Ryan
  • 5 months ago
Jeff Dunham
Birth of A Dummy

2011

Category

😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00:00Oh, my Lord, where the hell are we now?
00:00:04What the hell?
00:00:05Ah!
00:00:05Ah!
00:00:06Ah!
00:00:08He's the world's unlikeliest comedy superstar.
00:00:11Dumb.
00:00:11Hey, Mr. Dunham, I was wondering,
00:00:14what is it that you do for a living?
00:00:17I'm a ventriloquist.
00:00:18Oh, you don't eat meat?
00:00:21Playing straight man to a trunk full of talking puppets
00:00:24has turned Jeff Dunham into the nation's top touring comic.
00:00:28What exactly is marriage to you?
00:00:29It's like drinking a Slurpee.
00:00:31Slurpee, first couple of sips, like, boy, it's really good.
00:00:33I'm glad I did this.
00:00:34And you keep drinking, it goes right to your head,
00:00:36and you go, ow, ow, ow.
00:00:39People scream as if we were at a huge concert.
00:00:43He's moved millions of DVDs, shattered ratings records
00:00:46with his television specials, and sold out
00:00:48arenas around the globe.
00:00:50My god, I can die happy now.
00:00:53You feel like you're at a rock concert,
00:00:55and you go, these people are here to watch a ventriloquist.
00:00:58They don't have a big booth at career day for ventriloquists.
00:01:03Wait, hang on a second, how did that happen?
00:01:07But four decades ago, Dunham was a Dallas boy
00:01:10who played with dolls.
00:01:11Stardom seemed beyond a long shot,
00:01:13but Jeff dared to dream about taking ventriloquism
00:01:16into the mainstream.
00:01:18It's like ventriloquism, are you kidding?
00:01:20It's a sad, sad thing for squares and weird people
00:01:24and losers.
00:01:25I just thought, where's a ventriloquist going to go?
00:01:27I really believe I can do anything.
00:01:29I want to be the greatest ventriloquist in the world.
00:01:31OK.
00:01:33After 30 years, Dunham's creations
00:01:35have turned him into an international star.
00:01:38It started going absolutely nuts.
00:01:40Holy, how high can this go?
00:01:46But not long after 9-11, he put his career at risk
00:01:49by introducing a suicide bomber into his act,
00:01:52while anti-Muslim sentiment was reaching a fever pitch.
00:01:55Good evening, infidel.
00:02:00Wow, there are going to be a billion Muslims in the world
00:02:03that are going to think this is the Antichrist.
00:02:05You're a terrorist.
00:02:06Yes, I am a terrorist.
00:02:10What kind of terrorist?
00:02:11A terrifying terrorist.
00:02:15There were people who were like, what is this guy doing?
00:02:18He was going to areas that were really pushing the envelope.
00:02:22Of what is politically correct.
00:02:24The minute I pull him out, everybody starts laughing.
00:02:27Ahmed the dead terrorist blew up on the internet,
00:02:31tallying more than 140 million YouTube views.
00:02:34People are forwarding this link of Ahmed all over the world.
00:02:38Silence!
00:02:38I can't hear you.
00:02:39I can't hear you.
00:02:40I'm kidding.
00:02:43Ahmed's huge, but to stay on top,
00:02:45Dunham challenges his audience, working with old favorites.
00:02:50That's good.
00:02:50That's good.
00:02:51That's good.
00:02:53While conceiving fresh new characters to bring on stage.
00:02:56I'm going to try a brand new technology, something
00:02:58that I've never tried before.
00:03:00It's almost science fiction.
00:03:01It's so cool.
00:03:02This is Jeff Dunham, birth of a dummy.
00:03:06Turn that thing off, or I kick your ass here to Calcutta.
00:03:10It's Dunham.
00:03:31Now, when you look at it, it says Dunham, Jeff Dunham.
00:03:35Ham.
00:03:37You're the other white meat.
00:03:41Jeff Dunham will hit the road in six months.
00:03:44But before he does, he wants to add a fresh new figure
00:03:47to his maniacal menagerie.
00:03:49Silence!
00:03:51I kill you!
00:03:54He will build a dummy from scratch,
00:03:56a time-consuming process that includes everything
00:03:59from sculpting and molding to mechanics and character
00:04:02development.
00:04:03There's Melvin.
00:04:04With less than six months until tour,
00:04:07he's busy brainstorming.
00:04:09My biggest concern when I do my show
00:04:11is to make sure that the audience comes in
00:04:13and sees something different and new every time.
00:04:17Melvin.
00:04:19Sweet Daddy D.
00:04:22Here is Bubba J.
00:04:24All I know is when I know it's time
00:04:26to come up with something new, my mind opens up a little bit.
00:04:29And everywhere I look and every time I think about the act,
00:04:32I'm thinking, what is that new thing?
00:04:35What is that new person?
00:04:37Dunham's thinking about concocting a character related
00:04:40to the controversial creation he introduced in the frenzy
00:04:43following 9-11, Achmed the Dead Terrorist.
00:04:48Greetings, infidels!
00:04:52The direction I've been heading is a son for Achmed,
00:04:56because there's one joke in the Christmas special
00:04:58where Achmed mentions his son and then says
00:05:01that he isn't around anymore.
00:05:02I'm a horrible parent.
00:05:05Why?
00:05:06I took him to take your kid to work day.
00:05:11It's not funny.
00:05:14My wife is still pissed at me.
00:05:18She came to the market and said, where's our son?
00:05:20And then I go, over there, over there, and up there.
00:05:24It's terrible, but it gets a big laugh.
00:05:26And that's what made me start thinking maybe
00:05:28that's the direction to go.
00:05:30It's Achmed's son, and maybe he really isn't dead.
00:05:33And that's about as far as I've gotten.
00:05:35Kids nowadays, they blow up so fast.
00:05:42Dunham's ever-growing posse of puppets
00:05:45have become pop culture superstars.
00:05:48So your wife's in town?
00:05:49Oh, yeah.
00:05:49Is she having a good time?
00:05:50She always has a good time.
00:05:51Good.
00:05:52Pisses me off.
00:05:56Well, say, what do you want for Christmas?
00:05:58I think he needs a bigger stick.
00:06:00That's not what your mother said.
00:06:06Papa J, have you ever had an intervention?
00:06:08Yeah, and penicillin cleared her right up.
00:06:12I think the thing that I was most taken aback by
00:06:15is how real the characters are.
00:06:17Within 10 or 15 seconds, I'm interacting with Achmed
00:06:21like he's real.
00:06:22I've bought into it, and I'm part of the show.
00:06:24Last week, I thought I had scoliosis.
00:06:28Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:06:32You think that's funny?
00:06:33Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:06:36Dunham's devotion to dummies started in 1970
00:06:39when he was an eight-year-old boy in Dallas, Texas.
00:06:42A toy version of the Edgar Bergen character Mortimer
00:06:45Snurd caught his eye.
00:06:47The first time I saw a dummy in real life
00:06:50was at Toy Fair in the Northwood Shopping Center.
00:06:52And he said, you know, I'd really
00:06:54like that for Christmas.
00:06:56On that Christmas morning, I snuck in at 530 in the morning
00:06:59when my parents were asleep, and there was this thing
00:07:01on the couch that had a plastic face and a cloth body.
00:07:04I was so excited that I got that thing, and it went from there.
00:07:09What kept me interested was the fact
00:07:10that I'd finally found something that I thought I could be better
00:07:13than any of my classmates.
00:07:15Here I saw Edgar Bergen, all his radio shows.
00:07:17I would look up in encyclopedias and find things written
00:07:20about him and Charlie McCarthy.
00:07:21And I thought, I can get up in front of people
00:07:23and make them laugh.
00:07:25Born in 1962, Jeff was adopted by Joyce and Howard Dunham
00:07:30and raised in Dallas in a devoutly Christian home.
00:07:33My parents got me when I was three months old.
00:07:36They told me from the very beginning,
00:07:37so it was never a big surprise.
00:07:39There was always that curiosity, but my parents loved me so much
00:07:42and there was nothing else that I wanted.
00:07:45I had their affection.
00:07:46I had their love.
00:07:47So I never really wanted to find anybody else.
00:07:50Alone in his room, Jeff's imagination ran wild,
00:07:53and dummies provided instant companionship.
00:07:56So everything's fine?
00:07:57Everything's fine.
00:07:58OK.
00:07:59OK.
00:08:00Just want to make sure.
00:08:01Great.
00:08:01So because I'm your pal.
00:08:04I was not an only child.
00:08:05I don't think I'd be doing what I do.
00:08:07I think that being by myself a lot was a good thing,
00:08:11because it allowed me to think.
00:08:13It allowed me to be much more creative.
00:08:15I had to.
00:08:16I had to create my own fun.
00:08:17I had to be creative.
00:08:18I had to.
00:08:19I had to create my own fun in my room, sitting there
00:08:21with my toys and little characters and whatever.
00:08:24He poured through his local library
00:08:26and devoured everything he could that would enable
00:08:28him to master his new passion.
00:08:30This is the first book I had.
00:08:32It's Fun with Ventriloquism by Alexander Van Rensselaer.
00:08:34The reason I probably shouldn't have collected
00:08:36it is because it's a library book, and I never returned it.
00:08:39It was due April 17, 1972.
00:08:42I was a thief in the third grade.
00:08:44I ended up putting stickers in it.
00:08:46What's wrong with me?
00:08:48The youngster simply loved to play with his dolls,
00:08:51and his parents did nothing to discourage his new hobby.
00:08:54Were you disapproving of his playing with dummies?
00:08:56Dolls.
00:08:58No, I don't think so.
00:09:00That didn't even cross my mind.
00:09:03Did it yours?
00:09:04No.
00:09:05I was so convinced that I could do anything
00:09:08from their encouragement that I really
00:09:10believed I can do anything.
00:09:11And it was like, want to be the greatest
00:09:12ventriloquist in the world?
00:09:14OK, I can try for that.
00:09:16When you hear that Jeff Dunham's goal from the time
00:09:19he was a tiny child was to be a ventriloquist,
00:09:21you're thinking, isn't that sort of like saying,
00:09:23I want to be a pirate, and then actually pursuing it
00:09:25and making it work?
00:09:27It's almost like a Halloween gag come to life.
00:09:31Jeff's plastic friends became his constant companions,
00:09:35even at school.
00:09:36I didn't know that it was this nerdy little art
00:09:39that no one did anymore, or that not a lot of people
00:09:42did really well.
00:09:43I'm sure that there were kids who probably thought,
00:09:48why is someone bringing a dummy to school?
00:09:50But if you knew Jeff, you knew that it was a package deal.
00:09:53Jeff was going to use the dummies in whatever
00:09:56setting he was in.
00:09:57It's like ventriloquism.
00:09:58Are you kidding?
00:09:59That's like being a plate spinner.
00:10:01It's a sad, sad thing for squares and weird people
00:10:05and losers.
00:10:07He even managed to turn annual school
00:10:09pictures into free promotional shots for his act.
00:10:12I thought this was genius.
00:10:14All I had to do was show up at school
00:10:15with the dummy in the suitcase, stand in line.
00:10:17When it was my turn, I'd sit down, put the dummy on my knees,
00:10:19smile, click, professional photo.
