by Jeff Dunham
A few weeks later, fourteen big crates showed up at Keith’s house and we loaded them into his barn. Even the engine was in one of the boxes! I honestly had no idea if I could do this. There was welding and fiberglassing and assembling and construction and wiring and testing and tuning. At certain points the FAA had to come and inspect my work. Then I had to go for pilot training. It was a little stressful, but I kept telling myself, “This is just like the little ones, only bigger.”
I spent the next seven months building the helicopter. My undivided attention was in that barn and with construction manuals, and NOT in my school’s textbooks. That’s when the GPA went south and my girlfriend moved north. But I built the aircraft, passed Rotor Way’s flight school, and started flying all over central Texas in my homebuilt helicopter.
Walter: Could you be any more antisocial, playing with dolls and flying in a helicopter?
Bubba J.: I got in the mile-high club in a helicopter.
Jeff: Bubba J.!
Bubba J.: Okay, it was a ten-cent ride in front of the grocery store, but it still counts!
The only thing I didn’t ignore during all this was my act. I was doing as many shows as I could book, and I was still planning on moving to LA to pursue my goals. Getting on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was still my top priority, but I now simply wasn’t in as much of a hurry as I had been. After a few visits to Los Angeles and doing a few shows at a couple of the clubs, I realized that I wasn’t quite ready to take on that town. I wasn’t getting as many laughs or as big a laugh as the LA comics were in their hometown. This was an environment that was still very unfamiliar and somewhat frightening to me. Also, and just as important, I knew I was still missing that edge. What that edge was, I didn’t know exactly. I just knew it wasn’t there. I knew that experience plus a little maturity as a performer would help. So this helicopter business was a superb way to bide my time, but to also work on “the funny.”
When I finally graduated in the fall of 1986, as my name was called and I crossed the stage to receive my degree, a familiar voice rose from the crowd and bellowed, “YEAAAAAAYYYYYY!” A public outburst like that from my father was unheard of up until that moment, but as he later told me, “When you graduated, I felt like I got a raise!” After six long years, he was finally done paying for college!
I finally had my Bachelor of Arts degree, but my parents had no illusions that I was ever going to try and find a normal job. There was only once in my life that I can remember either of them ever betraying even the slightest hint of doubt about my career choice. On one of my visits home from college, Mom and Pop and I were sitting at lunch at Luby’s Cafeteria, where we ate almost every single Sunday after church. My dad said to me, “You know a lot of our friends talk about their kids and what they’ll be doing soon. Fred Miller says his son John is going to be a neurophysicist, the Jacobs say Susie is going to be a criminal lawyer. We have to say, ‘Well, Jeff is still doing his puppet show.’ ” To this day I’m still not quite sure if Pop was being funny or if he was trying to make a point. Even though the career choice might have seemed iffy at best, I always had gigs on the books, I was always making money, and each step was a new adventure for them as well as me.
Most important, I never questioned whether I would succeed. You could say I simply had confidence, but I didn’t see it that way because I just never considered failure. There were no other choices because I left myself no other options. I didn’t have a backup plan. I guess there’s a little irony in the fact that one of my favorite inspirational lines in a movie was spoken by a puppet.… From The Empire Strikes Back, when Yoda was training Luke:
“Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”
Walter: Good for you; you just quoted a midget in a rubber suit.
Jeff: Wait a minute…
Walter: What a beautiful message.
Jeff: I think so.
Walter: “Quit trying.” Yeah, that’s nice.
After graduating, I stayed in Waco for almost two more years. I was having too much fun piloting the chopper. It wasn’t unusual for me to simply take off from little McGregor Airport, and fly in any given direction with no destination in mind, simply seeing what I could find. I had a gas can strapped in the seat beside me, and if I was running low, I’d just land next to a gas station in the middle of nowhere, fill up, and be on my way. All I had was a paper map, a compass, and a lot of blue Texas skies.
