Vietnam War veteran and a former welder, and “doesn’t give a damn” about anyone, especially his own wife and certain audience members. Walter has appeared in all three Comedy Central specials. He’s been married for “46 years”, and when Dunham asks him if he remembers the happiest moment of his life, Walter responds, “Yeah, it was forty-seven years ago.” Dunham created the Walter puppet himself, including both the initial sculpture and the silicon mold, though he eventually began utilizing professional effects companies for the latter stages with his subsequent puppets.
Peanut
Peanut is a purple-skinned “woozle” with white fur covering most of his body, a tuft of green hair on the top of his head, and one red sneaker on his left foot. Dunham explains in Arguing with Myself that Peanut is from a small Micronesian island, and that they met in Florida. Peanut’s humor is not based on a particular motif or stereotype, as those of the other characters. He often makes fun of Dunham and often torments and mocks José Jalapeño on a Stick. Touching upon his unusual appearance and personality, he asks Dunham in Arguing with Myself, after Dunham denies ever having done drugs, “Then how the hell did you come up with me?”
José Jalapeño on a Stick
José is a talking jalapeño pepper on a stick who wears a small sombrero. José, who speaks with a thick Spanish accent, is typically paired with Peanut, who often makes fun of José, uses appeals to Latino stereotypes when doing so, and makes fun of his being on a stick. Although José was not Dunham’s first puppet, it was the first that Dunham made himself.
Bubba J
Bubba J is a beer-drinking redneck that Dunham describes in Arguing with Myself and A Very Special Christmas Special as “white trash trailer park”, and uses Bubba J for humor that centers on stereotypes associated with that group. To this end, he frequently does jokes involving Bubba J’s love of drinking beer and NASCAR, and his low intelligence. Touching upon such stereotypes, Bubba mentions in Arguing with Myself that he met his wife at a family reunion, and remembers seeing her with a corn dog in one hand, a beer in another, and leaning against a ferris wheel, “making it tilt”.
Sweet Daddy Dee
Dunham introduces Sweet Daddy Dee in Arguing with Myself as his “new manager”. He calls himself a “pimp”, which he says stands for “Player In the Management Profession.” According to Sweet Daddy, because he is a pimp, that makes Jeff the ho. When Dunham objects, Daddy Dee points out that Dunham makes people laugh and feel good for a living. When Dunham agrees that this is the case, Daddy Dee says, “You a ho.” When Dunham asks what he would say if he told him that he was a comedian only because he enjoyed it, Daddy Dee responds, “You a dumb ho.”
Melvin the Superhero Guy
Melvin wears a blue superhero costume, and is used to poke fun at superheroes. When asked about his superhuman powers, he indicates that he has X-ray vision, adding, “I love looking at boobies!” He appears to have no other powers, however: When Dunham asks how far he can fly, he responds, “How far can you throw me?” Dunham portrays Melvin as unimpressed with other superheroes: When told Superman can leap tall buildings in a single bound, Melvin dismisses him as a “showoff” who can simply walk around them, observes that Aquaman has the same powers as Spongebob Squarepants, that the Flash’s super speed is derived from methamphetamine, that the Hulk’s vaunted ability to get stronger as he gets angrier merely mirrors “every white trash guy on COPS,” and makes innuendo about the questionable relationship between Batman and the underage Robin. Melvin’s first onscreen appearance was in the July 2003 Comedy Central Presents episode, in which he had small, black, beedy eyes. By his next appearance, in Arguing with Myself, he had been modified to have large, blue, crossed eyes. Dunham sculpted the current version of Melvin’s head himself, and hired an effects company called Renegade Effects Groups to create the rubber mold and complete the puppet, before then installing the mechanics himself.[14]
Achmed, the Dead Terrorist
Achmed is the skeletal corpse of an incompetent suicide bomber. He is used by Dunham to perform comedy based on the contemporary issue of terrorism. He is known for yelling, “Silence! I kill you!” to Dunham and people in the audience who laugh at him. Achmed first appeared in Spark of Insanity, and later made an appearance in the Very Special Christmas Special, singing a song called “Jingle Bombs”. Most of the humor Dunham expresses with Achmed centers on this motif. When mentioning that Achmed appears to be dead because he’s a skeleton, Achmed responds, “It’s a flesh wound.” When Dunham inquires as to how he died, Achmed explains his incompetence with explosives, while also casting aspersions on Dunham’s sexual prowess by saying that they both suffer from “premature detonation.”