00:10:22Don't believe me?
00:10:23There's seventh grade right there.
00:10:24There it is.
00:10:29It was always the kids' staff putting together
00:10:31the school yearbooks, and there would my photo be.
00:10:33It'd be boy, girl, girl, boy, boy with doll, girl, boy.
00:10:39When Jeff got laughs with his dummies during school projects,
00:10:42he began to see endless possibilities.
00:10:45It was like, wait a minute, now I can do Cub Scout banquets,
00:10:47and now I can do little shows at Sunday school.
00:10:49And it just kept growing, growing, and growing.
00:10:51And finally, by the fourth grade, I was like,
00:10:53well, this is what I'm going to do the rest of my life.
00:10:55I found it.
00:10:56He spent a lot of weekends where he might miss a dance
00:11:00or some activity that everybody else was going to
00:11:03because he had booked a show.
00:11:04Who knows why someone becomes a ventriloquist?
00:11:06In the case of Jeff Dunham, he didn't have any siblings,
00:11:09and it's very possible that maybe those characters
00:11:12and those dummies from his early years
00:11:13were pseudo-siblings for him.
00:11:15It sort of filled in that blank.
00:11:17Is this Jeff?
00:11:18In 1976, he made his professional debut
00:11:21before he hit puberty, grabbing the attention
00:11:24of Dallas reporters like Bill O'Reilly,
00:11:26then working local news.
00:11:28All right, now, which one of you guys
00:11:30would like to sign off for us?
00:11:32Well, I'll do it.
00:11:32I'll do it.
00:11:34This is Monty Blu signing off for Bill O'Reilly,
00:11:39Channel 8 News.
00:11:40I remember the very first time I got that taste of that drug
00:11:44of being in front of a big audience.
00:11:46They introduced me, and this huge round of applause
00:11:49and screams before I even walked onto stage.
00:11:52And it was like, I remember thinking, that is cool.
00:11:57It was a talent show for our entire high school.
00:11:59And we had a really large auditorium, about 2,000
00:12:01or 3,000 seats, very big crowd.
00:12:04And Jeff would come out and be the emcee in between each act.
00:12:08Enjoy the show.
00:12:09Enjoy the show.
00:12:12There was one gentleman way in the back
00:12:15that was heckling Jeff.
00:12:16And Jeff had his dummy interact with this person.
00:12:20And the guy never said anything else.
00:12:22And Jeff won over the audience.
00:12:24Well, howdy, folks.
00:12:29How y'all doing on this Monday evening?
00:12:32My name is Hoplar Ratchett, and I'm Jeff Dunham,
00:12:35the city slicker.
00:12:36By the time Jeff reached high school,
00:12:38he was already a local celebrity.
00:12:40Holy Chewbacca, gee whiz, well, there you go.
00:12:43Appearing in a series of commercials
00:12:45for Dotson dealerships in Dallas and Tyler, Texas.
00:12:48They want to see cars, low-priced cars.
00:12:50That's what they want to hear.
00:12:52Jeff's high-profile exploits attracted the attention
00:12:55of his classmates at Richardson High School in 1980.
00:12:58I was voted most likely to succeed.
00:13:01I look at these photos, and I go, how did I get voted that?
00:13:05Was it a joke?
00:13:07I mean, the whole school had to vote on that, so what the heck?
00:13:12It was an acknowledgment Jeff took to heart
00:13:14as this high school grad set his sights
00:13:16on the late-night king of comedy.
00:13:18I gave myself 10 years.
00:13:19And I said, in 10 years, I want to be on The Tonight
00:13:22Show with Johnny Carson.
00:13:23And that was my constant goal.
00:13:26Next, Jeff's first break almost breaks him.
00:13:29It was a rude awakening for me to the real world.
00:13:32When Jeff Dunham, Birth of a Dummy, continues.
00:13:37So, uh, Achmed.
00:13:39No, no.
00:13:39It's Achmed.
00:13:41That's what I said.
00:13:42No, you said Achmed.
00:13:43It's Achmed.
00:13:44Grrrrrrrr!
00:13:46Silence!
00:13:47I kill you!
00:13:52Jeff Dunham's comic calling card is breathing life
00:13:55into inanimate figures like Bubba J.
00:13:57So, Bubba J., what have you been doing today?
00:13:59I've been watching NASCAR and drinking beer.
00:14:03Watch a NASCAR and drink a beer.
00:14:07Walter.
00:14:08Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:14:10And Peanut.
00:14:11I think that Peanut is stopping his day.
00:14:13What's to his day?
00:14:14What's to his day?
00:14:15What?
00:14:15What the hell is wrong with you?
00:14:19We cannot talk at the same time.
00:14:25While preparing for his new world tour,
00:14:27Jeff is up against the clock
00:14:29to conceive and create his new character.
00:14:32With just five months until he hits the road,
00:14:35he has to get his ideas down on paper.
00:14:37This Achmed Jr. thing that's in my head,
00:14:40it would make sense if we could draw him out first
00:14:43because he's just so different from any normal human being.
00:14:46A fan of the illustrations of Mad Magazine's Tom Richmond,
00:14:50Jeff enlists the artist to help him find a face for AJ.
00:14:54I said, Tom, let me give you my idea.
00:14:56He needs to be a little bit still alive
00:14:58and a little bit Achmed.
00:15:00So I think there's gonna be some kind of split somehow.
00:15:02A few weeks later, Tom sends his first sketch.
00:15:06I guess there's a couple of things I don't like on this.
00:15:09I don't want him to look too much like Achmed.
00:15:11And maybe he looks a little, not quite goofy enough.
00:15:15A week later, the illustrator submits
00:15:17a new take on the character.
00:15:19This is awesome.
00:15:20I mean, he's just a little more cartoony now,
00:15:22put some color in the clothes.
00:15:23He's holding a cell phone,
00:15:24which could be part of the problem
00:15:26why he and his dad got blown up.
00:15:27There you have it.
00:15:29The concept of Achmed Jr. is worlds away
00:15:31from the standard issue dummies
00:15:33he worked with in his early days.
00:15:35One of the first dummies that I come and look at is Monty.
00:15:39And this was the first professional figure
00:15:40that I had when I was a kid.
00:15:42I'm 12, you know.
00:15:44How are you?
00:15:45Tired.
00:15:46Tired?
00:15:47Yeah.
00:15:48I haven't been on TV in decades.
00:15:50Well, I'm glad you're doing it now.
00:15:52Yeah.
00:15:53Anything else?
00:15:55I can't lower my eyebrows, they're stuck.
00:15:59Thanks.
00:16:02So, right behind Monty, my dummy,
00:16:04is a later dummy that I used, and that's Archie.
00:16:07And these are matching powder blue suits.
00:16:10When you look around here,
00:16:11there's two typical ventriloquist poses
00:16:14whenever a promo shot is done.
00:16:16And one is the pointing at the dummy
00:16:18as if he's done something bad, like that.
00:16:21And the other one is, I don't know, he's crazy.
00:16:24I did those.
00:16:26The promo shots came in handy,
00:16:28and his career started taking off
00:16:30during his freshman year at Baylor University in 1980,
00:16:33where his comedy was getting rave reviews around campus.
00:16:38I've never seen a talking jalapeno before.
00:16:40It's my job.
00:16:42Your job?
00:16:43Yeah.
00:16:44And the other job?
00:16:45Say what?
00:16:46I'm a comedian.
00:16:47A comedian?
00:16:49I see.
00:16:51But even with this success,
00:16:52he was also determined to graduate
00:16:54with a degree in communications.
00:16:56I knew that I needed to go to college
00:16:58because I wanted to get that sheepskin.
00:17:00I wanted that piece of paper to say,
00:17:02I did this, I wanted to accomplish that.
00:17:05While still in college,
00:17:06Jeff's hard work began to pay dividends.
00:17:09He was doing up to 100 corporate and club gigs a year.
00:17:13He was a normal student Monday through Friday,
00:17:16but a lot of times on weekends,
00:17:18he was off having to travel somewhere.
00:17:21By the time I reached my junior year in college,
00:17:25which was 1983, 84,
00:17:27I was making $70,000 a year.
00:17:31This is it.
00:17:32They're on a budget.
00:17:32You know what I'm saying?
00:17:34Word spread about Jeff's skills,
00:17:36and he landed featured slots
00:17:37opening for the legendary likes
00:17:39of Bob Hope and George Burns.
00:17:41But in spite of the breaks,
00:17:43Dunham was his own harshest critic.
00:17:46What a crowd.
00:17:49I knew that I was not yet ready to hit the big time.
00:17:51I was no standup comic.
00:17:53I didn't even know what standup comedy was, really.
00:17:55I had Bill Cosby albums, and that was about it.
00:17:58But Jeff caught a break in 1985
00:18:01when he was asked to join the cast
00:18:02of the Broadway smash Sugar Babies,
00:18:05which featured old-time stars Mickey Rooney
00:18:07and Ann Miller.
00:18:10The Juggler and the Ventriloquist
00:18:11that were in the show at the time were moving on,
00:18:13and they needed a replacement variety act.
00:18:16I was really a little bit concerned
00:18:19whether he would want to come back and finish school.
00:18:23I secretly thought it was a good idea.
00:18:27Working on a big Broadway production
00:18:29exposed the Texan to a world he'd never seen before.
00:18:32I was raised Pensypterian,
00:18:33and I'm suddenly thrust into the real world
00:18:36of show business, Broadway, showgirls.
00:18:38It was a rude awakening for me to the real world.
00:18:42You see these gorgeous showgirls on stage,
00:18:44and like, wow, look at that.
00:18:46Then backstage, it's like, hey, Jeff, how are ya?
00:18:49I'm like, uh, fine.
00:18:51Sugar Babies was enormous in Jeff's career, enormous,
00:18:55because it did give him a lot of attention.
00:18:57He was on stage with two very, very big classic stars,
00:19:01and he kinda stole the show.
00:19:04What I used in Sugar Babies,
00:19:05it's the Cadillac of Ventriloquist dummies.
00:19:08It's crazy all the stuff that this guy does.
00:19:10Smell anything?
00:19:17Nicely done.
00:19:17Thanks a lot.
00:19:18Sure.
00:19:19While Jeff made his mark on the show,
00:19:21he was also getting his first taste of big-time egos
00:19:25in the diminutive form of star Mickey Rooney.
00:19:28He called me in his dressing room,
00:19:29and he looked me straight in the eye, unblinking,
00:19:31and he said, you are here for one reason only,
00:19:34and that's so I can change costumes.
00:19:38And I said, yes, sir.
00:19:41Not long after wrapping up Sugar Babies,
00:19:43Dunham began looking for ways
00:19:45to add more comedy to his act.
00:19:47Step one was creating his own characters.
00:19:52The inspiration for one of Dunham's most enduring pals
00:19:55came while watching a Hollywood legend on late-night TV.
00:19:58I sat down on my workbench in my apartment
00:20:00with a chunk of clay, a mirror,
00:20:02and then I saw Betty Davis on The Tonight Show,
00:20:04her last time there with Carson.
00:20:05Here was a woman who'd been everywhere,
00:20:07had done everything, didn't care what people thought anymore
00:20:10and spoke her mind, and it was refreshingly great.