Even though deep down I knew I wasn’t ready for Los Angeles, at times it was easy to kid myself into thinking I was funnier than I was because I was playing for such easy and forgiving audiences at Baylor and at church shows or for small civic and corporate gatherings. I had a safe little act that made people laugh at those small performances and at the ventriloquist conventions. Some of those crowds were a little tough, but none of them were the big time. I’d only been out of my league on a few occasions during short visits to LA and New York, and even those were middle or guest spots where no one had purchased a ticket to see just me. There was really no pressure in shows like that. Being the middle act for a headliner is like an easy layup. No one expects you to be great. You just have to make the shot or get out of the game. But after the year of doing well in Sugar Babies, I thought I finally might have what it took to be on The Tonight Show.
On one of my excursions to LA in the spring of 1986, Mike Lacey got me an audition for one of The Tonight Show’s talent bookers, Jim McCawley. Comics either loved or hated Jim, and of course it was all based on if you got on the show or not. If he booked you, you loved him. If he didn’t, well, guys used words to describe him like stupid, and asshole.
Lacey was convinced that I was right for The Tonight Show and convinced Jim to watch my act. McCawley was known to hit two and three clubs a night, hunting for fresh talent, and in those days, Carson was the only game on late night TV for comics. There were other talk shows that utilized stand-ups, but you really hadn’t made it until you had done Johnny’s show and done well.
That night at Comedy & Magic, I used Ollie and did my very best, most spectacular six minutes, which included José Jalapeño and the worm in the bottle and drinking while Ollie talked. I’d done the routine a million times and I thought I did really well. I was disappointed to find out after the show that McCawley left without a word. He was also there that night to watch Roseanne Barr, who was preparing for her third stand-up spot on Carson. This was very early in her skyrocketing ascension, much before her sitcom, and those first few times she destroyed on Carson with her stand-up. I’ve heard all the horror stories about Roseanne in later years, but that wasn’t the woman I met that night. She couldn’t have been more kind or encouraging. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “He’s a good guy, and you did great. I’m sure he’ll call you. He probably just had something he had to get to.”
I flew back to Texas the next day and expected a call from Jim any minute. Good news or bad, I just wanted to talk to him and hear what he thought. I called his secretary that morning and left every number possible. I told my parents that if he called their house, to please leave a message on my machine in Waco. Every hour I would call my answering machine no matter where I was to see if Jim had left a message. Even during the hundred-mile drive from Dallas to Waco, I stopped at a couple of gas stations just to call my apartment and check. For two days, nothing.
Finally at the end of the second day and after I had left multiple messages, his secretary must have talked him into picking up the phone, probably out of sheer frustration.
“You’re pretty persistent,” he stated.
“Yes, sir,” I answered. I couldn’t stand it any longer. “What did you think?” I asked.
This was six years into the ten that I’d given myself to make it to Carson, and the silence on other end of the line was about to kill me. The clock ticked. I don’t think there was a pause because he was annoyed. Maybe it wasn’t even a real pause. It just felt like forever to me.
“Well, honestly, you’re just not rea
dy,” Jim said.
Something inside me dropped and I suddenly felt incredibly stupid. How could I have even thought this was possible ? Seriously. What were the odds? I was a ventriloquist. Deep down his answer hadn’t really surprised me, but I had dreamed and imagined and hoped and prepared for so long for this moment.
“Was I close? What’s not right?” I had to ask. There was silence on the line again. I could hear the hum in the wires, then some shuffling of papers, maybe a pen tapping.
“You’re not ready,” he said again.
“Okay, but what do you mean, exactly? What can I do to be ready?”
I pushed. I didn’t want to let him go until I had some idea of what I needed to be doing to get on the show. Was there really a possibility?
Jim McCawley sat for a few more seconds, then he finally said, “Your skills are great and the bits are good, but it’s just not funny enough. Johnny likes funny. You need good jokes. So when you’ve made it funnier, I’ll come see you again.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied.
All I wanted was hope and he’d just given that back to me.
