by Jeff Dunham
Using this system, Jeff and I came up with material about Dead Osama. I had to carefully choose what I thought was appropriate and wouldn’t offend the majority of people. I knew that using an actual terrorist dummy was pushing the edge, but I also felt that the way I was approaching this very volatile subject would actually be acceptable to most Americans, and that it would, in fact, be really funny.
So with what I felt was enough jokes and ideas in place, I had to create a “cheap” or trial version of the puppet. I never went all out on the initial dummy, simply because I didn’t want to waste hundreds of hours building something that wasn’t yet proven onstage. I guess it’s kind of the same idea as a concept car created by an auto manufacturer: They build one to display at car shows and see what the public reaction is before committing too many assets and capital to an actual run of mass-produced vehicles. So I was happy to first work with a rough incarnation of new characters. I could put a moving mouth on just about anything. I began to keep my eye out for something that looked like… well, like a Dead Osama.
It was now late September, just a few days past the one-year 9/11 anniversary, and I was in Aahs, a gift and novelty store on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, California. It wasn’t too far from home, and my wife and I were wandering through the store, picking out Halloween decorations. Remember when I wandered through that toy store and spotted Mortimer on the shelf ? It’s amazing how life repeats itself. I rounded a corner in Aahs, looked up, and there, hanging on a peg, wide-eyed and startling looking, was a goofy, big-headed, hollow plastic skeleton that looked like he wanted to kill me.
He was as cheap as Halloween decorations come, with a bulbous big head and a small, dangly body. Comically menacing and molded in typical Halloween skeleton gray-white, his features were carelessly highlighted in airbrushed black paint. Looking at him, I decided that this simple skeleton would be much less grotesque and a lot funnier than a dead guy. All he needed was a moving mouth, a body adjustment here and there, and some sort of head covering.
Two days later, I had cut out the mouth, mounted it to a hinge, and installed a couple other mechanisms that turned him into a makeshift ventriloquist figure. I now had a functioning “dead” dummy. Next I glued glass eyes over the molded plastic ones, then added black fake fur for bushy eyebrows, mustache, and beard. Oh, and that cloth on his head? Not wanting to take the time to drive two miles to a fabric store, I ended up using one of my white T-shirts that I pulled out of the dirty laundry and hot-glued into shape and on his head. Done.
As I looked at Dead Osama and made him talk, the first voice and accent that popped out of him fit him to a tee. I went through the material Rothpan and I had written and refined it a bit more. I knew that to make this guy acceptable, he would have to seem menacing but at the same time a buffoon.
Barely a year after 9/11, fear of the next terrorist attack was still a big part of our daily existence in America. I think one of the main reasons the Dead Osama character worked so well in 2002 was that many people tend to deal with their innermost fears by laughing at them. Terrorism is exactly what it says it is: terrifying. But put a goofy face on it, point out the foibles of Osama’s probable everyday existence, plus make him a failure… and a dead one at that, and now you have something. It wasn’t until years later when I created the next incarnation of the Dead Osama that I added the all-important element of vulnerability. As ridiculous as it sounds, I made Achmed the Dead Terrorist a more sympathetic character—but more on that later. For now, there was no room for sympathy with a Dead Osama.
I made him a goof because I wanted him to be threatening but harmless. So what would a guy like that be yelling at the audience to try and scare them? It had to be like one of those little dogs, yapping at you in an attempt to intimidate. The most obvious answer would be for him to yell what we all feared: “I KILL YOU!” But then I added his goofy accent and it came out, “I KEEL YOU!”
In all honesty, I didn’t know how an audience would take this. That phrase, in my opinion, was right on the edge of not being appropriate. It was only a year later. There is the old comedic equation of “Tragedy plus time equals comedy.” Once again, I questioned myself. Comedy is sometimes escapism and we need that at times as well. And I wanted my audience to face full-on what we as a country needed to thumb our noses at.
So there was my stance. But now the all-important question was where was I going to try this out first? I decided that the only way to truly test this character and this material was to take it right where it mattered most: New York City.
Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, is actually only sixteen miles from where the World Trade Center stood, and I was booked at Banana’s Comedy Club for two shows the night of Friday, November 15, 2002. Both my shows were sold out, and the folks were there to laugh and probably forget what had happened right in their backyards. Was I really doing the right thing? I knew that there had to be people in that audience who had lost immediate family members and close friends on 9/11… barely fourteen months before. What was I doing?
Achmed: This still isn’t me?
Jeff: No, not yet, Achmed.
Achmed: Ohhhh… the anticipation is KEELING me!
Like a lawyer going to trial or boxer heading for the ring, I knew I had done everything I possibly could have to be prepared. I could back out now but I wanted to do it. Like I did with every new bit, I had planned on putting Dead Osama in the middle of the show. That way I would have already earned some acceptance by the audience, and thus been given a little bit of a license to whatever I did next. And if by chance it didn’t go over, I had more surefire pieces to win back the crowd before the night had ended.
