by Jeff Dunham
Jeff: Who are you?
José: My name José.
Peanut: José what?
José: José Jalapeño.
Jeff: I see.
José:… On a steek.
And even though José was Mexican, at times I would take liberty with his heritage simply for a good laugh:
Peanut: Are you Mexican?
José: No, señor; Mexicans are from Mexico. I am Cuban. I’m from Miami.
And then one of the biggest laughs in the original routine:
Jeff: Do you enjoy being in this country?
José: I’m afraid for my life.
Peanut: Why?
José: Taco Bell.
At first, I thought José might be a throwaway bit appearing for a few minutes in shows every now and then. But each time I brought him out, he was a hit… and I mean a BIG hit. He succeeded in front of every audience in Texas and Arizona, plus in Los Angeles where I would travel now and then trying out my act at the comedy clubs. I wanted to see how I would do in the city where I knew I would eventually have to “make it” if I wanted to be a contender in the real showbiz world.
I think another key to José being such a success was that he was easily remembered. For years after putting him on TV and in front of crowds, if people saw my show, then years later if they had forgotten everything else, the one thing that would stay in their memories and that they would bring up to me would be, “Oh, you’re THAT guy!… the jalapeño on a stick!”
Probably the most important club to me in those early days was the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, California. Another ventriloquist and friend, Dennis Alwood, who had been a friend of Edgar Bergen’s, saw my act at the convention in Kentucky and insisted that I showcase for Mike Lacey, the owner of Comedy & Magic. Mike is another of those rare, really good guys who is truly interested in helping performers become everything they strive for. Alwood told Lacey about me and my act, and Mike was instantly supportive and encouraging. He booked me as a middle act (what they call the guy who performs between the opener and the headliner) and saw a lot of potential. Years later, it would be very much thanks to Mike Lacey that I was seen by the right guy who eventually put me on The Tonight Show. But this would be much, much later.
Right now it was still 1983, and I was in California for a weekend performing at the Comedy & Magic Club, when Dave Douds, my William Morris agent, came and saw the show with José. Once again, he was very pleased with what he saw. He called José “genius.” (I’m really not sure it was genius… it was a talking vegetable on a dowel stick, after all.)
I always tried to make sure that whatever jokes I did with José were simply in character and didn’t disparage Hispanics. I would do stick jokes and Mexican food jokes and jokes about anything that José might be dealing with on a daily basis. Yes, he spoke slowly and was very laid back, but he would usually one-up Peanut or me or both of us. Literally only two or three times in twenty years did someone get upset and think I was being racist using a character like José. Certainly there were a few jokes with him now and then that might have been a little too stereotypical, but just like I did with Sweet Daddy Dee, my African American character, many years later, I tried to go to the folks that it mattered to most and make sure I wasn’t going beyond what was socially acceptable for the majority of people who were watching my act. And honestly, the only folks I ever spoke to who were upset about any type of racism that I was supposedly perpetuating were self-righteous, guilty white people. Not one time in all these years have I ever spoken to a Hispanic person who thought I was doing something in bad taste. In fact, at the Comedy & Magic Club those first few years, as well as at the Improvs in Dallas, Phoenix, and LA years later, the Mexican guys working at the clubs would stop what they were doing for the six or seven minutes José was onstage just to see “their” little guy! They would gather at the kitchen door and watch. Even some of the illegal guys who barely spoke a word of English would give me the thumbs-up after the shows and say, “José Jalapeño!”
With José in the act now, the routine onstage would crescendo with all the guys talking and arguing quickly, line by line. There was Archie, me, José, the Little Dummy of me, plus the tequila worm in the bottle. It was a five-way conversation that would make people laugh, but more important, they would remember it. Standing ovations would come after doing the very old vent bit of drinking while the dummy talked. In my case, it was “wine” (actually, it was cranberry juice, since I was at Baylor), poured from the bottle where the confused tequila worm resided. I say he was confused, because he was a tequila worm, yet he was in a Chianti bottle, which I used for years and years. It didn’t make much sense, but when I first invented the bit, the first empty bottle I found was a Chianti with the typical straw basket. It looked good and the audience could see it easily, and I never bothered correcting the gaff, simply because it was what I started with, it worked, and it was funny. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Once again, there was good comedy leading up to this bit, but it was simply a “vent bit.” Bergen entertained for a lifetime with jokes and character; not ventriloquist tricks. I still had a long way to go before my comedy would get bigger reactions than multiple voices and not choking on Chianti.
In the spring of 1983, I tried out for the All American Collegiate Talent Search again, and was chosen for the finals for a second year. I headed back to New Mexico State, and this time I won first place. It was a huge leap forward in my career, with unbelievable opportunities and experiences to follow that never would have happened otherwise. All credit goes to Barbara Hubbard, the executive director of ACTS. For many years, Bob Hope was a supporter of the program and would refer to Barbara as Mother Hubbard. There couldn’t be a more appropriate nickname. For more than thirty years, Barbara has helped give birth to and nuture a big number of showbiz careers, mine included. Now at a spry eighty-three years young, she is still executive director, but because television shows like Star Search and American Idol have usurped the role ACTS once filled, the organization now focuses on providing scholarships to students entering the entertainment industry.