McCawley was no asshole. He’d turned down hundreds of other comics many times, but most of the time he was talking to agents and managers and not some green, fresh-out-of-college kid. I think he heard the drive and hope in my voice and he knew how much I wanted to succeed. I hung up the phone dejected and depressed, but still with something to work toward. I had a lot of confidence from all those years of performing, but it didn’t mean anything if I wasn’t funny enough for Johnny Carson himself. How long would it be until I was ready to audition again? The most important thing I realized that day was that if it were to happen, it wasn’t going to be nearly as easy as I thought.
Someone once told me that they didn’t think a comic could write any meaningful material until at least their late twenties because a person hasn’t lived long enough and been through enough crap to have a deep enough well to draw from. I understood and believed that. It wasn’t simply fear holding me back from moving to Los Angeles. I’d already had practical experience with LA audiences, and I knew what I was in for. But I was only twenty-four, and as I said before, I knew my act still didn’t have the kind of “edge” required. Also, I still needed that signature character that could show audiences that vent really could be mainstream again. I wanted characters that were different and memorable, comedy that was cutting edge, and an act that was as popular as any stand-up comic of modern day. But I hadn’t figured out anything beyond Archie or Ollie. José Jalapeño was good, but he wasn’t a leading man.
I continued to bide my time. I kept flying my helicopter. In the spring of 1987, I was hired to fill the variety spot in the much-scaled-down Atlantic City version of Sugar Babies starring Carol Lawrence and Rip Taylor. Carol had originated the role of Maria in West Side Story some thirty years earlier. Rip, aka “The Prince of Pandemonium,” was known for a wild stand-up act that featured throwing confetti into the air and had been a big hit on The Brady Bunch Hour and The Gong Show. No, this was certainly not the original version of Sugar Babies, but it was experience and a gig most guys in my position would kill for, so off to New Jersey I sped.
A few days into the gig and I met a cocktail waitress named Donna. She looked as Irish as could be with red hair, fair skin, and a smile that melted me. After going out with her a few weeks, I learned about New Jersey dating etiquette. One night when my 300ZX sat unguarded in the casino parking garage, Donna’s ex-boyfriend proceeded to knock in the car’s windshield with a baseball bat. We knew it was him because he bragged about it to her the next day. Being the tough guy that I was at the time, I retaliated as best I knew how: I didn’t do anything. I wanted to think about it for a while, but apparently my inaction was more effective than any revenge I could plan. Donna told me later that the goofball was constantly terrified of what I was planning for him and the more time that went by, the jumpier and more scared he got. We laughed about that for weeks.
Bubba J.: Did her ex-boyfriend want to play baseball with you?
Jeff: I don’t think so.
Bubba J.: Maybe a baseball bat is what they go hunting with in New Jersey.
Back in Waco for a weekend break, I headed to my helicopter hangar. I hadn’t flown in many weeks. I needed to get back in the air. Remember that at the time, I was an incredibly inexperienced student pilot, having logged only forty hours in the air. Inexperience combined with overconfidence is a dangerous thing in aviation. Welcome to my nightmare.
That day, I flew a few miles away from my hangar to practice autorotations. This was a good thing to master, because you never know if and when an engine just might quit. Odds are good against this happening, but a good pilot needs to have the instincts for what to do if and when it happens. During the autos, I was adding in 180-and 360-degree turns during descent. You spiral down pretty quickly in those turns, and it’s darned exciting because in a really tight one, the ship is literally over on its side, heading down fast. On about my sixth one, I got turned around with my ground references and ended up at the end of the autorotation a few feet above the ground going with the wind. This was a BIG no-no in a helicopter this small with such light blades. I thought the wind was on my nose, when in fact it was right on my tail at 15 miles per hour or faster. That’s BAD for anyone, much less a novice pilot. Worse, I didn’t recognize I was in trouble until it was way too late. When I pulled the nose up and asked the ship to slow down on ground speed, it didn’t, and I ran out of rotor speed.