00:20:13By the time the network went off the air,
00:20:15there was Walter and Clay.
00:20:17Walter and Walter and Walter and Walter and Walter.
00:20:20Shut the hell up.
00:20:22I didn't have anything to go by
00:20:27except my own frowning face,
00:20:28so Walter and I, pretty much our lines match up.
00:20:32It's the same face.
00:20:33And I started writing grumpy jokes and marriage jokes
00:20:36and not-good-marriage jokes.
00:20:38I thought, at the time,
00:20:39this will be funny for three minutes on stage.
00:20:41I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
00:20:43Yeah, my wife and I heard the coffee's good
00:20:44for your sex life.
00:20:45Oh, and is it?
00:20:46Oh, it kept me awake through the whole damn thing.
00:20:49I actually had to participate.
00:20:54The first time on stage, I mean, it hit.
00:20:57He brought him out.
00:20:58He was getting laughs from moment one.
00:21:00I think my house is haunted.
00:21:03Why do you think that?
00:21:04My wife is there.
00:21:10I walk in the front door and all I hear is, get out.
00:21:14Everybody has a Walter in their life.
00:21:16They either have a grandfather or a grumpy uncle
00:21:19or somebody they work with that just connects with everybody.
00:21:22How's the love life?
00:21:23You mean sex?
00:21:24Yeah, I'm married, you moron.
00:21:26I could have Walter just sit in my house
00:21:29and just talk with me.
00:21:29I'd love that guy.
00:21:30I used to chase skirts all over the world, really,
00:21:33till I got to Scotland, and boy, was I surprised.
00:21:37He took off because everybody could identify with that guy.
00:21:40Perfect, perfect character.
00:21:42Next, Dunham's new passion nearly costs him his life.
00:21:46I only had a good, probably 10 seconds
00:21:49to know that this was not gonna end well.
00:21:52Don't let it crash, don't let it turn.
00:21:54When Jeff Dunham, Birth of a Dummy continues.
00:22:02I understand you guys had a good day today.
00:22:04Yes, we had a great day.
00:22:05No, we did not.
00:22:06Yes, no, yes, no, we did not have a good day.
00:22:10You're supposed to have taken him to the spa.
00:22:12I took him to the spa.
00:22:15He put me in the vegetable steamer.
00:22:20From Peanut and Jose Jalapeno to Bubba J
00:22:25and Achmed.
00:22:26Sing it!
00:22:27Jeff Dunham's built many of his most memorable characters
00:22:30from the ground up.
00:22:31You're a superhero.
00:22:32Yes!
00:22:33What is your most outstanding feature?
00:22:38My costume.
00:22:40Thank you.
00:22:41Dunham's currently creating a new character.
00:22:45He's busy sculpting Achmed Jr.
00:22:47and is racing against the clock
00:22:49with a world tour starting in just four months.
00:22:53This is all clay.
00:22:54For anybody who doesn't know how this works,
00:22:56you do the clay head and then usually you'd make a mold,
00:22:59but I've got something else in mind after this.
00:23:02It's some sort of a birthing process.
00:23:05These things start to live,
00:23:06they start to come to life for you.
00:23:08I'm okay at it.
00:23:09There's guys that are just absolutely brilliant
00:23:12and I think I'm okay at it.
00:23:13I just have to make something
00:23:14that the audience will laugh at.
00:23:16It doesn't have to be a Michelangelo piece.
00:23:18It just has to be convincing and appealing to the eye.
00:23:22That's not appealing to the eye,
00:23:24but I think it'll be funny.
00:23:25Dunham's always known his way around a toolbox.
00:23:28When he's not sculpting dummies,
00:23:29he's assembling helicopters.
00:23:31I'm doing research.
00:23:34Here is the next helicopter that I'm building.
00:23:37This is the fourth one.
00:23:38You can see on the walls here
00:23:39all the different part cards.
00:23:41Every piece up there will eventually be on this machine
00:23:43when it's flying.
00:23:44And usually what I do is I build the kit
00:23:48and then fly it for a couple hundred hours,
00:23:50sell it, and then get their new model, whatever it is.
00:23:53And it'll be a full-size legal helicopter.
00:23:55You gotta have your pilot's license to fly it.
00:23:57It seats two people, cruises at about 95 miles an hour.
00:24:01Way fun.
00:24:03He built his chopper in the summer of 1986,
00:24:06even before he finished college.
00:24:08The first time I saw Jeff have an interest in helicopters
00:24:12was in our dorm room our freshman year.
00:24:14He would buy and build flyable models,
00:24:19remote-control helicopters.
00:24:21That gave me a real lesson
00:24:23in how important every nut and bolt was,
00:24:25because one little thing goes wrong
00:24:27and that helicopter's gonna crash.
00:24:28So I was just so careful on that very first one
00:24:31because I didn't really know what I was doing.
00:24:33Soon he was flying his self-built copter.
00:24:36But as a careful pilot, he wasn't perfect.
00:24:40I only had 40 hours of flying time
00:24:42and I've gotten pretty good.
00:24:44I've gotten a little cocky and was doing autorotations,
00:24:47which is pretty much at 1,000 feet,
00:24:49shutting down the engine to just idle,
00:24:51where you have no power going to the blades.
00:24:53You're pretty much falling like a rock.
00:24:55And it was a 360-degree auto
00:24:57where you turn the helicopter
00:24:58almost literally over to on its side.
00:25:01And I got my orientation mixed up.
00:25:02I forgot which way the wind was coming from.
00:25:05I was fine until the last few feet.
00:25:06I only had a good probably 10 seconds
00:25:09to know that this was not gonna end well.
00:25:13And in those 10 seconds,
00:25:15I didn't have time to think about much.
00:25:16It was just like, how is this gonna end up?
00:25:18Stop it, stop it, stop it.
00:25:20Don't let it crash.
00:25:21Don't let it turn.
00:25:22And I was fighting it all the way until the final kabunk.
00:25:25Jeff's chopper took a free fall of 1,000 feet.
00:25:29There was dirt.
00:25:29There was helicopter parts everywhere.
00:25:32I slammed my head up against the side.
00:25:34I got a minor concussion.
00:25:36And finally, when I was all over,
00:25:37I was hanging on the top side.
00:25:40And when I looked out the right window,
00:25:42I was definitely looking at the ground,
00:25:43but the ground was there.
00:25:44There was dirt and corn,
00:25:46and I was shaken up for a long time.
00:25:48Jeff walked away with minor injuries,
00:25:50but his confidence was fully intact.
00:25:52You'd think after something like that
00:25:54that would scare you to death
00:25:55and like, okay, I'm done with this.
00:25:57It was the exact opposite for me.
00:25:59I made a stupid, stupid mistake,
00:26:00and I wasn't gonna let that scare me or stop me
00:26:02because I love flying so much.
00:26:05Luckily, Dunham didn't quit his night job.
00:26:07Okay, you gonna let me go this time?
00:26:09Yeah, good.
00:26:09I like this thing.
00:26:10I do. Walter hates it.
00:26:11I like it.
00:26:12Armed with new characters like Peanut and Jose Jalapeño,
00:26:15he regularly honed his routine
00:26:17in comedy clubs in the Southwest.
00:26:19I was emceeing at the Comedy Corner in Dallas, Texas
00:26:22when Jeff first came up on our amateur night.
00:26:24And we were all blown away how good he was.
00:26:26Well, who are those guys?
00:26:28I don't know.
00:26:29I don't know.
00:26:29I don't know.
00:26:30I don't know.
00:26:31My opinion was you need to be dirtier.
00:26:33You would not do well in prison.
00:26:37Why not?
00:26:38Come here, puppet boy.
00:26:39Ha!
00:26:40Ha!
00:26:41Ha!
00:26:42Ha!
00:26:43Ha!
00:26:44Ha!
00:26:44Ha!
00:26:45Make your daddy talk.
00:26:47Ha!
00:26:48Ha!
00:26:49But Jeff still faced long odds.
00:26:51Got anything for that, jerk?
00:26:52Ha!
00:26:53Ha!
00:26:54Ha!
00:26:55An aborted appearance at the legendary New York club
00:26:57Catch a Rising Star served as a bitter confirmation
00:27:00of where he stood in the comedic food chain.
00:27:03There are hardcore comedians working the stage.
00:27:07So we walk up to this guy who's this emcee.
00:27:10He looked literally down his nose and he goes,
00:27:12oh, yes, you're something I don't like.
00:27:18And I'm thinking, what is he talking about?
00:27:20Does he mean Presbyterian, Texan?
00:27:23What is he talking about?
00:27:24And then it hit me and I go, oh, I'm a ventriloquist.
00:27:26And he goes, oh, yes.
00:27:29Well, you'll be on around 10 o'clock,
00:27:32so just wait around.
00:27:34So we stood there and an hour went by
00:27:37and two hours went by.
00:27:39Finally, at midnight or 12, 15, I said,
00:27:41am I gonna be on?
00:27:42He goes, uh, sometime.
00:27:45And so I'm getting more and more just frustrated.
00:27:47Jeff's getting out and out, pissed.
00:27:48We walked away and out and I looked at each other
00:27:50and I said, what do you think?
00:27:51And Al goes, f*** this place.
00:27:54I said, yeah, let's go.
00:27:56It's one thing being a comedian
00:27:58and being in the school of Hard Knocks.
00:28:00It's another thing being a ventriloquist comedian,
00:28:03having to do that school of Hard Knocks
00:28:05and having somebody look down upon you
00:28:06every time you try to go up there and do your act
00:28:09because you were a prop comic, you know?
00:28:11Okay, happy to be here.
00:28:14Oh, it hurts.
00:28:17Ventriloquists are often perceived
00:28:18as show business stepchildren.
00:28:21I think ventriloquists are barely on
00:28:23the show business food chain to begin with.
00:28:25Until Jeff Dunham's name came up a few years ago,
00:28:28I assumed they'd all been retired
00:28:30to some warehouse in Paramus, New Jersey.
00:28:32Hey, hi.
00:28:33Hi.
00:28:35Ventriloquism, going back to the old vaudeville days,
00:28:37was a pretty corny act.
00:28:39People got the idea that this was
00:28:41kind of a second rate form of entertainment.
00:28:45And that persisted for a long time.
00:28:47We're not magicians, we're not jugglers,
00:28:50you know, we're ventriloquists.
00:28:51We always had that stigma.
00:28:52And now, ladies and gentlemen,
00:28:54it's going up to his lips and going, going, going,
00:28:57going, going, going, going, going, going, yay!
00:29:03Thank you.
00:29:04Dunham wasn't immune to the taunting.
00:29:07Thank you.
00:29:08When we first came, we were all like,
00:29:09hey, what's with the puppets?
00:29:11Shut up.
00:29:13But the resistance only increased his resolve.
00:29:15What are you pissed at?
00:29:17Armed with the right material,
00:29:19he believed he could thrive in the comedy world.
00:29:21It wasn't until I met him
00:29:23and saw him perform live for the first time
00:29:25that I realized this guy's got something
00:29:27very, very different and is going about this
00:29:30a very different way compared to the rest of us.
00:29:32It was so sharp and so fast
00:29:33that it was beyond what the scripted,
00:29:36traditional ventriloquist routine was like.
00:29:38Do you know who we are?
