All By My Selves

by Jeff Dunham

  I put my heart and soul into both my family and my professional life, and that night the two sides were pulling me apart again. But just like a sports team can win a game against an unpredictable opponent because of the relentless hours of practice they put in for so long before the game, it was having done the same show over and over throughout the preceding weeks that got me through that night.

  Whoever was there for the early show knows that I took a while to find my stride. I started into my stand-up, and very uncharacteristically forgot my lines and my story a mere two minutes into the show. I had to start and stop a couple of times, but finally the adrenaline and the “muscle memory” of having done it so many times kicked in, and twisted Christmas magic began to happen.

  We slapped the PC thing in the face right off the bat when Walter came out and I wished him “Happy Holidays.” He snapped back with, “Screw you! It’s MERRY CHRISTMAS!” to a huge round of applause and even a hoot from the crowd. The funniest part to me about that joke was that many of the main players in my career at that time were Jewish, including Rick my agent, Stu our executive producer, Rothpan my head writer, and a few other guys, and they all thought that joke was funny as hell. In fact, if I remember correctly, Rothpan wrote that joke! Oy vey!

  Achmed altered his own greeting to, “MERRY CHRISTMAS—I KEEL YOU!” and while I read the lovely and traditional Night Before Christmas, Peanut managed to demolish it with this kind of banter:

  Jeff: And now I will read The Night Before Christmas.

  Peanut: This would be a good time for the Muslims to go to the bathroom.

  Jeff: Peanut, enough. ’Twas the night before Christmas…

  Peanut: And all the Jews were at the movies.

  Jeff: Peanut…

  Peanut:… Eating Chinese food.

  Jeff:…

  Peanut: Sorry. Just trying to include everybody.

  Jeff: ’Twas—

  Peanut: Hold it!

  Jeff: WHAT?

  Peanut: Who says ’Twas?

  Jeff: It’s in the story!

  Peanut: It’s old and stupid.

  Jeff: It’s a tradition!

  Peanut: ’Tis it?

  Later we got to the part about hanging stockings:

  Peanut: Seriously, how did that tradition start?…

  Jeff: What?

  Peanut: Hanging up dirty laundry hoping Santa would fill it with goodies? “I’d like to suck on this candy cane but it smells like Dad’s FEET.”

  Jeff:…

  Peanut: Good thing the tradition wasn’t a jockstrap.

  “Sally, what’s in yours?” “Nuts.”

  Jeff: You are RUINING the story!

  Peanut: You’re the one eating out of your underwear! PERVERT!

  Along with all the Christmas and holiday jokes, Achmed sang “Jingle Bombs” and Bubba J. sang “Roadkill Christmas” and Brian of course came out to play along with Bubba J.’s crooning.

  Bubba J.: I like to sing in the shower too.

  Walter: How about washing, have you thought of doing that while in the shower?

  Bubba J.: Huh?

  The results of our Christmas in June couldn’t have been merrier. When the special finally aired in late November, it drew 6.6 million total viewers, making it Comedy Central’s most watched telecast ever. The special even surpassed the classic South Park episode, “Cartman’s Mom Is Still a Dirty Slut,” which pulled in 6.2 million viewers in 1998. Proud company to keep, I must say.

  Walter: And I was worried about your mother reading shit happens. Good lord.

  The summer and fall of 2008 included the second of those three surprises I referred to before. The first surprise had been the international acclaim. The second came when ticket sales in theaters in the United States began to exceed the saturation point, and talk of arena shows started. I said, “Do what? What do you mean an arena?” I had no idea that we would even attempt anything larger than a big theater with three thousand or so people. But now, Robin and Robert were talking about doing basketball and hockey arenas.

  Soon we were filling arenas that sat between five thousand and sixteen thousand people per show. We had huge videos screens as tall as thirty and fifty feet that made it possible for everyone to see the action up close with a view unrivaled by even the front few rows at a small comedy club. “Backstage” was no longer a Green Room with a couch. Now it was subterranean parking with two busses, plus two semis filled with giant packing cases full of lights, sound equipment, and video components. We had our own eleven-member crew with guys that had names like “Psycho” and “Chovy.” All hardworking and tireless, they would travel by bus at night, show up at a venue at seven A.M., then spend the entire day rigging and setting up. That night they’d run the two-hour show, then tear everything down, pack it back into the big rigs, and be on the road again at one A.M. and on to the next arena to do it all again.

  So without a doubt, we had taken that next crazy step: We’d gone from theaters to the big time. And trust me, I wasn’t taking any of this for granted. Every time I’d walk into one of these arenas, I’d look around and just shake my head and think, “How in the world did this happen?” It was a rock tour, plain and simple.

  One of my favorite things to do when we showed up at an arena was to ask the venue’s manager what act had been there the night or weekend before us. We’d get answers like Nine Inch Nails, Bon Jovi, George Strait, or the Monster Trucks. I’d usually get a laugh when I’d then say, “And now you have a puppet show.”