I probably wouldn’t be where I am today if not for Barbara. She used her connections and relationships at university and college events nationwide, some of which ended up being once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Walter: I love Barbara. Where would our career be without her?
Jeff: I’m not sure.
Walter: I have an idea, and it involves you wearing an orange apron from Home Depot.
The first big booking that Barbara got for me took place in the fall of 1983 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, during the school’s Parents Weekend. I was slated as the opening act, and the headliner was the original Mr. Television himself, Milton Berle! I had no idea if I would be able to get even a glance at the legend before the show, but what I was treated to completely threw me for a loop.
I was introduced to Mr. Berle in his dressing room about an hour before the show, and as I was shaking his hand he said, “I heard a ventriloquist was opening for me.… So while I was sittin’ on the plane today, I took the liberty of writing you some pieces of business. These are all great vent jokes.” He handed me a sheet of notepad paper. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was a college kid, and MILTON BERLE was giving me some handwritten jokes that he’d penned himself on the plane that day. It had to be one of the most surreal moments in my life. This was a guy who went all the way back to vaudeville as a comedian, and eventually became television’s first superstar thanks to his role as host of Texaco Star Theater beginning in 1948. Of course as legend has it, not only did he know all the jokes in the world, but he’d also “lifted” most of them. I think the saying was, “Berle never met a joke he didn’t steal.” But I didn’t care if some of the lines he’d given me seemed a little tired, because I could now say Milton Berle wrote me some jokes!
My performance that night went well, and three years later, Miami University invited me back for the same weekend, but this tim
e Barbara had me opening for another legend: George Burns. This once again looked to be another great opportunity, but I came to within seconds of not doing the show that night at all. In fact, I almost never made it to the campus.…
My parents had always loved George Burns and they didn’t want to miss this one, so the three of us purchased tickets together on an early-morning flight from Dallas to Cincinnati. Well, spring weather in Texas can be pretty unpredictable, and we ended up on the bad side of Mother Nature. After hours of flight delays in Dallas, plus an unscheduled plane change, we landed in Cincinnati forty-five minutes before curtain, but NO luggage showed up! This was before I learned not to check all my luggage, so guess what part of the act didn’t make it to Ohio? Yup. Everything but me. I had no dummies! I had no act! I have since learned when flying commercial to carry on at least Walter’s head, that way I have something to perform with. And yes, I have done shows without Walter’s body, but that’s another story for another time.
This time, here I was, ready to open for one of the biggest names in showbiz history, but all my partners were missing. What kind of luck is THAT? The airline said the delayed luggage wouldn’t arrive until the next day. Holy crapola. Even worse, Oxford was a good thirty minutes from the airport!
My mother was about to cry; my father didn’t know what to do, but I just stood there, looking at the baggage guy and shaking my head. “This sucks,” I thought. “I’m so sorry, honey,” my mom sniveled. “Maybe there will be another time.”
“Come on,” I said, “we have a car race to get to.”
“What?” they both almost said in unison. They hadn’t seen me make a couple calls in Dallas when I found out the landing in Cincinnati would be so late.
“Don should be waiting for us outside,” I explained.
“Don who?” my dad asked.
“Don Millure. Dorothy’s husband!” I replied with a sheepish grin on my face.
We started to run through the airport.
Don and Dorothy Millure were the curators of the Vent Haven Museum. The Cincinnati airport is actually located in Kentucky, just across the river from Cincy, and right in the middle between the airport and the big city is Fort Mitchell, the home of Vent Haven Museum. Though it was probably against some big rules, after Don raced us the eight miles from the airport to the museum, Dorothy and I quickly picked out the figures I had talked to her about over the phone. I knew the collection pretty well after having been there so many summers, and I wanted ones that would fit the act, be easy to operate, were reliable but not too delicate.
Racing down the road to the freeway, I said, “Don, we need to stop at a drugstore.”
“For what? Are you sick?” my mom cried.
“No, Mom, I just need some supplies.”
“Supplies?” my dad asked.
“Just trust me, Pop. And I’ll need your artistic hand.”
No one had any idea what I was talking about. Only fifteen minutes had passed since we’d stood at the baggage claim, realizing nothing was going to show up. So we still had thirty minutes to show time, with a thirty-minute drive ahead. The dash through the drugstore would have to be quick.
I told dad to get colored markers, scissors, and rubber bands. Mom was sent for masking tape, Scotch tape, and any kind of string, and I went for multiple colors of poster board and a toilet plunger. They thought I had lost it.
Back in the car, I started to draw. “Dad, I need you to sketch on this yellow poster board a Mexican sombrero about this big.” Then I began to sketch an oversized José Jalapeño on the neon green piece of poster board. It was now fifteen minutes until show time.
Don was driving like hell, and my mom was doing her job of sitting in the backseat, praying.
In no time my father had penciled a beautiful sombrero, and I was cutting out cardboard José. I made eyes with the other pieces of poster board, then drew eyebrows, a big mustache, cheeks, and a nose. “How’s he going to talk?” Don asked.