00:29:39I know who we are.
00:29:40I like this place.
00:29:40It's nice, it's good.
00:29:41This is a nice audience.
00:29:42It's nice, it's nice.
00:29:43It's nice, it's nice.
00:29:45That's ugly in there, in there.
00:29:46That's ugly in there, in my head.
00:29:48I think Jeff thought that when he said,
00:29:50you're only gonna be in this little box,
00:29:51you can't go anywhere with it,
00:29:52that was like throwing down the gauntlet to this guy.
00:29:54You know, it's like throwing down the challenge.
00:29:57He picked up the challenge and ran with it.
00:29:58It's kind of like, okay, let's see what I can do.
00:30:00How did he get on the stick?
00:30:02I don't know.
00:30:03Probably a horrible pogo accident.
00:30:07You know, doink, doink.
00:30:11By the fall of 1988,
00:30:14Jeff Dunham felt he'd gone as far as he could
00:30:16in the Lone Star State
00:30:17and that the time had come to give Hollywood
00:30:20his best shot.
00:30:21He bid goodbye to his parents to pursue dreams of stardom
00:30:24that included a spot on The Tonight Show
00:30:26with Johnny Carson.
00:30:29There would be no turning back.
00:30:31My poor mom.
00:30:33I was getting ready to drive away
00:30:34and she said, wait a second, went inside,
00:30:37made a little bag of Oreos and gave them to me.
00:30:40And that was, I remember driving away, crying.
00:30:45It was tough.
00:30:47It's about time.
00:30:50I didn't think that.
00:30:53She didn't think that.
00:30:54She thought, well, it's time for him to get a regular job.
00:30:57Mom's idea, I think, for me was to stay in Texas,
00:31:01do shows for churches.
00:31:03What in the world could a ventriloquist do in Los Angeles?
00:31:06But I had to give it a shot
00:31:08because that's what I wanted to do my entire life.
00:31:10Next, Jeff gets taunted in Tinseltown.
00:31:13Guys were talking behind my back.
00:31:14You know, there were guys that hated me.
00:31:17When Jeff Dunham, Birth of a Dummy continues.
00:31:24Oh, Jeff-uffa, oh, Jeff-uffa.
00:31:28Without me, you would suck-uck-a.
00:31:36Peanut's been around the world with Jeff many times,
00:31:39but Dunham's preparing to give his old friend company.
00:31:42With just three months before he goes on tour,
00:31:45he's creating a new character named Ahmed Jr.
00:31:48by applying cutting-edge technology
00:31:50to the old-fashioned art form of figure-making.
00:31:54The next step after making the clay head
00:31:56is to create the actual dummy head
00:31:58that you're gonna put movements in and paint.
00:32:00Usually, I would take the clay head,
00:32:01make a silicone mold or a plaster of Paris mold,
00:32:04then put some sort of material in there
00:32:06to make the actual shell.
00:32:07Be it fiberglass, whatever.
00:32:09But I'm gonna try a brand new technology,
00:32:11something that I've never tried before.
00:32:13This is, it's almost science fiction.
00:32:16I have the clay head,
00:32:17and it is being scanned by the three-dimensional scanner.
00:32:21And what I'm gonna do is then take this scan
00:32:24and print it on a three-dimensional printer.
00:32:26I can make it bigger, I can make it smaller.
00:32:28I can print just a piece of it.
00:32:30I can also manipulate the file.
00:32:31If the eye isn't big enough, I'll make it bigger.
00:32:34If the jaw needs to be moved a little bit,
00:32:35I can do that on here.
00:32:37Again, this is all in theory.
00:32:38If this doesn't work, I'm gonna be in trouble
00:32:40because I have to have this character finished
00:32:42by the time I go on the road.
00:32:44Dunham's known for thinking outside the box,
00:32:47transforming the oddball art of ventriloquism
00:32:49into a commercially viable enterprise.
00:32:52Jose, what does Christmas mean to you?
00:32:55It's the day Jesus was born.
00:32:58Right.
00:32:59I didn't know your gardener was born on Christmas.
00:33:01Hey, Jesus, happy birthday, man!
00:33:08But in 1988, he was a Texas kid new to Los Angeles
00:33:12whose immediate concern was getting the rent paid.
00:33:15It was not like Texas where I could drive a hundred miles
00:33:17and do a show for 2,000 bucks at a church.
00:33:20I had nothing going on.
00:33:21Although his characters were coming to life.
00:33:23Fine, that's good, that's good, that's good!
00:33:26Woo-hoo!
00:33:28When he first arrived in Los Angeles,
00:33:30the comedy in his act bombed.
00:33:32Listen now, where were you born?
00:33:34Colorado.
00:33:35Oh, that's good.
00:33:36Yeah, I was mountain grown.
00:33:38Oh, God, my only joke and they didn't like it!
00:33:42I was still doing the drinking bit with the dummy
00:33:44and these little knick-knacky novelty bits.
00:33:48The comedy wasn't there.
00:33:49The personalities were there and developing,
00:33:51but the jokes weren't there.
00:33:52There wasn't the power of rocking that room.
00:33:55And he found the comedic climate in Hollywood
00:33:57to be less than welcoming.
00:34:00Guys were talking behind my back.
00:34:01You're not a real comedian if you're standing on stage
00:34:04with anything other than just your personality.
00:34:06I would find things written on Comedy Club Green Room walls
00:34:09about me and about the characters and it was like, wow.
00:34:12I, for the longest time, never even used
00:34:14the ventriloquism word, the V word, if you will.
00:34:17To me, it was like if you were selling it as a comedy duo,
00:34:20it was Jeff and his characters.
00:34:22No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!
00:34:25Growing up without siblings helped Dunham survive
00:34:27his early days in Hollywood.
00:34:29He lived alone with only his suitcase posse for company.
00:34:32One of the advantages of moving to Los Angeles
00:34:34and doing what I did was being that only child.
00:34:37I was so used to being alone all the time.
00:34:40And I didn't hate it.
00:34:42I was able to think, I was able to be in my own place
00:34:44and that's where those characters came from.
00:34:46Being alone was kind of like a warm blanket.
00:34:48Inside the clubs, Dunham became a student of stand-up,
00:34:52closely observing the skills of his more established peers.
00:34:56Getting up and having to go up before Jerry Seinfeld
00:34:58or before these guys, and I see these guys get on stage naked,
00:35:02nothing, no props, no nothing, and get up there
00:35:05and just kill, just with the spoken word.
00:35:07And I knew I did not have that strong of an act.
00:35:11But Jeff was a quick study.
00:35:12He gained a fan in Mike Lacey,
00:35:14owner of the influential comedy and magic club,
00:35:17located in Hermosa Beach,
00:35:19a small seaside community south of Los Angeles.
00:35:22I know we are in Hermosa.
00:35:26I like saying Hermosa.
00:35:30Sounds like you're getting sick, Hermosa.
00:35:33When I first saw Jeff, I was so excited
00:35:37because there's so few good variety acts.
00:35:40So when you find one, it's like, you know, it's amazing.
00:35:45You just go, this is great.
00:35:47Spanish is your native language, isn't it?
00:35:49Si.
00:35:50Well, do you know much English?
00:35:51Si.
00:35:52What's the first thing you learned in English?
00:35:53Attention, Timberchoppers.
00:35:57With a steady slot on Lacey's stage,
00:35:59Dunham gradually sharpened his act,
00:36:02ditching his G-rated show
00:36:04for Hollywood's demanding comedy crowd.
00:36:07What's wrong?
00:36:08Furball.
00:36:08Furball.
00:36:13I didn't know you shed that much.
00:36:15Oh, it's not my fur.
00:36:18The first time I heard Peanut say f*** on stage.
00:36:23I'll think about it for a second.
00:36:24All right, all right, all right, all right.
00:36:26Okay.
00:36:27F***.
00:36:29I think I nearly busted out
00:36:31because I knew the background
00:36:34to him having come to that point
00:36:36with this Christian background,
00:36:38with not wanting to offend mom and dad.
00:36:42Don't f*** with the public.
00:36:45Dunham's high school goal
00:36:46of appearing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
00:36:49became less of a long shot
00:36:51as he slowly began to turn skeptics into believers.
00:36:55Literally, he was such a powerful middle act
00:36:57that we couldn't have headliners.
00:36:59All the headliners were coming to me complaining.
00:37:01He would bring the crowd up to such fury levels.
00:37:05The headliner had a tough time following him.
00:37:07Where is your other hand?
00:37:13Dude, I hope you're wearing gloves.
00:37:20Carson's people took notice
00:37:22and by the end of 1988,
00:37:23he got good news from Tonight Show booker Jim McCauley,
00:37:27who spent his nights trolling the local comedy clubs.
00:37:30He says, that was fantastic.
00:37:31He goes, we'll get you a night.
00:37:32I said, really?
00:37:33He goes, yep.
00:37:34I'm excited.
00:37:35My 10-year goal was now coming in two years early.
00:37:38The booker told Dunham he'd check in with him again
00:37:40just before the scheduled appearance.
00:37:43Comes down to the day before the taping
00:37:46and I get up on stage.
00:37:48It didn't go quite as well.
00:37:50What's this guy doing?
00:37:52Hey, lady, lady, lady, the show is up here.
00:37:57I walk off stage.
00:37:58Roseanne Barr happens to be there that night
00:38:00and I go, where's Jim?
00:38:02So he left and I said, oh,
00:38:04and Roseanne goes, don't worry anything about it.
00:38:06He probably went on to another club.
00:38:07He goes to a couple of clubs at night.
00:38:09Everything's fine.
00:38:10Now it's the day that I'm going to tape the Tonight Show.
00:38:13He got on the phone and he said,
00:38:15Jeff, I'm sorry to tell you, but I was wrong.
00:38:19I go, you're wrong about what?
00:38:20I go, everything's a certain joke.
00:38:23What do you mean?
00:38:23He goes, you're not ready.
00:38:25It'd be a mistake to put you on now.
00:38:27I said, I'm a TV guide.
00:38:29He goes, I know.
00:38:31He goes, but let me tell you one thing.
00:38:33It's better to be five years late
00:38:35than one day early when you do the Tonight Show.
00:38:38And I went, okay, thanks.
00:38:43Click.
00:38:44The 26-year-old on the verge of achieving his dream
00:38:49was devastated.
00:38:50I'd never gone through any deaths, never lost anyone close.
00:38:54Never been through any horrible car accidents.
00:38:56I've been in the helicopter crash.
00:38:58That was, but that was nothing compared to that phone call
00:39:02because I was within literally hours of that pursuit
00:39:05and that dream coming true from the fourth grade to that moment.
00:39:10And here I was ready to do it.
00:39:12And it was literally just ripped away from me
00:39:15in that one simple sentence.
00:39:17And I, I'd never been that depressed.
00:39:20Next, Dunham's failed Carson dreams
00:39:23threatened to kill his career.
00:39:25Eight times he said, no, you're not ready.
00:39:27No, you're not ready.
00:39:28No, you're not funny enough.
00:39:29You're not funny enough.
00:39:31When Jeff Dunham, birth of a dummy continues.
00:39:39I want to be a greeter at Walmart.
00:39:43At Walmart, what would be your opening line?