My stand-up came first, then Walter. He did his 9/11 and Taliban material, and the folks just ate it up. Instead of running from the subject and pretending life had simply gone on, we tackled it full-force. I don’t know what the audience expected that night, but they couldn’t have laughed and applauded any more. Then it was time for the Dead Osama. I didn’t really want to give them time to think about what I was doing, so I did a very fast and to-the-point introduction. The character and humor would have to be what won them over.
“Hey, folks, I don’t know about you, but there is one sentence that I have been waiting to hear for a long time, and that sentence is, ‘Osama bin Laden is dead,’ am I right?” The place went nuts. I continued. “Well, I have an interesting introduction to make: Please help me welcome onstage before you this evening, Osama bin Laden!”
If this had been the beginning of the show that night, or if these folks hadn’t already been fans, I think that after that introduction, you probably could have heard a pin drop. But as I had hoped would happen, because these people had now built up a small trust toward me, the reaction wasn’t negative but it certainly wasn’t overly enthusiastic either. For the people who had seen my show before, they knew that what I put on was a good, funny, somewhat safe show, only going so far as to skirt the edge of socially inappropriate. And for the folks who had never seen me before, at the midpoint of the show I think they now would at least be open to whatever came next.
There was a smattering of applause, a few gasps, and certainly rapt attention. Then when I pulled out an obviously dead Osama, a laugh went up and the place burst into applause. And there he was: this goofy-looking skeleton with that piece of cloth on his head, giant fixed eyes and eyebrows, and a googly-eyed stare that darted from audience member to audience member.
Jeff: How did you talk your followers into doing the things that they did?
Osama: Those guys were idiots!
Jeff: You promised them seventy virgins in paradise.
Osama: I know! It was a lie! HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!
Jeff: No virgins?
Osama: NO!
Jeff: Why did you pick the number seventy?
Osama: I was going to say sixty-nine, but that was a little too obvious!
And then I scooted him forward on the character stand that the guys sit on. His little
plastic feet stuck out over the edge, but then would rotate at the knees so that his feet were then backward with the toes pointing straight down. He saw this and tried to adjust himself to fix it. I reached down and would turn them up again. He would move a little and they would fall back. It became a great sight gag with him getting increasingly more frustrated because his feet wouldn’t stay the right way.
Osama: DAMMIT! FIX MY FEET!
After several more attempts, he would glare at the laughing audience and yell, “SILENCE!!” Another laugh… and here it came… this was what I was scared of most, but I knew I had to try it.… “I KEEL YOU!”
Neither I nor anyone else at that moment could have guessed how far and wide that cry would travel, literally around the world, as a joke and a punch line for many years to come. But what was it that night? Was it a line too soon and too close at only fourteen months and fifteen miles from where three thousand people died at the hands of terrorists?
Whatever was in the air that night, whatever I had done beforehand, and whatever mood the audience was in spilled over into a moment in time, which felt like a fitting step toward unity and healing. Those people laughed and they applauded. I think they wanted in some way to feel that life was moving forward and that it was okay to cheer as the clouds of tragedy were fading into the past, never to ever be forgotten, but to be put behind us, and the future be looked toward with optimism. Maybe I see that moment as something bigger than what you feel now as you read this. But for me, that night was a significant moment in time. I couldn’t hunt Osama down and kill him myself. I wasn’t an air force fighter pilot, or a trained marine in the hunt. But I did for my country what I knew how to do best—I stuck my tongue out at the asshole.
For the next year and a half after that, I used Dead Osama in almost every show possible. The only times I would leave him out would be on television spots, or at corporate shows where the people who hired me were afraid of me offending someone.
I don’t for a moment think that every person in every audience thought that what I was doing was acceptable. But for every fifty e-mails or letters that we would receive as thanks for the laughs, we’d get maybe one who wasn’t happy with what they’d seen. Club owners were just happy to have the ticket sales and the drink orders. All I know is that a vast majority of the folks who came to the shows were diggin’ it, and I kept doin’ it.
Sometime in late 2003 I put Dead Osama aside to move forward with newer material. The hunt for the real Osama continued, but the country was now very much focused on Iraq and Saddam, and the bit was getting stale. So to the shelf in my garage the angry guy went, with no clue as to where his next incarnation would lead.
Achmed: He was an imposter and he NEEDED to be left in a garage!
Jeff: Did you ever talk to Dead Osama, Achmed?
Achmed: Yes, one time. He was scared of the dark so I took him my Dora the Explorer night-light.
