Ventriloquists good - non-ventriloquists evil

Dear reader,

granted, there are some strange ventriloquists out there. Edgar Bergen for example in his later years gave Charlie McCarthy his own room. Candice Bergen, the daughter of Edgar Bergen, was certainly frustrated when she was younger and Charlie McCarthy was called to be her big brother. Al Steven writes in his book „Ventriloquism: Art, Craft, Profession“, that Paul Winchell had massive problems with his mother. That went so far that he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital at one point. He ran away from there one night to go to the graveyard to hallucinate both his figures Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff at his mother's grave. (Stevens takes that from Paul Winchell's autobiography „Winch“, which I haven't read though. So all I can do is repeat what Stevens wrote.)

Al Stevens also writes, rightly so, I think, that there is surely a certain percentage more or less crazy vents out there. But this percentage of crazy also exists in other professions. The thought that vents are crazy therefore is not more often or less than with other people. The media, especially films, however like to spread the image of this crazy vent or the murderous vent figure. It's similar to that image of hypnotists. Many people fear hypnotists, though for other reasons. The thing with hypnotists though is that people believe the hypnotists totally take away their own free will.

More common than the truly crazy vent you find them in films. Be it portrayed by Jay Johnson as “Chuck Campbell” in “Soap”, for whom Bob is as real as a real human. “Soap” isn't quite normal anyway. The series is about two sisters, Mary Campbell and Jessica Tate and their families. Both families are not normal. A vent truly seeing his figure as just that would not have fit in there. Billy Chrystal for example played another brother of the family and was gay. Today this is hardly a drama at all, but around 1980, when the series was shot, it was quite a big thing. One of my favourite scenes is the one with Chuck, Bob and the fridge.

Chuck and Bob's first meeting with both families is also something worth watching for sure. And the scene with Bob as mindreader shows in a very beautiful way that Chuck is not alone in accepting Bob as an independent person. I just love the look Mary gives her husband Burt.


There's no video of it online, but in “Night Court, the episode “The Next Voice You Hear” (season 4, episode 1) Ronn Lucas plays a vent, who talks all right, but without moving his lips and without a figure. He refuses to talk in his normal voice. A successful act, he says, depends on the personality of the figure and the rapport between he and the ventriloquist. He has honed his skills, but he hasn't yet found the perfect other character. Until he does, he refuses to speak as himself.

He's also in the „L.A. Law“ episode „Dummy Dearest“ (season 3, episode 6). As Kenny Petersen, who was kept in a trunk of a car for a couple of days when he was 3 years old, he doesn't speak himself. But he does have a figure, who speaks for him instead. It's not more patient with him than the rest of the people around Kenny, who think him crazy for walking around with a puppet all the time. Again there are no scenes of that episode on the internet to show you here.

I only mention this film here now, because even with the clichee of the crazy ventriloquist, I still think they're quite witty and not the typical “murderous insane”, like many others.

As a vent you're more than just an actor. You're audience, when the figure is active, and yet at the same time you're actor, because you're playing the figure. That's something other actors don't get to do. Either they're in the role or not. Only vents can be actor and audience at the same time.

I'm very fascinated with Ronn Lucas' role in „L.A. Law“ because of that. It goes a bit further than the „usual“ 2 roles of a vent, because on one hand (no pun intended) he has to play a depressed, intimidated vent and at the same time his figure is totally raging against almost everybody he comes across... including Kenny Petersen himself. One especially touching scene is at the end of that episode as Kenny is crouched with his figure in the corner of a room full of records and the figure is totally hitting on him how it makes no sense anymore to speak for him and that he's a lost case. The scene is even more beautiful (as much as such a scene can be beautiful that is) to watch, if you keep in mind that Ronn Lucas doesn't just have no text, but the very angry figure is speaking and that's without twitching lips on Lucas' part or otherwise showing that he's at the same time speaking for a very emotional figure. Scenes like that seem simple. Someone talks and someone else does not. In fact however they're much more complicated as they seem, similar to a magic trick. The art of ventriloquism is that the text of the figure are there right away. It's not something that's added later on by someone speaking the lines. That's the true art. I miss good ventriloquists. The films today are all animated and the actors just speak the lines. Or you help yourself with letting the actor speak the lines “off camera”, invisible for the camera.

