Meanwhile, Seamus derides alcoholism and Achmed jokes about virgins in paradise and chides his gay son. The two trot out lewd comments about women and ridicule foreign accents. Alter egos There’s Walter, a retired, grumpy old man whose catchphrase is: “Shut the hell up!” And Peanut, a furry purple creature from a small Micronesian island who is hyperactively annoying.
Dunham’s characters revel in smirking at liberals and carving up political correctness. We were always the sideshow, the little guys, the cheap, easy entertainment.” There’s a new generation catching on, Dunham says: “We were the guys they shoved out on stage with the closed curtain while the headliners got ready. Two of the last three winners of America’s Got Talent have been ventriloquists.
Not since Edgar Bergen – the ventriloquist turned movie star of the 1940s – has the art form been so popular. It’s not something that could have happened to Keith Harris and Orville the Duck. No mean feat for a man who throws his voice for a living. So big is Dunham that last September he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His videos have amassed 1bn views on YouTube and his shows on NBC, Comedy Central and Netflix regularly top the ratings. ‘Ventriloquists were always the sideshow, the little guys, the cheap easy entertainment’ … Dunham with Peanut. He doesn’t just hold the Guinness World Record for most tickets sold for a standup comedy tour – 2m across 386 venues – he is also ranked by Forbes as one the highest paid comedians on the planet, up there with Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Amy Schumer. Spurning all accusations of racism, sexism and homophobia, Dunham has become a comic phenomenon. His puppets are dysfunctional, foul-mouthed and unashamedly stereotypical, from Seamus the drunken Irish baby to José the Mexican immigrant and Achmed the jihadi suicide bomber.
We’ll make a reality TV guy the president – who 60% of people hate – and then, here’s something weirder, we’ll make this ventriloquist guy so successful he sells out stadiums.’”ĭunham is no children’s entertainer. “Other comedians,” he says, “must be scratching their heads and thinking, ‘How the hell is this happening?’ It’s like aliens were looking down and saying, ‘Here’s how we’re going to screw up Earth. But Dunham and his cast of dummies pulled in a whopping 19,000 fans – and every one of them seemed to have had a riotously fun evening. Any other ventriloquist would be happy with an audience of a few hundred, maybe in their wildest dreams a thousand. He has just played to a sell-out crowd in the Texas city of San Antonio. He also owns his own car, the Achmedmobile, which Bubba J blew up and had a goat "girlfriend".J eff Dunham is on a high. More of his past is revealed in Controlled Chaos where he had a dog with no legs that he left nameless, he didn't know the purpose of tampons and used them, he had 46 wives, and was revealed to have a son named Achmed Junior. He, along with Walter and Peanut, are Dunham's most popular puppets. As of June 2009, the sketch in which Dunham introduced Achmed is the fourth most watched online video ever, having amassed nearly 200 million views. When mentioning that Achmed appears to be dead because he's a skeleton, Achmed responds, " It's a flesh wound." When Dunham inquires as to how he died, Achmed explains his incompetence with explosives, while also casting aspersions on Dunham's sexual prowess, by saying that they both suffer from "premature detonation." Although he frequently mentions working for Osama Bin Laden, Achmed claims he does not think he's a Muslim ("look at my ass! It says 'Made in China'"). Most of the humor Dunham expresses with Achmed centers on this motif. He also dubs the so-called Guitar Guy "You racist bastard"! for warming up with typical Arab chords.
Achmed first appeared in Spark of Insanity, and later made an appearance in the Very Special Christmas Special, singing a song called "Jingle Bombs". He is known for yelling, "Silence! I kill you!" to Dunham and people laughing in the audience. Achmed is the skeletal corpse of an incompetent suicide bomber, whom Dunham uses to satirize the contemporary issue of terrorism.