by Jeff Dunham
In addition to the real one, we also had a few stunt Achmeds that we blew up and had run over by giant military vehicles. Plus, Achmed got screamed at pretty brutally by a few of the training officers, and that made me laugh. To see Achmed on screen trying to do push-ups with these guys in his face like he was a real recruit was just too darned funny.
Another segment that involved Achmed gave me the heebie jeebies for a few weeks afterward. The setup was that the little terrorist had never had a proper funeral, so now he wanted one. We went to an actual mortuary and Achmed took the tour. What made the episode not so fun for me was when he had to sit up from inside a coffin he was trying out, to talk to the funeral director. There was only one way to be able to make this work: We had the top half of the coffin opened so Achmed could lie down, then sit up. But to operate him, I had to get inside the casket and then ball up into the fetal position in the lower portion of the casket with that half of the lid shut. I had a flashlight to see my notes, and could hear the muffled sounds of everyone talking… but no actual contact with the living world. THAT was creepy. And by the way, I know what it feels like to lie in a real coffin now. (Lots of springs and not much back support.) Sheesh.
Also scattered through 2009 were a good number of notable national television appearances as well as some big-time articles on me and the guys. Bonnie Hunt and Carson Daly welcomed us, as did Leno and David Letterman again.…
Oh yeah… Letterman… now that’s a difficult one to even remember what happened…
The next showbiz tale I’d like to relate is probably the absolute closest I’ve ever come to a crashing and burning on national television. It has a happy ending, but it was close… oh, so very close.
We had just flown back from our first European tour and I took basically a nap at home in Los Angeles, before then jumping on another plane and heading out for a full weekend of shows in Northern California. No rest for the weary. After the Sunday night show, I then hopped a red-eye across the country to New York City, where we landed at about eight A.M. I backtracked three days in my head, and realized that the miserable cold I now had, I must have picked up on that long, stuffy, international flight from Europe. A guy in front of me was sneezing and sniffling and hacking the whole time, and I was run down as could be. I was now suffering the consequences with his cold.
Achmed: There is nothing worse than you getting a cold.
Jeff: Why do you say that?
Achmed: I haven’t exactly figured it out, but if you get a cold, the rest of us sound like crap.
I took a long and laborious cab ride to a hotel in Manhattan for a three-hour nap, because I then had to get over to the Ed Sullivan Theater to appear on Letterman… again. (Remember, they tape in the afternoon, not at night.) I was constantly making sure I kept the postnasal drip to a minimum, because that’s what would take my voice away. I had tea, honey, throat lozenges, plus day- and nighttime cold medicine. As my alarm blared around noon, I went into the bathroom and downed what was to be a well-timed daytime, very powerful and effective cold medicine. I’d planned for exactly when the best time to take it would be for the most relief at the most opportune time for performing, and that was right then. As I threw away the now-empty cardboard box of Alka-Seltzer Plus Daytime Cold Medicine, I turned to walk out of the bathroom. Then I stopped.
“Wait a minute,” I thought, “I don’t have any more daytime cold medicine. I was going to buy some more. Oh shit!” I ran back to the trash can and yanked out the box. “Ohhhh… shit!” I yelled again. Then a few more colorful words came flying out of my mouth too.
I hadn’t taken any daytime cold medicine because I didn’t have any more. In my stupor, I had downed two Alka-Seltzer Plus Nighttime tablets. HOLY CRAP.
I’m a lightweight when it comes to medicine. I rarely take any, so when I do ingest them, they work.
Rehearsal was in an hour and the actual show began taping in three hours. “HOLY CRAP,” I thought again. Everything went through my mind in a second. I had never made myself throw up before, plus I figured the stuff was already in my system since it was in liquid form… “Crap, crap, holy crap…”
Peanut: I couldn’t stop laughing.
Jeff: It wasn’t funny.
Peanut: That’s why it was soooo funny.
Big shows and these national television spots are always performances I prepare and overprepare for. I try to work like an athlete—eating and drinking just the right things, exercising, and rehearsing just the right amount in the right timing to make sure the body and mind are in the best shape to do the best performance possible. I had no idea what to do about this screwup. It threw off everything.
I got my clothes and Peanut together and headed over to the set. Robin was there since he’d been with me for the weekend run, and I told him what happened. “Go get a carton of Red Bull!” I pleaded. “That’s the only thing I can think of!” I always drink one small Red Bull before every show, but this time it was going to be a lot more. “SUGAR FREE!” I yelled after him as he ran down the steps.
I was starting to feel heaviness behind my eyes. “Good god,” I thought. The memories of those moments are a little blurry now, but I know I made my way downstairs and to the stage. Waiting for me were a couple of producers, plus all the stage guys, Paul and the band, and everyone important. I figured I would be able to push through the rehearsal with just a little haziness from the meds.
Almost every story and every moment in my life that I’ve written about in this book I can recall in great detail, no matter how long ago it was… except for this one. It’s all very fuzzy. I remember that I got a few lines into a very simple four-minute routine and then stopped… I repeated a joke I’d just done, then hit a roadblock. The medicine was now hitting me full-force and I was doing everything I could just to hold my eyes open and keep Peanut from falling over. Keep in mind that everyone was watching me, including possibly Letterman, who was probably at a monitor somewhere thinking he was being punked. I started and stopped a couple more times, then had to ask what the last joke I’d just told was.