As a ventriloquist you can be creative and you have a unbelievably complex task in being two persons at the same time. Also it gives the ventriloquist the possibility to say things which are impossible to say otherwise (because society doesn't like them) or things you don't dare saying (because you're shy). The figures give you the freedom to come out, really say anything and still be shy and withdrawn themselves. Ventriloquism is the safest way to let oneself go and “let out some steam”. Ventriloquists aren't crazy or evil. Crazy are only the people, who just take it all in all the time and don't let it out. Something like that makes people ill and crazy in the long run, I think.

Until next blog,

sarah

I've Got A Pain In My Sawdust

Dear Reader,

the title of todays blog post is the title of an old song. It was written and published in the early 20th century in america and tells the painful story of a bisque doll. I came across that song recently. I had looked up Jeff Dunham at the famous internet website imdb.com to see what other movies he had been in. I found the documentary "I'm No Dummy". Through that I came to know first Jay Johnson and now I'm waiting, yes, with pain in my sawdust, for 2 dvds with Ronn Lucas.

I want to take the opportunity today to tell you a bit about some known ventriloquist... Oh yes, the song! In 2007 Jay Johnson had a role in a CSI episode ("Living Dolls"). He played a ventriloquist (no, he doesn't always play a ventriloquist in every single role he has in a movie) and lets his puppet sing the last verse of the song in a performance he gives. If you ask me that's the best way to perform that song. True, the suffering puppet isn't a ventriloquist figure, but which other puppet could sing for itself and a puppet should in fact do the singing herself, don't you think?

Now, famous vents. What follows is a small, personal, totally incomplete selection, in no particular order:

Edgar Bergen (1903-1978): he's best known with Charlie McCarthy. Bergen's lip control was hopeless. Probably because he did a lot of radio show work where of course the lip control didn't matter. But with Charlie McCarthy he created a boy, who seemed to have his own independent small personality. That was quite something. Most people may know Charlie with his suit, top hat and monocle. But don't be fooled by his appearance! This boy didn't mince matters. apart from the radio shows Bergen and Charlie McCarthy also played parts in movies, where they often portraid themselves. Even Charlie McCarthy often got credited with "as himself" or playing "Charlie McCarthy". Although Charlie McCarthy was the main character for Edgar Bergen, he wasn't the only one he had. There's also the slow thinking, often stupid country boy Mortimer Snerd.

Some Edgar Bergen bits can be found on youtube. Short movies like "Nut Guilty" for example or "The Eyes Have It" and (at least for now) the complete movie "Letter of Introduction" in full length and one piece! I'm still checking him out myself and finding things I haven't seen yet. One other movie I can recommend to you already is "You Can't Cheat An Honest Man" in which Bergen and Charlie work in a circus. The director is a miser ripping off everyone he can, including his own staff. Charlie wanted to leave him for a long time already. But when the director's daughter once visits the circus and Bergen gets a crush on her, he himself could stay for a bit longer...

Paul Winchell (1922-2005): Not only was he a vent, but also an inventor! The first construction of an artificial heart is his invention, complete with patent even! As a kid he got polio and had to spent lots of time in bed. Instead of being depressed about it, he took the opportunity and bought info on ventriloquism after reading an add in a magazine. Reminds me a bit of Milton Erickson, who too got polio when he was young and also was forced to be in bed for a long time. Paul Winchell also did the voice of Tigger for the Disney Winnie Pooh movies.  As a vent he was most famous with his figures Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff.  Over time he got to be a vent for kids mostly and did tv shows for and with kids. If you want to become a vent yourself and are creative and are reasonably good with handcrafts, you should get Paul Winchell's book "Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit". It's informative for beginners, entertaining to read lots of anecdotes of Paul Winchell's own life and also has a very detailed step by step description of how to build your own figure, as you wish either out of papier-mâché or wood! There are many clips with him on youtube for you to watch, too.

Jimmy Nelson: inspired and still supports young people, who want to learn ventriloquism. He got famous for his Nestle ads with Danny O'Day and the dog Farfel. He also published 2 lps showing people how they can learn ventriloquism themselves.