00:39:45Oh, welcome to Walmart.
00:39:47Get your and get out.
00:39:51Walter was one of Dunham's most celebrated creations.
00:39:55And now he's building the latest addition
00:39:57to his onstage traveling circus.
00:40:00Achmed Jr.
00:40:01A long lost son of the dead terrorist.
00:40:04A terrifying terrorist.
00:40:10He has just two months to finish creating AJ
00:40:13but there's still a lot to be done
00:40:15since he is not being built the conventional way.
00:40:18The clay mold has been scanned
00:40:19through a three-dimensional scanner.
00:40:21And now he's ready for the next step.
00:40:24The scanner finished scanning the clay head.
00:40:26We're left with this three-dimensional file
00:40:28of the AJ head.
00:40:29Now all I have to do is hit print
00:40:31and the three-dimensional printer
00:40:32will print this head out in three dimensions.
00:40:34It'll print an actual thing.
00:40:36A regular printer prints a photograph in lines.
00:40:39A three-dimensional printer prints in layers.
00:40:42This particular one prints in ABS plastic
00:40:44and it prints layers 10 thousandths of an inch at a time.
00:40:48Bit by bit by bit by bit
00:40:50and whatever you're printing
00:40:51comes out in three dimensions.
00:40:53For example, this right here
00:40:55was printed by this printer
00:40:56and it came out working just like this.
00:41:00This is a three-dimensional printer.
00:41:02There's a tray right here.
00:41:03This tray goes up and down
00:41:04and there's a head back there.
00:41:06What we're gonna do right now
00:41:07is I have the file loaded up on the laptop.
00:41:09I'm just gonna hit print on that laptop.
00:41:11It'll send the file to the printer
00:41:13and something that big
00:41:15will probably take probably a couple days,
00:41:18a good 48 hours to print that entire AJ head.
00:41:24So the printing of AJ's head
00:41:26actually took 42 hours
00:41:28and just constantly this thing
00:41:30running running running running
00:41:32and I was a little bit nervous
00:41:33about how it was gonna turn out
00:41:35because I'd never done a head this big in one piece.
00:41:38I wasn't quite sure
00:41:39and it's like if this didn't work
00:41:40what am I gonna do?
00:41:42And it came out pretty well.
00:41:44There it is.
00:41:46So this guy is awesome.
00:41:47This is really cool.
00:41:49I can't wait to start cutting
00:41:50and putting the movements on him.
00:41:52Achmed Jr. is on the fast track
00:41:55but after a humiliating 11th hour rejection
00:41:57from the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1988,
00:42:01Jeff's career had hit a major roadblock.
00:42:04He uses those down moments as fuel
00:42:07as an energy source
00:42:09to be able to reach the next plateau.
00:42:13But Dunham continued to grind it out in L.A. clubs
00:42:16determined to make his act tighter and funnier
00:42:19for Johnny Carson comedy booker Jim McCauley.
00:42:22I auditioned for Jim McCauley
00:42:25nine times over those next few months.
00:42:28Eight times he said,
00:42:29no you're not ready,
00:42:31no you're not ready,
00:42:32no you're not funny enough,
00:42:33you're not funny enough.
00:42:35What are we gonna talk about now?
00:42:36Well I thought we should do something spectacular.
00:42:38Oh you're gonna leave?
00:42:39No, no way.
00:42:42And finally at the Ice House in Pasadena
00:42:45in April of 1990,
00:42:48I did that same six minutes
00:42:49that I had been honing for lord knows how long.
00:42:52Well looks like a pretty good crowd tonight.
00:42:54It's a great crowd.
00:42:54Do you like it here?
00:42:55Oh I love it here.
00:42:56I always love coming to the Ice House.
00:43:00I walked up on stage,
00:43:01I killed.
00:43:02What city we in?
00:43:05You don't know?
00:43:07No.
00:43:09I don't think you know.
00:43:10I forgot.
00:43:10What?
00:43:11I forgot.
00:43:11You forgot?
00:43:12Yeah, we said damn the necklaces,
00:43:13I forgot.
00:43:15I was out in this lonely parking lot by myself
00:43:17shoving the trunk back into the car thinking
00:43:19I don't know what I could have done any different.
00:43:21That was, that was as good as it gets
00:43:23and you know whatever,
00:43:24it's gonna be the same answer.
00:43:25Jim comes out and he goes,
00:43:27you got it?
00:43:28And I go, I got what Jim?
00:43:29He goes, you got the show.
00:43:30And I'm like, what?
00:43:32He goes, it was fantastic.
00:43:33You'll kill.
00:43:35This time, there would be no 11th hour switcheroo.
00:43:38This guy here didn't get it.
00:43:42He just kind of...
00:43:46I brought this silk,
00:43:47beautiful suit from the Italian store
00:43:49and this beautiful silk tie
00:43:51and there was no nervousness at all.
00:43:53I had done that six minutes,
00:43:55it was a Friday night,
00:43:56it was Bob Hope, BB King and me
00:43:58and Carson was the host.
00:44:00Dunham debuted on The Tonight Show in 1990.
00:44:03It was literally that moment of that ball
00:44:07coming down the plate
00:44:08with the bases loaded in the ninth inning
00:44:11and it's like, I can't miss this.
00:44:13There's no way.
00:44:14I heard Johnny's muffled introduction.
00:44:17This is his first time with us on The Tonight Show.
00:44:19Would you welcome Jeff Dunham and Peanut.
00:44:21The curtain opened up and flooded the light.
00:44:25I was off.
00:44:26Peanut, did you know you lost a shoe?
00:44:28No man, I found one.
00:44:30We had always been put up
00:44:32that The Tonight Show was the holy grail.
00:44:33You got to The Tonight Show,
00:44:34your career was taken off.
00:44:42What the hell happened?
00:44:45And then he received the nod
00:44:47that thousands of comics would kill for.
00:44:50I take my bow, I do what I'm told
00:44:52and I see the floor director going like this.
00:44:55And he went over to the couch
00:44:57and Johnny's like, come on.
00:44:58I'm like, what?
00:45:00I have nothing to talk to this guy about.
00:45:02Only three comics have ever landed on the couch
00:45:05during their first Carson appearance.
00:45:07Oh yes.
00:45:08And I pulled out Walter
00:45:09and a couple of jokes just hit me.
00:45:12Do you know where we are?
00:45:13Yeah, I don't give a damn.
00:45:17I know that guy.
00:45:19Stop sending me all your damn mail.
00:45:25And it was some of my favorite moments ever on television.
00:45:29Jeff, good to see you.
00:45:29I hope you come back with us, Walter.
00:45:31I hope you're in a little better frame of mind next time.
00:45:32I'll be a cold day in hell if I ever come back.
00:45:38After The Tonight Show taping,
00:45:39Jeff was eager to get feedback
00:45:41from his mother and father in Texas.
00:45:44I was just biding my time,
00:45:46watching The Watch,
00:45:47waiting for it to air in Texas.
00:45:49Because I really was looking forward
00:45:51to mom and dad seeing it.
00:45:52I called them and I said, what do you think?
00:45:54And my mom said, well,
00:45:57and I'm thinking, well, where's well coming from?
00:46:00And she said, well, we know,
00:46:02we don't approve of you using that type of language.
00:46:06And I literally almost drove off the freeway
00:46:09and smashed into the embankment.
00:46:10I was so frustrated.
00:46:12I was so shocked when he used the words hell and damn.
00:46:17Because we never, ever used a foul word in our home
00:46:22when he was growing up.
00:46:24And this character, Walter,
00:46:27shocked me immensely when he used those two words.
00:46:32And it was like, really?
00:46:35OK, well, thanks.
00:46:37Gotta go.
00:46:39Bye. Click.
00:46:41Stinging from his mother's response,
00:46:43Dunham returned to his empty apartment.
00:46:46I watched it all by myself and thought,
00:46:50that's great.
00:46:51I did it.
00:46:52And then my phone rings
00:46:54and it's another ventriloquist turn.
00:46:56He goes, kind of weird right now, isn't it?
00:46:58You were just in the middle of all those people,
00:47:01all those accolades, all that applause,
00:47:03sitting next to Johnny Carson,
00:47:05and now you're back in your room alone.
00:47:08I'm like, yeah, yep.
00:47:10It was a solitary time.
00:47:13Several years later, Jeff's mother
00:47:15would finally make things right.
00:47:17I said, will you forgive me, Jeff,
00:47:20for coming across that way?
00:47:22And he said, sure, Mom, I'll forgive you.
00:47:25And that meant a world to me,
00:47:27because, you know, you never know
00:47:29how you hurt your children when they're growing up.
00:47:32While Joyce Dunham may have had misgivings,
00:47:34a woman named Paige Brown saw Jeff at a comedy club
00:47:37and became instantly smitten.
00:47:40I met Paige in the comedy corner
00:47:43in West Palm Beach, Florida.
00:47:45She, however, had sent me a fan letter long before that.
00:47:49She liked me and Peanut and asked me for a picture.
00:47:52We started dating in December of 92.
00:47:55She moved out by June of 93.
00:47:58Bree, her daughter, was one and a half years old.
00:48:02And Paige and I got married in May of 94.
00:48:06I don't know how you ever got married.
00:48:08What does that mean?
00:48:09How did that happen?
00:48:10Did your future wife come in the club,
00:48:12look on stage and go, puppets?
00:48:18The wedding day came in the spring of 1994
00:48:21and proved more eventful than Jeff could have ever imagined.
00:48:24In one day, I went from single guy
00:48:28to I got married in the early afternoon.
00:48:31I also went to the mall and bought a dog.
00:48:34I also put a down payment on a house in Los Angeles.
00:48:37And I got a daughter because I adopted Bree.
00:48:40And that night I bought the Dodge Viper.
00:48:46So I got a dog, a daughter, a wife, a house.
00:48:49All in one within 12 hours.
00:48:56Next,
00:48:58Jeff's pushed to the financial brink.
00:49:00I had spent ourselves into a corner and maxed ourselves out.
00:49:04When Jeff Dunham, birth of a dummy continues.
00:49:11I am the suicide bummer.
00:49:14So you're finished?
00:49:16What?
00:49:18You've done your job?
00:49:19No, I haven't.
00:49:21But you're dead.
00:49:22No, I'm not.
00:49:24I feel fine.
00:49:27But you're all bone.
00:49:28It's a flesh wound.
00:49:32Jeff Dunham will soon embark on a massive tour.
00:49:34And with just 30 days before he hits the road,
00:49:37he's racing to finish his new character, Ahmed Jr.
00:49:41He's finished AJ's basic shape,
00:49:44but Jeff now must add the character's mechanics and bring AJ to life.
00:49:48I have a little Jeff head here.
00:49:51This is a PVC head that I printed on the printer as well.
00:49:54And where I am with AJ is about where this guy is now.
00:49:57This is the printed head.
00:49:58I've cut out the mouth, cut out the eyes.
00:50:00And now basically you have a head shell.
00:50:02The next step is to install the mechanics
00:50:04because you somehow have to make all these movements work.
00:50:07And for AJ, I've decided I want to do a moving mouth,
00:50:10raising eyebrows and side to side eyes.
00:50:12And I think that's all he needs for his character.
00:50:14So same thing here with little Jeff.