“No problem,” I replied. As Dad filled in the hat and started to cut it out, I began to draw a wide mouth and thin lips. I then poked the scissors through the board and cut out the mouth. I used the rubber bands and tape plus a few more pieces of folded poster board to make a working mechanism to enable the mouth to slide open and closed. Then I took the dowel from the toilet plunger and taped José to his stick. I made a loop woven of masking tape for my finger to go through, and then tied the string to it, and the other end a few inches up the stick to the mouth mechanism. Voilà!
Mom’s prayers must have been effective, because we hadn’t died in a fiery car mishap, and now Don was driving like a maniac illegally through the Miami University campus, trying to get me as close to Millett Hall as possible without running over any aging parents or slow freshmen. It was now 8:05, and I was late. These things never start on time, so I knew I still had a shot. I bounded out of the car, leaving Don and my dazed parents in a car full of cutting scraps and art supplies.
“Can you believe it?” I heard a cellist say backstage. “Opening for George Burns and he didn’t make it.”
“I’m here!” I yelled, as I struggled down the hallway with three old suitcases and a cardboard contraption under my arm.
They’d held the show. Still in jeans, my leather jacket, and tennis shoes, I didn’t look like anyone opening for an American legend. Usually in those days I dressed up. I should have looked a lot better than I did. Dressed in their black ties and tails, the two orchestra guys looked at me like I was a stray dog. Someone came running up to me and said, “Jeff Dunham?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said.
“You’re on!” the guy blurted out.
Sure enough, word had already gotten to the right people that I was there and apparently ready to perform. Whether I was ready or not, I was heading for the stage, with not even a second to catch my breath. Sound check? Are you kidding? I was asking questions about the weekend and the president of the university and the opposing team, the campus and the cafeteria food, and the parking all the way to the stage so I could joke about all the stuff the students liked to gripe about. My parents made it in just in time to see me scramble onstage with my armful of stuff. There was one mike onstage, and I quickly asked for a folding chair. That was all the prep I had.
I’d been thinking about what I should do: Do the jokes and routines like I normally did? Then I thought, absolutely not. There’s nothing funnier than the truth, so I gave them the whole day in a nutshell. I told them everything from the bad weather and delayed planes to stumbling onstage with the borrowed antique dummies from Vent Haven. It couldn’t have gone over better. Somewhere around six thousand folks that night laughed at the stories and jokes and applauded my stand-ins.
Months later, even thinking about that day made me shudder. While all that mayhem was taking place, it would have been very easy to say, “This wasn’t meant to be,” but I simply wasn’t willing to throw in the towel until it was absolutely certain that I couldn’t get up on that stage. Plus, I really wanted to make Barbara look good and to keep getting those great bookings from her.
Any nagging doubts of whether I had really pulled off the show that night were put to rest a year later when Barbara and the school’s Concert Board asked me to perform for the same weekend again a third time, and this time opening for Bob Hope! THIS go-round, however, I had all my characters, but the cherry on top of it all was when I was setting up for the show, and a student who had been there the year before came up and asked if I was “. . . going to do that bit where you pretend the airline lost all your dummies?” Good lord.
Walter: You never did ask our side of the story.
Jeff: You weren’t even in existence yet.
Walter: I knew that.
José: It was the guys before you, señor.
Walter: Seriously, do I have to talk to the help?
I never met George Burns that night, nor did I even get to see him perform. I walked off stage and straight to a phone backstage to call
the airline and track down my missing suitcases of dummies. (Working with borrowed figures can be very disconcerting.) A few years later, however, at the Hershey Arena in Hershey Park, Pennsylvania, I opened for Mr. Burns again, and it became another evening of note.
George Burns was of course pretty feeble in the last few of his hundred years. The only interaction I had with him was a quick introduction and a careful handshake. But there was still a great deal to learn by simply watching him perform.
Backstage that night in Hershey, I thought how cruel it was that this tiny and weak old man was being forced to work. Why was he there? Was he in debt? Why wasn’t he retired? It was as if he could barely tell what was going on around him, and I thought I might break his hand if I shook it too hard. I thought even a good puff of wind might topple him over. How in the world was he supposed to get up onstage and entertain for five minutes, much less his scheduled hour? I felt sorry for him and almost didn’t want to stick around to see the sad event that was about to unfold when he was led to the microphone and shown the audience. I wanted to remember him by the old films of him with Gracie Allen on their television shows, getting roars of laughter from the studio audience. I didn’t want to see George Burns fail. I was in for a big surprise.
When George was introduced, he slowly shuffled to the mike, trademark cigar in his hand. The spotlight hit him, the audience went nuts, and it was as though someone had hit him with a defibrillator. The old man came to life and he was transformed. Songs with the orchestra, jokes and stories and puffs on the cigar. His timing couldn’t have been better and he never missed a line or a beat. When he came offstage to a standing ovation, he turned right back around and went back for the encore. Finally he came offstage to more thunderous applause, then the spotlight turned elsewhere, and there was the fragile little old man again, seemingly barely able to get to the car. He was a true showman and an old-time vaudevillian in every sense of the word.