Jay Johnson (b. 1949): I already mentioned Jay Johnson before. Like many other vents, he started to learn this art when he was young. He's a dyslexic, which made school not very fun for him. To have a hobby where he suddenly didn't have many people to compete with him, certainly was a positive experience for him. Like I said in my previous blog post, Jay Johnson got most famous playing the role of the vent Chuck Campbell in "Soap". As a result of that Bob got famous, too, and continues to be his most famous partner. Before Bob also was Squeaky, but like Jay Johnson tells in his one-man-show "Jay Johnson: The Two And Only" (for which he won a Tony, by the way!), Squeaky was too sweet for the producers to play the part of the big mouth Bob.  Edgar Bergen was always with Charlie McCarthy and Paul Winchell was always with Jerry Mahoney. Now Jay Johnson couldn't be with Squeaky anymore.  At first he thought, after he finished "Soap", he could go back working with Squeaky. But Bob was the figure he got famous with in "Soap". Many clips with Chuck and Bob in Soap as well as Jay Johnson with other of his partners (Darwin!!!) can be found with the corresponding key words on youtube.  Because Jay Johnson will be performing his Broadway show again in september to film it for the release of the dvd, I'd like to mention a couple of pages: "Jay Johnson: The Two And Only" auf youtube, where Bob will also vlog about the preparations to the show. Jay's "normal homepage" and the "Jay Johnson: The Two And Only" page.

Ronn Lucas (b. 1954): I mentioned him before in my earlier post, too. It's difficult for me to really name one or two of his figures, because he has so many interesting ones I've seen already. Two of his most famous ones certainly are the cheeky cowboy Buffalo Billy and the fire-breathing dragon Scorch. Some clips with Billy and even more with Scorch can be found on youtube, including the 3 episodes of Scorch's own series (called "Scorch"). apart from Billy and Scorch Ronn Lucas also can turn a sock into a simple, but very effective sock puppet in full view of the audience. Ronn Lucas is so creative and broad as a vent that he is called "the man, who can make anything talk". That's including a microphone, which once pissed off by him, makes him speak out of sync. I personally find it refreshing that he did afternoon shows for kids in Las Vegas and still is entertaining for adults, too. I didn't yet find complete episodes of his "The Ronn Lucas Show", which he did in 1990, although youtube has bits and pieces of them. He also had guest appearances in several tv series. I personally enjoyed him most in "L.A. Law", although he was a vent with a rather sad history in that one. Watching him as his figure was raving in the court room and towards the end totally got himself down too while he is barely moving his lips at all, I can watch that again and again. Here's the link to his youtube channel with several clips and his homepage also includes an appearance with Scorch that made me get a total crush on Scorch, namely the MDA Telethon appearance. Also check out his eBay page, where he sells his toy Scorch and his two dvds. Yes, the shipping is also to europe and I got the movies I'm longing to get any day now from there.

Other vents you should have heard of:

Lynn Trefzger: on her homepage you'll find videos, among them one with the boy Noah, who had a brain tumor, who she went to see. I think it's a very nice of her to do that! Jeff Dunham made ventriloquism popular again recently for many people. Since many of you probably know him already, I won't write much about him here now. (his homepage) Another female vent I want to mention is Nina Conti, who began doing ventriloquism when she was almost 30. Of course she has her own homepage, too. Dan Horn is also known, although I don't know much about him other than his name and I've seen a few clips with him on youtube. In the documentary "Dumbstruck" they follow him and also Terry Fator, who got famous after his breakthrough through "America's Got Talent". Since there are rather few woman in this field, I'd also like to mention Carla Rhodes. I came to know her after watching her in the movie "Dummies!", which I stumbled upon on the internet the other day. Although then still a teenager, she came across as quite charming to me and judging from her homepage, she seemed to have made it actually and found her place in comedy, music and ventriloquism.

Okay, if you can make it and really keep your eyes on the lips of the vents I mentioned here, you'll probably see slightly quivering lips with all of them once or twice. Nobody is perfect, but all of the vents I mentioned in this post, I think, are all well worth watching. Like I said, Edgar Bergen is a lost case when it comes to lip control, but that doesn't make him less worth watching. All of them here are great artists, who have kept and keep this old art of ventriloquism alive. Time will tell how much I will be one of them...

Until next blog,

sarah