00:50:16The mechanics are installed here.
00:50:18And down here is what's called the head stick.
00:50:20And on the head stick are different controls that move all these movements.
00:50:24There's a mouth and there's side to side eyes.
00:50:26So when you move these controls, they work.
00:50:32And here's AJ.
00:50:32I spent many hours installing all these mechanics on him.
00:50:36There's side to side eyes.
00:50:38There's the eyebrows.
00:50:40And there's the mouth.
00:50:42And those eyes are pretty cool
00:50:43because the guy that built a lot of the dinosaur eyes
00:50:46for the original Jurassic Park movies,
00:50:48I had him build me eyes.
00:50:50And this is the injured eye, his left eye.
00:50:53So to control the mechanics in the head,
00:50:55you have to go to the controls on the control stick.
00:50:57And I laid them out just so each finger would be
00:51:00exactly where it needs to be without much effort.
00:51:02This does the mouth.
00:51:04This does the up and down eyebrows.
00:51:06This does the side to side eyes.
00:51:08By 1993, Jeff's own life was starting to click on all cylinders.
00:51:13He had gotten married and was beginning to start a family.
00:51:16And his career was taking off.
00:51:19I think our career has peaked.
00:51:22Thanks to four appearances on The Tonight Show
00:51:24and scene-stealing spots on the NBC series Hot Country Nights.
00:51:29Walter Reba is a country music singing star,
00:51:32a movie star and a television star.
00:51:34Oh, television.
00:51:36Well, of course, yeah.
00:51:38Have you seen some of my work?
00:51:39Oh, sure.
00:51:40Aren't you the one that does those Thighmaster commercials?
00:51:46The television exposure lifted Dunham
00:51:48from the clubs to theater headliner.
00:51:51We started going to 1,000 seat theaters
00:51:53and we started progressing.
00:51:55He built it up more.
00:51:56We went to 2,000 seaters, 2,500 seaters.
00:52:00I think every ventriloquist on the planet was like,
00:52:05oh my God, he's doing theaters.
00:52:07He's doing big, huge theaters.
00:52:10That doesn't happen very often.
00:52:12Man, I'm at the top of my game.
00:52:14This can't get any better.
00:52:15This is fantastic.
00:52:16So I rode that wave as long as I possibly could.
00:52:19But the ride wouldn't last.
00:52:21By the mid-90s, Dunham's audience began to shrink.
00:52:25Then the numbers started to drop and drop and drop and drop.
00:52:28And it was because I wasn't on the air anymore.
00:52:30Carson was gone.
00:52:31There was no more Hot Country Nights.
00:52:33It's tough on anyone.
00:52:35Listen, you're up there and all of a sudden
00:52:37you start to go down.
00:52:38That fear was always there.
00:52:40Have I peaked?
00:52:43With the birth of daughters Ashlyn in 1995
00:52:46and Kenna in 1997, joining older sister Bree,
00:52:50the pressure mounted to keep the cash flowing,
00:52:53which meant more time on the road.
00:52:56When two more kids came along and the house got bigger
00:52:59and the cars got more expensive
00:53:01and the schools got expensive,
00:53:03I had spent ourselves into a corner
00:53:05and maxed ourselves out.
00:53:06Everybody thinks their career is going to keep going.
00:53:08This isn't going to last forever.
00:53:10Trust me.
00:53:11The road was lonely and unforgiving.
00:53:13But when Dunham returned home, he was 100% dad.
00:53:17That's what girls do sometimes.
00:53:19Oh.
00:53:20When I was home, I was home.
00:53:21I would always make that a priority.
00:53:24I would always make sure I was dad.
00:53:26And I never missed a birthday,
00:53:28never missed a major event in the kids' lives
00:53:30as they grew up.
00:53:32Yay, Kenna!
00:53:34When he's at home, he's no other person other than just dad.
00:53:38But when Dunham was gone on one of his frequent business trips,
00:53:42his absence was glaring.
00:53:43One of the saddest things is when Bree was in kindergarten,
00:53:47they said, draw a picture of where your dad works.
00:53:50She came home with a picture of the airport.
00:53:54Because they dropped me off at the airport,
00:53:56they picked me up at the airport.
00:53:57It was frustrating when we didn't really understand why he was gone.
00:54:02It was just kind of like, oh, well, dad goes and performs.
00:54:05We didn't know how hard he was working.
00:54:07We didn't know the dream that he was chasing.
00:54:10He was going away one morning,
00:54:12and I packed my suitcase, like, assuming I could go with him.
00:54:16And I was like, all right, let's go.
00:54:19He was so upset.
00:54:20He had to tell me no.
00:54:21I had to stay home.
00:54:22And I cried.
00:54:23It was tearing him apart.
00:54:24We would have hours, countless hours of conversations
00:54:29about how much money he needed to make
00:54:32and how much time he had to spend with his family.
00:54:35But unfortunately, the demands of the financial obligations
00:54:40forced him to be on the road two and a half, three weeks a month.
00:54:45After Dunham moved back to clubs, performing more than 200 gigs a year,
00:54:49he found a way to retain a connection with his fan base.
00:54:53Walter, some of the folks filled out these questions.
00:54:54You want to answer some?
00:54:55Yeah, I don't give a damn.
00:54:57People would write on these forms whatever question they had for Walter.
00:55:00Dear Walter, after so many years of marriage,
00:55:02how do you and your wife keep things fresh in the bedroom?
00:55:05Febreze.
00:55:07But then I got the bright idea, well, wait a minute.
00:55:10They're filling out these forms.
00:55:11I can be collecting my own database
00:55:13because databases for clubs were invaluable.
00:55:16Dear Walter, if a man speaks in the forest, will a woman hear him?
00:55:21Yeah, but he'd be wrong.
00:55:24From the people who filled out the Walter cards,
00:55:27they'd also ask for their name and telephone number and address
00:55:31so he can start a mailing list.
00:55:32So he was way ahead of everybody.
00:55:34All comedians now want to try to get that.
00:55:36The database became huge, really big,
00:55:38and we would send out these postcards.
00:55:40And then, of course, when the internet comes along and emailing,
00:55:43I'm like, hang on, this is even better.
00:55:45We could be doing mailings for no cost at all.
00:55:49It's from a group of girls.
00:55:50Dear Walter, can you come home with this table of girls
00:55:53and turn us into women?
00:55:59You want me to teach you to f***?
00:56:01The databases, filled with tens of thousands of names,
00:56:05kept Dunham a popular draw at the clubs.
00:56:07You're not, I'm not, I'm not, you're sick,
00:56:09wait, you're sick, I'm not sick, you're sick, I'm not sick,
00:56:10I'm not sick, you're arguing with yourself!
00:56:13And in 1998, he was recognized by the comedy mainstream
00:56:17by being voted the funniest male stand-up
00:56:20at the American Comedy Awards.
00:56:23But Dunham wanted to stay at home with his family,
00:56:25so he pursued more television work,
00:56:27which would lift his profile
00:56:28and enable him to work fewer gigs for more money.
00:56:32I knew that time on TV would equal more ticket sales.
00:56:36So I knew the big picture was the television show appearances.
00:56:39But selling Dunham to TV executives
00:56:41But selling Dunham to TV executives
00:56:44proved difficult.
00:56:46Even Comedy Central had doubts.
00:56:48My management at the time started saying to Comedy Central,
00:56:50look at this, he's one of the biggest sellers in Comedy Club,
00:56:52making more money than anybody as a headliner.
00:56:56You got to put him on the air.
00:56:57People will watch this.
00:56:58And they were resistant, resistant.
00:57:00It's a nice club.
00:57:01It sucks!
00:57:03It's a great club.
00:57:04It's in a mall!
00:57:07Comedy Central was a hip, edgy network.
00:57:09Putting a ventriloquist on that network
00:57:11wasn't something you would just wake up one morning and go,
00:57:14oh, that makes complete sense.
00:57:17You have an arch nemesis.
00:57:19No, I wear corrective shoes.
00:57:22No one would give a ventriloquist a chance
00:57:24to have his own TV show or sitcom.
00:57:27Our managers would arrange for us to go pitch that idea
00:57:30to some studio or production company.
00:57:33And they looked like they were doing our managers a favor.
00:57:36They were like, yeah, OK.
00:57:39Thanks for coming in.
00:57:40We'll let you know.
00:57:41When you go to a NASCAR race and you party a lot,
00:57:44who is your designated driver?
00:57:46What the f*** is that?
00:57:49I wasn't East Coast smart.
00:57:50I was, you know, I was a guy with dolls.
00:57:53I'm a ventriloquist.
00:57:54Oh, you don't eat meat?
00:57:59Next, Dunham faces a devastating career setback.
00:58:03It was literally ripped out of my hands a week before
00:58:05it was supposed to go on the air.
00:58:07When Jeff Dunham, Birth of a Dummy continues.
00:58:16Well, are you trying to tell me there's nothing sexually
00:58:18going on between you and your wife?
00:58:20It's very difficult.
00:58:21She gripes about everything.
00:58:23Like what?
00:58:24She said I don't make the right noises during sex.
00:58:27Sorry to hear that.
00:58:28Want to hear what I do?
00:58:29No.
00:58:31All right, you're talking me into it.
00:58:32Now, wait a minute.
00:58:34I'm being careful.
00:58:35These are going to be kind of pornographic.
00:58:39Get off.
00:58:43Jeff Dunham knows the key to bringing his characters to life
00:58:46is giving them both an outrageous personality.
00:58:49Oy vey.
00:58:52That's Jewish for holy s***.
00:58:55And a distinctive look.
00:58:56How long you been drinking?
00:58:58Uh, since 6 a.m.
00:59:01Yesterday.
00:59:03A week ago.
00:59:05And making a dummy look good starts with the paint.
00:59:11With a world tour just three weeks away,
00:59:13Dunham's busy painting his latest character, Ahmed Jr.
00:59:18So the step in building AJ now is the paint part.
00:59:23And the paint process is probably the part I like the most
00:59:27because the character really comes to life.
00:59:29He really starts to live.
00:59:30And with AJ, I've put the first coat of flesh on.
00:59:33And now I'm going back with what's called the dry brush technique
00:59:36and just kind of brushing in all the shading.
00:59:38This particular face has a lot of color to it.
00:59:41And the reason is because, you know, he's half dead.
00:59:43Plus, he's got dirt on him.
00:59:45He's got smudges.
00:59:45He's got blown up marks.
00:59:46And it's a great color.
00:59:48It's a great paint.
00:59:49Because with large audiences,
00:59:51especially in some of these huge venues that I'm playing,
00:59:54you want the character to jump to life.
00:59:55You want people to be able to see it from 50 yards away
00:59:58and think that guy is alive.
01:00:00My concern is that he looks like a puppet,
01:00:02but at the same time,
01:00:04he's got to look human enough to be believable.
01:00:06By 2002, Dunham was feeling painted into a corner.
01:00:10He had been counting on steady television work
01:00:13to ease his stand-up schedule.
01:00:14This sucks.
01:00:18What?
01:00:19The entire trip has sucked.
01:00:24I was coming to the end of thinking the mortgage,
01:00:28all the expenses, the kids in private schools.
01:00:30I'm having to work so much.
01:00:32And be gone so much, we had to refinance the house.