  Sometimes I get the question of what my worst moment onstage was. Well, the scariest ever happened in November of 2008 at The Comedy Festival in Las Vegas. I was one of five headliners who would perform solo at the Colosseum at Caesar’s, each on a different night. The other comics were Katt Williams, Ellen DeGeneres, Chris Rock, and some guy named Jerry Seinfeld. To be in that venue, on a list with those names, was truly something I didn’t take for granted. This was the theater that had been built for Céline Dion many years before. It seated 4,200 people, and I was booked for the Saturday night of the festival. Not only was this an important gig because it was in front of so many industry people, but it was a huge opportunity with Caesar’s too: If I did well, there could be a future with them with more bookings, possibly multiple weekends a year. Even a show in an arena with ten thousand people didn’t matter as much as this one gig. This could be one of the rare career makers.

  The Colosseum was packed, and the applause was thunderous when I walked onstage that night. This was one of those rare times when not only I was enjoying the moment, but so were all the folks around me who had worked long and hard to get me and my little guys on this stage and in this venue. But this night meant more to me than most people realized.

  My parents had brought me to Las Vegas when I was twelve years old. We drove around town, looked through a few casinos, and then saw the taping of a very early Siegfreid and Roy television special. I remember walking through Caesar’s, even back then thinking it had to be the greatest casino on the entire strip. And for twenty years since moving to Los Angeles, I had been visiting the city, playing smaller Vegas rooms that were makeshift comedy clubs, always walking or driving by Caesar’s and wondering what it would be like to be on a big stage there with my name up in lights.

  Then in September of 1978, Edgar Bergen announced his retirement and that he would be doing his final shows, opening for Andy Williams in Las Vegas. After his performance with Charlie and Mortimer on that last night, his closing words were these:

  “Every vaudeville act must have an opening and a closing, so I’ll pack my jokes and my little friends… and say… good-bye.” Edgar Bergen, the man who had inspired me in my life’s work, died in his sleep that night, having done his final performance at Caesar’s Palace. The irony and the poignancy of this first performance for me at Caesar’s was almost too much to add to the evening.

  Those closest to me in the audience that night claim they never knew anything went wrong. Maybe I had done it
so many times that I pulled it off without any noticeable stress. But unlike the Christmas performance, there was no starting over after a screw-up. There was no kicking it into gear and shaking off cobwebs. It was do or die.

  I hadn’t been onstage for a couple of weeks… and I hadn’t really gone over my set before the curtain went up. I just figured it would all fall into place like usual. Good lord, how many times had I done this show?

  After Brian did his set, then the video intro ran, I came out, did my stand-up, then got Walter out first, as usual. But about three minutes into Walter’s segment, my mind started to wander. There was nothing unusual about that. Sometimes I’ll find myself in the middle of a performance thinking about where I wanted to have dinner, or if the Cowboys were doing well this season, or if I’d left the lights on in the kitchen… that night, however, my mind began to wander to a not-so-safe place. I started thinking about where I was and what I was doing and who was watching. Then suddenly, WAY out of left field, some kind of weird panic attack hit me and both sides of my brain jumped the tracks and everything came to a grinding halt. I had absolutely no idea what came next. I didn’t even know what joke Walter had just told, yet I was hearing the laughter die down in typical timing, but there was nothing next. Nothing. I didn’t know what was supposed to be said and by whom, nor could I even remember any other joke or bit of Walter’s that I could jump to while I figured out where I’d left off. And THEN, for the first time in my life onstage, I started getting light-headed. The room started to swim and I could just begin to hear that buzzing sound. I suddenly felt clammy, sweat formed on my brow, and I felt my knees go weak. The laugh was now finished and silence had enveloped the Colosseum. And just as I was about to falter and either faint or admit to the audience that I was lost, some instinct of fight-or-flight must have kicked in, because the next joke exploded in front of me and Walter was talking again. As he spoke, I had to consciously regain composure and force myself not to think about anything other than performing, plus not fall over or drop Walter. I just had to do my act.

  I have no idea how long that moment lasted. Everyone told me that there was never a single pause or hiccup in the show. I could have sworn it was obvious to everyone, and that I must have looked like a zombie for at least a few seconds. You’d think I’d look back at that story as a funny one… but I don’t! It was just too dang scary. Kind of like almost being run over by a bus. I’ve never looked back at that tape, and I really don’t want to. I don’t remember where exactly in Walter’s routine it happened, and I don’t care. All that mattered was, Caesar’s keeps having us back, but I won’t go onstage there ever again without cheat notes in my back pocket!

  Early 2009 was spent much like the previous year, doing arenas and traveling the country. But after the ratings from the Christmas special, Comedy Central was now willing to do a lot more with us. As the press called it, we made a full 360-degree deal with CC, which included promises of a fourth special and DVD, a television show, a touring sponsorship, and extensive merchandise development and sales.