I tried to slide the helicopter in and cushion the touchdown, but there was no lift or speed left in the blades, and I was over a plowed cornfield. I hit once on the skids then twice, and now heading sideways at a pretty good clip, the right skid hit a furrow, folded under, and we hit and rolled at about 20 miles per hour. The world tumbled, the windshield broke, dirt and debris filled the cabin, and all I could do was hang on to the controls and wait for silence. The engine screamed, the blades plowed the dirt, a few parts flew, and then it was over. The beautiful ship ended up on her side and I was hanging from my harness.
The helicopter was a mess, but thanks to the good Lord, dumb luck, and a beautifully designed 4130 chrome alloy steel frame and roll cage, I was still alive. I trudged the three miles back to the hangar over fields, across creeks, and through a few brambles. I suffered only a mild bump on my head and a badly bruised ego.
When I got back to the hangar, I called Keith. He came out, and we got my trailer and headed for the field where my total wreck of a chopper was on its side, bleeding out fluids. It took us a couple of hours to haul the hulking mess onto the trailer and start heading back for Keith’s barn. We were pulling a crashed helicopter, lying on its side. I had never been more depressed. Before pulling out onto the highway with mangled bird in tow, Keith scribbled out a sign on a piece of cardboard and hung it on the back of the trailer: SHIT HAPPENS. This was the first time I’d ever heard the expression. It’s not exactly Socrates, Thoreau, or the Bible, but since then, saying those two simple words has comforted me a lot when I had no other answer.
Walter: Sorry, Mrs. Dunham.
Jeff: What are you doing?
Walter: I’m apologizing to your mother who’s reading the book for your use of the S word.
Jeff: It’s part of the story.
Walter: Well, I think we all could have gotten the point if you had said, “Stuff happens.”
Jeff: I guess you’re right.
Walter: Dumbshit.
Not long after that, Sugar Babies closed for good, and I went back to Waco, intent on doing nothing but aircraft repair. I was a firm believer in getting back on the proverbial horse, so I couldn’t wait to get flying again and do a successful autorotation. Keith felt the same way, but with a slightly different twist: “You’d better fly it back to the crash site and do a bunch of autos to that same spot over and over. The odds of the same helicopter crashing in the exact place two times in a row are pret
ty low, so you’ll be safe.” That sounded like genius logic to me.
Three months later I did just that. I did an auto to the ground, and landed right on the spot where I’d crashed. I was wearing Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses the day I crashed, and now I took them out of their case. I hadn’t worn them since. They were bent pretty badly when I banged my head, and I very purposefully left them that way. They also still had the dirt on them from where they’d landed on the ground when they flew off my head. I straightened them out, wiped off the dirt, put them back on, then took off again, and had a good day of flying.
Did I learn anything from that experience? Yeah, two things: Don’t auto with the wind, and shit happens.
In the Harrah’s Sugar Babies, I had tried replacing Ollie with a horse as a main character… yes, a horse. Verna made him, and he was a Clydesdale named Clyde. (I shudder even as I type these words.) I still did the little dummy thing and the worm in the bottle.… José Jalapeño was memorable and amusing, but I knew the whole show still wasn’t as funny as it could be, nor were these the characters that were all-defining.
When I went to the 1987 ventriloquist convention that July, I was still searching. That year graphic artist Bill Nelson showed up with a frowning dummy, which looked very similar to Bergen’s Frowning Charlie, a figure Bergen had made for the 1947 Disney film Fun & Fancy Free. A couple of years before, Nelson had illustrated a beautiful portrait of Frowning Charlie and sold print reproductions of the work. They were absolutely fantastic and I kick myself now for not having purchased one of the posters. But now, Nelson and figure maker Chuck Jackson had created their own version of a frowning figure and had named him Mr. Horowitz. I thought he looked great, but a frowning dummy? I remember overhearing people in the dealers’ room at the convention talking in hushed sentences like,