01:00:36It was getting to the point where
01:00:37I can't pay my bills anymore.
01:00:39And what am I going to do now?
01:00:43His decade-long marriage to Paige
01:00:45was beginning to fray from the strain.
01:00:48So there's a lot of pressure on the fact
01:00:49that you got to not only be good,
01:00:51but you hope your family is behind you
01:00:53and you hope they understand.
01:00:55I've been struggling with whether that marriage
01:00:58should actually be for a long time.
01:01:00There just didn't seem like a lot of happiness
01:01:03from the other side.
01:01:05Things happened in the marriage,
01:01:06and my number one priority
01:01:09was to keep those girls healthy and happy.
01:01:18But he continued to find strength on the stage.
01:01:21Have you ever thought about being happy?
01:01:22Yeah.
01:01:22What happened?
01:01:23Pissed me off.
01:01:26What would happen if you were happy?
01:01:28Your show would suck.
01:01:31Jeff has this amazing ability,
01:01:33probably like a star athlete,
01:01:35where he could turn off the personal problems
01:01:37when he knew he was about to go on stage.
01:01:39So maybe that was where he felt fun and free.
01:01:43He could switch it off like that.
01:01:44Jeff poured himself into his work,
01:01:47creating new characters like Sweet Daddy D.
01:01:49I'm what you call a player in a management profession.
01:01:52Right.
01:01:53Pimp.
01:01:58You're a pimp?
01:01:59That makes you the hope.
01:02:02And Mildred, the superhero guy.
01:02:04Where'd you get the costume?
01:02:05That, my friend, is a superhero secret.
01:02:09eBay?
01:02:10Damn it.
01:02:11I was always trying to find something different
01:02:13to throw in the act,
01:02:14because I would be repeating these clubs
01:02:16on a yearly basis.
01:02:17But life on the road was deepening his troubles at home.
01:02:20Daddy, stop it!
01:02:22Okay.
01:02:22And television seemed the ideal solution.
01:02:25What was tough was you just couldn't get a network
01:02:27interested in buying the idea of a sitcom
01:02:30with a ventriloquist at the center of it.
01:02:32Oh, shut the hell up.
01:02:36I hate this damn job.
01:02:38Opportunities were elusive
01:02:40until he got crucial exposure from an unlikely source.
01:02:43I, for one, have sympathy for guys
01:02:45who make bad decisions.
01:02:47Really?
01:02:47Yeah, sure.
01:02:48Take a look at my wife.
01:02:51Hey, then at least I only screwed up once.
01:02:53You know what I'm saying, Tom?
01:02:57These guys who were hosting the Best Damn Sports Show
01:03:00did not know what to make of Jeff
01:03:01when he came out there with Walter.
01:03:03They were not sure what they were in for,
01:03:04and then Walter just stayed in there
01:03:07and let those guys have it.
01:03:09And he just killed.
01:03:10Why does the dummy have a mic on?
01:03:12I don't know.
01:03:13Ask Irvin and Sal.
01:03:15It was Michael Irvin, John Sally, Tom Arnold,
01:03:18and we went in there and just made jokes about them
01:03:22and the host.
01:03:22What I learned from that was white guys get insulted,
01:03:26brothers laugh at each other.
01:03:30Alex Rodriguez had an incredible season
01:03:32and he got nothing.
01:03:34What a guy.
01:03:34Yeah, he has a 10-year, $250 million contract
01:03:38that comes to about 50 grand for every at-bat.
01:03:40He's 26.
01:03:41He's handsome.
01:03:42Sounds like another John Crook, right?
01:03:49Look, I got the brothers laughing
01:03:50and the crackers tasting.
01:03:53He had slayed the sports audience,
01:03:55and in 2003 was a frontrunner to replace Jimmy Kimmel
01:03:58on Fox's NFL Sunday show.
01:04:02The gig would have been a godsend.
01:04:04Dunham had been looking for steady TV work
01:04:06to relieve financial and family pressure,
01:04:09but hosts Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw
01:04:11weren't keen on playing second banana to a dummy.
01:04:14We go in there and these were lions waiting for the lamb.
01:04:20I opened Walter's mouth with one sentence
01:04:23and Bradshaw was on top of me
01:04:24and he just could not let me get a word in edgewise
01:04:27and Howie Long just sat there like that.
01:04:30They said, cut, and Howie looked me straight in the eye
01:04:33and he goes, nice meeting you.
01:04:37I went, okay, bye-bye, and I left.
01:04:41And that was probably the second biggest disappointment
01:04:43in my career because I saw the potential
01:04:46and it was literally real.
01:04:47I saw the potential and it was literally ripped out
01:04:50of my hands a week before it was supposed to go on the air.
01:04:55That was a moment where I took that punch
01:04:57and it's, do you get up and you keep going or you quit?
01:05:03In 2005, Dunham decided to take a risky financial gamble,
01:05:09paying for a performance DVD out of his own pocket.
01:05:13It's all good, you're gonna be there, trust me, dog.
01:05:15It was really collectively our belief with Jeff
01:05:18that the only way this was gonna happen
01:05:20is if we finance this ourselves
01:05:22and then tried to sell it after the fact.
01:05:25My management literally went to New York and said,
01:05:28we've shot this special that he financed himself.
01:05:31He paid for this.
01:05:32This is a great special.
01:05:34It's high quality, come on.
01:05:36Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jeff Dunham.
01:05:40After years of rejection, Comedy Central agreed
01:05:43to air the special called Arguing With Myself.
01:05:46I think it meant a lot to Jeff's career
01:05:48to get his special on Comedy Central
01:05:50because the guys who wouldn't necessarily invite him
01:05:52to the dance, the cool kids had said,
01:05:54okay nerd, you can come too.
01:05:59You should get drunk, go to a strip joint.
01:06:01Why?
01:06:02You'd be throwing your voice in places
01:06:03it should never come from.
01:06:05Next, Dunham's marriage falls apart.
01:06:08I'd never really thought about committing suicide,
01:06:10but if there's a point in my life
01:06:12that I thought if this plane crashes, I don't care,
01:06:15that's where I was at that point.
01:06:17When Jeff Dunham, Birth of a Dummy continues.
01:06:24So, Jose, are you here on a temporary visa?
01:06:27Are you here on a work visa?
01:06:28He's here on a stick.
01:06:31Do you enjoy being in this country?
01:06:33Sometimes I'm afraid for my life.
01:06:35Why?
01:06:36Taco Bell.
01:06:40Costume helps form character for any onstage performer,
01:06:43whether human or one of Dunham's dummies.
01:06:47And with just two weeks until the tour,
01:06:49Jeff wants to make sure Achmed Jr. looks hot.
01:06:53I'm going to have to get my hair done.
01:06:54I'm going to have to get my hair done.
01:06:56I'm going to have to get my hair done.
01:06:57I'm going to have to get my hair done.
01:06:59Achmed Jr. looks hot.
01:07:01I've never pretended that what I do for a living is normal.
01:07:04Right now, I'm standing by my pool
01:07:06and I'm holding AJ's body after constructing it.
01:07:09I went to the store, got a skeleton,
01:07:11made this half of the body just like the drawings.
01:07:14I love this. It's awesome.
01:07:15But what I've been doing here for the last 15 minutes
01:07:18is taking this and lighting the clothes on fire
01:07:22and then blowing them out.
01:07:24And the reason I'm standing next to the pool
01:07:26is because when it catches on fire,
01:07:28I have to blow it out.
01:07:30And if the blowing doesn't work,
01:07:32I then drop it in the pool.
01:07:35But this has been working so far.
01:07:37He has to look like he's been in an explosion.
01:07:42Pretty authentic, if you ask me.
01:07:45The geeky ventriloquist who should have never succeeded
01:07:48had finally been accepted as a legitimate comedian.
01:07:51When Comedy Central agreed to air Dunham's special,
01:07:54Arguing With Myself, in 2006.
01:07:57Did you guys get another argument this morning?
01:07:59Yeah, what happened?
01:07:59I don't know.
01:08:00She rolled out of bed, jumped on her menstrual cycle
01:08:03and ran my a** over.
01:08:06Oh, it even has a sound.
01:08:07It goes nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-nag-n
01:08:37I will never blink!
01:08:40And the DVD sales of the special were unheard of for a comic,
01:08:44eventually selling more than 2 million units.
01:08:47Most DVDs for most artists at that point were selling 25 or 50,000 units.
01:08:52When we first hit our very first platinum, which was 100,000 units,
01:08:56we couldn't believe it.
01:08:57We were like, this is a class we never thought we would be in.
01:09:00Jeff Papa!
01:09:01Don't have a car!
01:09:04Oh, Jeff Papa! Oh, Jeff Papa!
01:09:08Without me, you'd suck a car!
01:09:11You can take away the puppets and all this.
01:09:14Either you're funny or not, and Jeff is really, really funny.
01:09:17You have a drinking problem? No, I've pretty much got it figured out!
01:09:23His next special, 2007's Spark of Insanity, cemented Dunham's stardom
01:09:28and served as the introduction to Jeff's most controversial character.
01:09:32So you're a terrorist? Yes, I am a terrorist.
01:09:37What kind of terrorist?
01:09:38A terrifying terrorist.
01:09:43If he had come to me and said, I have this character,
01:09:46and then told me that he's got a skeleton and I'm going to call him the dead terrorist,
01:09:50I would have told him it'll never play.
01:09:53Greetings, infidels!
01:09:57But Ahmed the Dead Terrorist became a global phenomenon
01:10:00thanks to a clip that went viral on YouTube.
01:10:03It was among the site's 10 most viewed clips ever,
01:10:07with more than 140 million hits.
01:10:10How do you spell your name?
01:10:11Oh, let's see, A...
01:10:14T...
01:10:16Flem...
01:10:19It started growing and growing and growing into the millions and millions of hits.
01:10:25I can't move!
01:10:26It's the marriage of this huge technology and the perfect character, together.
01:10:33What happened?
01:10:34Oh, if you must know, I am a horrible suicide bomber.
01:10:39What happened?
01:10:40I had a premature detonation.
01:10:44I set the timer for 30 minutes, but it went off in 4 seconds.
01:10:49You know what that's like, right?
01:10:55We love you, Ahmed!
01:10:58Silence! I'll kill you!
01:11:00I'll kill you!
01:11:01I'll kill you!
01:11:02I'll kill you!
01:11:03Silence! I'll kill you!
01:11:04Silence! I'll kill you!
01:11:06He became a star overnight in Belgium and Holland and all of Scandinavia,
01:11:12playing South Africa to 6,000, 7,000 people,
01:11:16playing Australia, 6,000, 7,000 people.
01:11:18We're getting offers in China, we're getting offers in,
01:11:21if you can believe it, all through the Middle East.
01:11:23You've gotten pretty famous even here in this country, haven't you?
01:11:26Oh, yes, I have.
01:11:28And I think pretty soon I need my own posse,
01:11:32and I want to call you my biatch.
01:11:36But along with those millions of YouTube fans were dissenters
01:11:40who believed Dunham stepped over the line
01:11:42for a nation still raw from the wounds of 9-11.
01:11:46Ahmed was very controversial
01:11:48because you're tapping into a theme of terrorism,
01:11:51which, if you think of it, it's not funny.