The guys back in the control room as well the director and producers were probably looking at each other, thinking “Is he drunk? What’s wrong with him? Can we even use him?”
I remember that I stopped and asked for someone to print out the jokes that I had e-mailed to the show a few days before. I knew I could do it by looking at that sheet. I then explained very truthfully what had happened, apologized, and reassured them wholeheartedly that I would be fine for the actual show. Honestly, I don’t remember much more than that, other than downing about four Red Bulls minutes before I hit the stage.
Adrenaline, a little extra time, and energy drinks were my friends that day. The spot went great and I was certainly happier with it than the time before, when I was censored and edited. My team and I all laughed about it later, and it’s become a great story, but I’ve also tried to learn something meaningful from the experience, and I think it’s this: DON’T FORGET THE RED BULL.
Bubba J.: You shoulda had a beer.
Jeff: Beer would have made it worse.
Bubba J.: Yeah, but you wouldn’t have cared.
I got my first big break with The Tonight Show, and since then, NBC has always been very good to me. I’m a big admirer of Jay Leno, because for thirtysomething years now, he has been one of the hardest working stand-ups in the business, constantly traveling coast to coast, performing in every venue imaginable. He is tireless and committed, and when it comes to hosting The Tonight Show, no one can argue with his numbers. After an almost ten-year hiatus from being on with Jay, however, I made up for lost time and appeared three times on The Tonight Show in 2009. The third appearance that year took me and my people, as well as Leno and the producers, by surprise. In December, I was booked on the show to promote my Comedy Central show. The plan was for me to have a brief chat with Jay by myself, telling a quick story, then pull Peanut out for a few jokes. They asked me to have two or three stories ready for my
solo part of the interview, with questions given to Jay in advance to lead me into the tales. Well, my first story, which was a true one about tricking Rothpan into going to a Miley Cyrus concert with me and my girls, went so well that Jay decided to forgo the dummy part of things, and just let me tell another story without a dummy. My entire appearance on The Tonight Show that night, unlike any other time or on any other show, was only me. Peanut never made it out of the suitcase. For the first time ever on television, I was just me.
Peanut: Congratulations on that solo appearance.
Jeff: Thanks, Peanut.
Peanut: It only took thirty-eight years for you to be funny without me.
After my segment, I walked back to my dressing room, and there waiting for me all stone-faced, waiting for my reaction, was my little entourage of management, agents, and publicists. Since I never got to do my thing with Peanut, they didn’t know if I was going to be happy or ticked off. I was doing everything short of a jig. This had been a big deal.
As 2009 was coming to a close, there were articles on me and the guys in USA Today, Time magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. It seemed like we were all over the place, and I was in the middle of a whirlwind career, like I’d never known before.
Now in this tale of my life comes the third of those big surprises that I’ve been talking about. This also happens to be the most important one, and that’s why I saved it for last. It’s a dream come true and something that I never, EVER thought could possibly happen. Ready? Here it is: I have actually become cool to my teenage daughters.
I don’t know exactly how it happened, or exactly what I did. (Is it all simply because of Comedy Central and YouTube?) I will qualify it by saying that maybe it’s just my imagination, but it seems that I have become one of those few, very lucky parents who have the honor of seemingly not being an embarrassment to their children. Honestly, my daughters don’t seem to mind when I hang around, or take them and their friends to dinner. Also, I THINK they like hanging out with friends at my house, even though I’m pretty strict. (“NO BOYS UPSTAIRS”… that kind of thing.) Granted, it could be that I just have incredibly kind and loving daughters who don’t want to hurt my feelings, or (and I do mean or…) I just might be funny even to them.… But that seems like a long shot.
Walter: Long shot.
Peanut: Long shot.
Achmed: Long shot.
Bubba J.: My tooth is loose.
Thank you, my loving and beautiful daughters! You don’t ever need to buy me another present; just keep letting me hang. Oh, and please keep downloading songs on my iPhone. Thanks to you, I seem hip to friends when they look at my playlists.
The year 2009 ended with me playing a part in the Steve Carell-Paul Rudd movie Dinner for Schmucks. Though I had a small part, it was my first feature film, and I introduced a new character that I created just for the movie. Diane was the only dummy I’ve ever built that is… well… anatomically correct, at least from the waist up! Besides her head, I also sculpted her upper torso, and she has some darned impressive boobs, I must say. It was one of the few times that my daughters steered clear of my workshop at all costs, but I thought the body was very tastefully created art. Well, it was art up until the point that the movie’s paint guys got a hold of the body. It quickly went from art to pornography. In full color her breasts were even more impressive, I must say.
One of the coolest parts about being in that movie was where we were on location to shoot the exterior scene of the mansion burning down: It was the original Wayne Manor! Bruce Wayne’s mansion from the original 1960s Batman television series! But alas, no Bat Cave: I checked thoroughly.