  Next on the agenda was my first European tour. When they brought the idea to me, I thought for certain we were talking about just England and Ireland… you know, where English is spoken most of the time. I was mistaken. The YouTube clips and Comedy Central specials had made Achmed and company superstars in some incredibly unexpected parts of globe. So on this first jaunt, we played sold-out arena gigs in not only London, England, but also in the Scandinavian cities of Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, and Oslo. You’d think that these would have been difficult gigs at the very least, and that the translation of language, not to mention the translation of the sense of humor would have been tough as well. Honestly, exactly the opposite happened. Those crowds of between four thousand and eight thousand people each ate up almost every joke each night. Boy did they know the characters.

  Spark of Insanity and the Christmas special DVDs had been released in Europe, but not my first one, Arguing. So since Bubba J. was only in Arguing and hadn’t yet been introduced into the marketplace, no way would any of the Europeans know who he was. I was in for a big surprise.

  The opening show of the tour was in London at the Apollo Hammersmith, a beautiful and historic venue where everyone from Mr. Bean to the Beatles had played. I’d brought Bubba J. along, but had left him at the hotel that afternoon, simply because I knew I wouldn’t need him, since no one knew who he was. Well, the video opening that we’d brought with us to start the show included a quick appearance of Bubba J. As each character came on screen, the audience would hoot and holler for their favorites. As we got close to the Bubba J. clip, Brian and I were standing backstage listening to the crowd, and I said, “Oops… forgot about Bubba J. These guys are going to be clueless. Should have cut him out of the video here.”

  I was dumbfounded when little white trash Bubba came on screen talking about Budweiser and Walmart, and the crowd went nuts. What the HELL? Needless to say, Bubba J. made it into the shows on the rest of the tour, and was somehow a highlight. Go figure.

  The audiences in Europe loved the show, and later in 2009, we made another international trek, heading down under to Australia, playing Melbourne and Sydney for two shows in each city. Equally enthusiastic as the Europeans, the Aussies made it obvious that we’d be returning for more shows there sometime soon.

  The Jeff Dunham Show was a television project that many great people put all their efforts into, although it wasn’t exactly the concept I had envisioned and sought all those years: For almost two decades, I had imagined doing nothing but a sitcom. However, Comedy Central just didn’t do traditional sitcoms, so we had to come up with something that made sense for the network, but also fit the characters and me. We decided to create a television show that showed the characters interacting with the real world. We would put them in real-life situations and with ordinary people. Sometimes I would be in the segments, and sometimes I would not. It made perfect sense to all of us and the network.

  Writers wrote and the wheels turned. We taped and edited for many months and then shot the live studio pieces with studio audiences, introducing the taped segments. It turned out to be an incredibly expensive production, almost double the typical Comedy Central budget. But the live audiences in studio loved it. Everyone backstage knew we had a hit on our hands.

  When the series finally premiered in late 2009, ratings were off the charts, but we knew not to get too excited, because in television, rarely do ratings for subsequent airings stay as high as a premiere. We also didn’t mind some of the show’s critics, because those people weren’t our audience. There were plenty of other successful shows on the air that were far more offensive than what we were doing, so we let that stuff roll off our backs. If someone was screaming about what they didn’t like on our show, that would make other people tune in because they thought that part was the funniest.

  After a few weeks, the ratings finally settled down to what normally would have been good numbers for Comedy Central. We were coming in just below their number one program, South Park. The problem was, because our show was so much more expensive than anything else they had on the air, it was beginning to look like it would be a nonprofit venture. Comedy Central didn’t cancel the series, as they kept airing and repeating the episodes. They did, however, choose not to renew the series.

  In the end, it didn’t surprise me, and I tried not to view it as a failure, but more as a learning experience. In Bergen’s movies from the 1940s, there were scenes with Charlie by himself or interacting with other actors in the films, without Bergen. We utilized the same formula in our television show, with my characters being independent of me now and then. We thought those pieces worked and were really funny, but what we found in research in the following months was that those were the segments that audiences really didn’t like. In other words, people most wanted to see the guys and me together. What we didn’t realize until too late was that for the viewing audience, this is when the magic truly happens; it isn’t just
the characters coming to life—it’s the relationship between us that makes the best comedy. Also, when I was alongside the characters, it helped knock the wind out of some of the outlandish things the little guys would say. That’s how it works onstage too. If one of the characters tells a joke that’s offensive, I’m always right there to counter it and argue with their sometimes callous sensibilities. It’s a comedy team. I’m the Abbott to the Costello, the Penn to the Teller. Those individuals are funniest working together, and so it was with me and the guys.

  Peanut: We learned a valuable lesson that day… that there is no i in team.

  Bubba J.: But there is in ice cream.

  In the end, we could easily point to the segments that were audience favorites, and to those that didn’t work as well. The exception to this line of thinking was my favorite piece: Achmed and the U.S. Marines. I say it was my favorite, because I couldn’t believe we were actually where we were, doing what we were doing. It was also, however, one of the most difficult segments to tape, mainly because I had to put myself and Achmed in incredibly unnatural positions that kept me sore for days afterward. But on shoot day, when we landed by helicopter at Camp Pendleton, the actual marine training base just north of San Diego, I was stoked. Here we were, working with actual U.S. Marines, who all said they loved Achmed, and who wanted their picture taken with him. I was like a proud dad… in a weirdly twisted kind of way.