One of the major tasks that my publicist Debbie Keller always had in front of her was to get the little guys and me on television. We all knew that the key to ticket sales was exposure on the airwaves, and she was constantly on the lookout for opportunities anywhere and everywhere. The FOX Sports Network had a popular show on their schedule called the Best Damn Sports Show Period. None other than the ex-Mr. Roseanne Barr, Tom Arnold, was the host. Every night Tom would sit with a handful of highly successful and notable athletes, and they would discuss the current goings-on in the sports world. They debated and picked on one another, showed highlights from games, and did everything short of drink beer on camera. They would of course have guests on as well, usually other star athletes, but sometimes celebrities or other known figures who were big fans of a particular sport. They’d kibitz too, and have a good ol’ testosterone-filled time. The show also experimented with bringing on stand-up comics who would give their own take on things, and that made for some good laughs as well.
Debbie brought the idea to me, but I wasn’t sold on it at first. She was convinced, however, that Walter would be great at giving his take on sports. After I thought about it for a while and watched the show a few times, I began to see how incredibly funny it would be. Then I really wanted to be on the show. So Debbie began to pitch me to them. And she pitched… and pitched. For months, it was always a resounding, “NO. NO VENTRILOQUIST ON THE BEST DAMN SPORTS SHOW.” But then, after many months and much cajoling from Debbie…
I wish I could say that brilliant joke writing or my fancy video editing made it happen (I made my own promo tapes back then). But no. What finally got me on was the age-old showbiz trick of horse trading. “I’ll give you this client if you’ll book my lesser-known client too.” And that’s exactly what Debbie finally had to do. By this time she had other clients, a couple more notable and successful than me, and the Best Damn wanted one of them in the worst way: Bobcat Goldthwait. So Debbie promised to talk to him about doing their show if they would book me as well. They agreed to give me a shot.
By now, when it came to writing current topic material, Rothpan and I were a great team, and certainly sports was an arena for comedy where the subjects and players were always changing. Whatever happened on Sunday night was in the news and on the airwaves Monday morning. Any kind of antics on or off the field, plus personalities that just needed needling… these were all things Jeff and I knew we could joke about. Also, there was never a more perfect character for this task than Walter. I never even considered using anyone else.
The show taped daily, and they agreed to have Walter and me on for one or two segments (depending on how the first one went), and Walter would simply give his take on what had happened in sports the day before. We’d written some great stuff, picking on various teams and players of all different types of sports, and we pared it down to the prime jokes. Also, we’d written some pretty biting digs, and a few got nixed by the producer during the preshow meeting, not long before we went on the air.
At that time, the show’s cast of five was formidable. Three athletes sat on the couch as regulars: John Salley, a six-foot-eleven NBA center-power forward who won two championships with the Detroit Pistons; Michael Irvin, an All-Pro wide receiver who won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys; and John Kruk, a three-time Major League Baseball All-Star with a lifetime batting average of exactly .300. This trio was joined by two hosts: anchor-reporter Chris Rose and Tom Arnold. This was a fraternity of great guys, but in typical locker room fashion, they liked to pick on one another. So how were Walter and I going to go over? I was not a big athlete who had proven himself on the field. I had a doll. This was either going to be great, or a great disaster.
I was waiting in the Green Room as the show started, watching the monitor. My segment was about halfway through the three-hour broadcast, and just like The Tonight Show and Johnny’s monologue, I wanted to make note of what went on to see if there was anything I could “call back” and get a laugh. The studio audience was forty people at best, if I remember correctly, and today they seemed like they were in a raucous mood (that was a good thing).
In addition to preparing all the “approved” jokes, I’d also come up with a few slams for each of the guys, but they were only in my head. I knew that if the atmosphere was right, and if the other material was going well, I would have some extra cred and Walter would be able to do what he did best.
Once again, here was territory I’d never really traveled through. These were some heavy hitters—some guys who knew their stuff and had gone the distance on the field or on the court and earned their status and the right to hang with other athletes of their pedigree. I was a bit nervous.
Well, it was all worth the effort. I think I won the guys over by doing what needed to be done first, and that was—guess what?—BEING FUNNY. I must have gained some kind of respect by doing jokes about sports moments that had happened only the day before, plus the bits were insightful and made it sound like Walter knew the games and players very well.
The producer loved the spot and wanted us back as
soon as possible. He even tossed out the idea of us being regulars on the show. I was stoked. I’d never been a part of any kind of a team since elementary school, but now here I was, going toe-to-toe with some of the greatest names in sports. Michael Irvin? Seriously? How many times had my father and I sat at home, yelling at the TV for Irvin and Aikman and the rest of the Dallas Cowboys? Once again, I almost couldn’t believe it.
Walter: Did your mom watch the show?
Jeff: Yeah, why?
Walter: It had the word damn in the title.
Over the next couple of months, they had us back five or so times. Each time, Walter would gripe about anything or anyone in sports, unabashed and seemingly uncensored, just like any old-fart sports fan his age would. Granted, some shows were better than others, depending a lot on the studio audience, but more important, how the guys on panel were reacting. The more they laughed, the funnier the bits.