Besides the sound of laughter, one of the most rewarding parts of all that has happened in the past few years has been the ability and opportunity to give back to people in need. Beginning in 2009, I decided to take a dollar from every ticket sold in the arena and theater dates and put the money aside for charity. When a significant amount has amassed, my business manager and I decide where to distribute the funds. Most of the time, we’ve given to food banks in cities that have unemployment rates greater than 10 percent. It’s been a truly great experience for everyone involved. I present the check onstage at the end of a show to a representative from the local food bank, and the audience is able to see what they helped to do.
Of all the times and places we’ve been able to give, my hands-down favorite was at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, where I was performing for thirteen thousand people. It felt like a homecoming show of sorts. We gave $50,000 to the Dallas Food Bank, and $50,000 to the Salvation Army where my mother still volunteers. I had Mom walk out onstage and help give the check. Then all thirteen thousand people sang “Happy Birthday” to my eighty-year-old sweet mom. Dad was having a little trouble with steps at the time, so he got to watch and listen just offstage on a monitor. It was a magical time for all three of us.
Also that night, I gave $10,000 to a representative from the Dallas Public Library for an overdue fine. In 1972 I checked out the book Fun with Ventriloquism by Alexander Van Rensselaer and never returned it. I pulled out the exact book and showed it to her and the laughing crowd. I then handed her the check, but wouldn’t let her touch the book. I of course still have it.
Walter: Ten grand? Holy crap!
Jeff: Pretty cool, huh?
Walter: No, I still have a library book from 1966!
As is pretty obvious, I love this quirky little art of ventriloquism. I consider myself to be one of those lucky people who happened to have found something at a very early age that I had a passion for. I’ve worked very hard to achieve some lofty goals, but I’ve always been supported by family and friends, plus I’ve been blessed by my Maker, and along the way I’ve had a lot of help from a handful of some very significant and great people. There’s also the fact that my parents pray for me constantly, and I’m pretty sure that’s a big part of why things have gone so well for so long. Until I decide to call it quits, I hope this all keeps going and growing, because right now I simply can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.
As I type these final thoughts, I’m sitting on a plane, flying back to the United States from our second tour of Europe. This time we did shows all over England, Ireland, and Holland, repeating one city from our first tour, where I was delighted, amazed, and honored to have played a second time in London, but this time at the 02 Arena in front of twelve thousand laughing Brits. In a few months we’re heading to South Africa for some shows, and there’s even talk of China. “How the heck—?”
Bubba J.: China! Cool.
Jeff: What do you want to see in China if we go?
Bubba J.: USA town.
Walter: Please, PLEASE will someone just put a bag over his head?
Bubba J.: That was my Halloween costume last year!
The loves of my life, my daughters, Bree, Ashlyn, and Kenna, are all doing great, and I couldn’t be a more proud father. As for my time spent offstage, I continue to fly helicopters, and I’m just now beginning to build my fourth kit. It will probably take a couple of years to complete, but I’m pretty sure this one will have Achmed painted on the side!
I love American Muscle Cars both old and new, and as I have since the first Macintosh was introduced in 1984, I love all things Apple. As for new horizons, both Peanut and Walter have an old subject to kid me about, because I’m dating again…
When I first met Audrey, she had no idea who I was or what I did for living. She’d never heard of me or Peanut or Achmed, nor any kind of pepper on a stick. You might think that would have tromped on my ego a bit. On the contrary, it was refreshing. There were no preconceived expectations or suppositions, and never once during any of our first dates did she ask me to make something talk!
Walter: I’m still not sure she knows what you do for a living.
Audrey just knew me as the guy who asked her out for a cup of coffee one day after being attracted to her by nothing more than her smile. As sappy as it sounds, t
he very first time I saw her, she was a sunshine that warmed me from the inside out… birds tweeted, butterflies flew around…
Walter: Please stop!
Peanut: I’m going to puke.
As a certified nutritionist and personal trainer, Audrey continuously has a handful of clients, and she also competes in body-building competitions herself. She comes out on the road with Robin and Brian and me and the rest of the crew, encouraging all of us to eat more healthfully and exercise regularly.
Bubba J.: She tells me to limit my kegs.
Most importantly, however, Audrey brought a peace and happiness into my life that I hadn’t known for a very long time. John, Robert, Robin, Brian, and Judi had helped me through my darkest days as the best of friends do. And now after so long, I feel and share unconditional love with someone very special.
The biggest vote of acceptance of Audrey into my life came from the people whose perspective I cared about the most: my parents. The first time they met her, we all had lunch at the café in Nordstrom in University Park, which is a few miles north of downtown Dallas. It had been a long time since I’d watched anyone meet my parents for the first time. Through Audrey’s eyes, I got to see two of the most wonderful people I’ve ever known. I’d forgotten how charming and engaging and funny both my parents actually are. I think that sometimes we forget about the best traits of those we love the most because we start to take who they are for granted. We grow to overlook the best parts of people we’re closest to. I saw my mother and father through fresh, genuine, kind, and loving eyes. And just as important, my parents adored Audrey from their first meeting.