01:11:53That's risky, and he wasn't afraid to do it.
01:11:55He took a horrible subject and made it funny.
01:11:57When I watched Ahmed the Dead Terrorist,
01:11:59I wasn't offended, but I thought,
01:12:01wow, there are going to be a billion Muslims in the world
01:12:04that are going to think this is the Antichrist right here.
01:12:07Are you scared?
01:12:10Not really, no.
01:12:14And no?
01:12:16Not really, no.
01:12:22How about now?
01:12:24No?
01:12:25F***, damn it.
01:12:27Oh, oh.
01:12:31I mean, Allah, damn it.
01:12:35Silence!
01:12:37I kill you!
01:12:40He was taking a lot of risks onstage with Ahmed.
01:12:43He was really pushing the envelope
01:12:45of what is politically correct.
01:12:47One of the things that I would get the most complaints on
01:12:50was silence.
01:12:52I kill you.
01:12:53Silence!
01:12:56I kill you!
01:12:58It was controversial.
01:12:59There were people like, who's he making fun of?
01:13:01What's he actually doing?
01:13:03You couldn't really point to what I was making fun of
01:13:05because we would say that he's not Muslim.
01:13:07Just a goofy accent, you couldn't really tell.
01:13:09You're not Muslim.
01:13:10No, I'm white.
01:13:11Look how my a** is neat in China.
01:13:14I think the reason that Ahmed connected
01:13:16was because at the end of the day, he gave him heart.
01:13:21Why are you afraid of Walter?
01:13:23He is one mean son of a b****.
01:13:28Well, I'm sorry you're frightened of him.
01:13:30Hey.
01:13:31Can I do anything for you?
01:13:33Really?
01:13:34Yeah, whatever.
01:13:36Could you hold me?
01:13:41I'm not kidding, just a little bit.
01:13:45All of a sudden, you're treating a dead terrorist puppet,
01:13:48skeleton, as if he's got real human emotions.
01:13:51So the fact that Jeff could transition
01:13:53the audience to feel that way about it
01:13:55is really a testament to how well he created the character.
01:14:01Seriously, where are we?
01:14:03We're in South Africa.
01:14:07Get your hand in my camel!
01:14:09The international stuff, people in other languages,
01:14:11in other countries, finally when it reached that point,
01:14:14I went, hang on a second.
01:14:16You know, this was not in my wheelhouse of...
01:14:19How did that happen?
01:14:32But just as Dunham was hitting a professional height,
01:14:35his personal life was bottoming out.
01:14:38He'd finally scored success on TV,
01:14:41but it was too late to save his marriage.
01:14:44In November 2008, he filed for divorce from Paige,
01:14:48his wife of 14 years.
01:14:51I began to weigh personal sanity
01:14:54against keeping that family together,
01:14:58and, you know, it began to tip.
01:15:05I realized that the fights
01:15:07and the stuff that was going on in the house
01:15:10was probably doing more damage than good,
01:15:13and I finally had to call it quits.
01:15:18Jeff was devastated by his divorce,
01:15:21and it was months, it wasn't days or weeks,
01:15:24it was months that he was not a happy guy at all.
01:15:29I'd never really thought about committing suicide,
01:15:32but if there's a point in my life that I thought,
01:15:35if this plane crashes, I don't care,
01:15:37that's where I was at that point.
01:15:41Next, Dunham learns that it's lonely at the top.
01:15:44It was hard to walk on stage.
01:15:46For the first time in my life ever,
01:15:48I canceled shows.
01:15:50When Jeff Dunham, Birth of a Dummy, continues.
01:15:57You really are dead.
01:15:59Wait, if I'm dead,
01:16:01that means I get my 72 virgins.
01:16:07Are you my virgins?
01:16:10I hope not.
01:16:12Why?
01:16:13There's a bunch of ugly guys out there.
01:16:19Jeff Dunham's embarking on a massive world tour in one week,
01:16:23and the latest creation from his ventriloquial laboratory
01:16:26is almost complete.
01:16:28Achmed Jr. is missing just one crucial element,
01:16:31his voice.
01:16:33I'm standing in my bathroom in front of the mirror,
01:16:36and I'm practicing what I've done since the third grade.
01:16:39The difference is, the guy I'm practicing with is half dead.
01:16:43But the movement's all work, everything's functioning fine,
01:16:46it's just a matter of getting the voice down,
01:16:48which is the second problem.
01:16:51Oh, oui, oui, I am French.
01:16:53You can't be French.
01:16:55I think I am French.
01:16:59I have no idea what I'm doing.
01:17:01I think this is a problem.
01:17:03Thank you.
01:17:06By 2008, Jeff Dunham's characters had transcended language barriers.
01:17:11They'd become famous the world over.
01:17:14We're in Africa?
01:17:19They don't look like they're starving.
01:17:22Among the highest-earning entertainers in the world,
01:17:25Jeff's career had exploded beyond his wildest dreams.
01:17:31But after his divorce from wife Paige,
01:17:33he felt like the loneliest guy in the world.
01:17:36It's heart-wrenching. It was hard to walk on stage.
01:17:38For the first time in my life ever,
01:17:40I canceled shows in January of 2008
01:17:43just to try and pull myself back together.
01:17:46He disappeared. He canceled, wouldn't talk to anyone.
01:17:49He didn't talk to me for a couple weeks, couldn't find him.
01:17:52It was only a week worth of shows, but I never, never did that, ever.
01:17:55And then when I finally was able to pull myself back together
01:17:58and get back on stage, it was really, really difficult,
01:18:01because so many of those Walter jokes were suddenly true.
01:18:06It was all too real.
01:18:08Walter, what exactly is marriage to you?
01:18:10It's like drinking a slurpee. Slurpee.
01:18:12First couple of sips, like, boy, it's really good. I'm glad I did this.
01:18:15And you keep drinking, it goes right to your head, and you go,
01:18:17Ow, ow, ow!
01:18:22What the hell was I thinking?
01:18:25Someone kill me, please!
01:18:28Being adopted, I'm sure, psychologically,
01:18:31has an effect on the family union.
01:18:33You do not want to break up a family union.
01:18:35You want to hold that unit together.
01:18:37Any divorce that any family goes through, it's always really difficult.
01:18:41I feel like especially between the kids and the dad,
01:18:45because the mom predominantly has more time with the kids,
01:18:49but I really feel like our dad really tried to push to have us more.
01:18:54You know, when he's not working, he's always here,
01:18:57and he's always wanting to do stuff with us.
01:19:00By September of 2008, Dunham slowly came out of his funk
01:19:04and found himself playing in bigger venues than ever.
01:19:07Where the hell are we?
01:19:09London.
01:19:13Well, London, England, la-di-frickin-da!
01:19:16It was time for Jeff to go to arenas.
01:19:21And he was a little leery at first of going into that element.
01:19:25They go, what's an arena? And they go, you know, an arena.
01:19:28You mean like 4,000 or 5,000 people? They go, no, no, no, more than that.
01:19:31And I'm like, how are we going to see that?
01:19:34With a 30-foot screen and 6,000 people, it's like a giant comedy club. Why not?
01:19:38So we started booking these places and thousands of seats,
01:19:41and it kept growing and growing.
01:19:43And finally in late 2008, it started just going absolutely nuts.
01:19:47Within eight months, we were at 10,000, 12,000, 14,000 people in arenas.
01:19:53And we were all like, holy s***, when, how high can this go?
01:19:58Helsinki!
01:20:04In the arenas, you'd hear the laughter go from the front to the back of the arena and back.
01:20:09Jeff had to adjust his timing a little bit
01:20:11because you couldn't just keep talking very quickly
01:20:14because they were still laughing at the last joke.
01:20:17My wife and I couldn't find any place to park anywhere near this stinking joint.
01:20:21And some jerk pulled up in a brand-new Mercedes, goes right in the handicap spot.
01:20:25He got out of the car, and there's nothing wrong with him.
01:20:27Don't you hate that?
01:20:30So I ran his s*** over.
01:20:35When I see him in arenas like that,
01:20:37it's the closest that you'll ever get to seeing a comedian seem like a rock star
01:20:41because it is like, there are very few people, I think, that will ever have that.
01:20:45Befitting a rock star, Dunham teamed up with Achmed for another YouTube smash called Jingle Bombs,
01:20:51toward the end of 2008.
01:20:53I got through checkpoint A, but not through checkpoint B.
01:20:58That's when I got shot in the a** by the U.S. military.
01:21:06I think Jeff was nervous about doing Jingle Bombs the first time
01:21:10simply because he doesn't think he can sing.
01:21:13Jingle Bombs, Jingle Bombs, I think I got screwed.
01:21:18Don't laugh at me because I'm dead, or I'll kill you.
01:21:29The winning streak continued into 2009, when he met Texas native Audrey Murdoch.
01:21:35In Los Angeles, everybody's got a story,
01:21:37so I'd heard a lot of lines from a lot of people, and this seemed different.
01:21:42I had never met anyone quite like this.
01:21:46Literally, when I first saw her, it was that goofy thing of the Disney birds singing.
01:21:54By mid-2009, Jeff and Audrey were inseparable.
01:21:58We are together 24-7, just about.
01:22:03I talk to her about literally everything, and she's supportive,
01:22:08and she was one of those rare people that came along with a twisted sense of humor, just like mine.
01:22:16When Audrey came into the picture, there was a smile on Jeff's face more often.
01:22:21He was less serious in his personal life.
01:22:25He's even begun to poke fun of his marital status on stage with Walter.
01:22:29Walter, divorce is not a good thing.
01:22:31Oh, you can't lie to me, a**hole.
01:22:34What's it like to wake up in the morning and not hate your life?
01:22:37To not think, oh, here she comes.
01:22:42Come on, you can leave your toilet seat up all the time.
01:22:46Why'd a hot glue line open, for God's sakes?
01:22:49And then s**t in the backyard.
01:22:52It happens. It's life, you know?
01:22:56And people laugh at it.
01:22:59It gives them comfort in doing it. What the heck? I mean, why not?
01:23:03Remember when you said, till death do us part?
01:23:06Yeah.
01:23:07Later, you realize you're actually setting a goal.
01:23:11I think it just was a struggle, and it took some time to be able to figure out
01:23:15how could he be honest about it and yet find a way to be entertaining about it.
01:23:19If you're a real comedian, worth a salt, yeah, you take from your own life and filter it and put it out there.
01:23:27Well, marriage is supposed to be forever. Yeah, and this one's taking too damn long.
01:23:32Marriage is an institution. So is Alcatraz.
01:23:37Next, the unveiling of Achmed Jr.
01:23:46When Jeff Dunham, birth of a dummy, continues.
01:23:54I thought you said he was ugly.
01:23:56He is!
01:23:58He looks a little like me.
01:23:59No, he looks a lot like you!
01:24:02This isn't funny. Then why is everyone else laughing?
01:24:06Peanut and little Jeff are about to be joined by a new family member.
01:24:11After months of conception and construction, Jeff Dunham's preparing to unveil Achmed Jr. for the first time.
01:24:18There's a few thousand people out there getting ready to see AJ for the first time.
01:24:22Well, you're going to see him before they will.
01:24:25He's right here, and many hours of hard work, and here he is, revealed for the first time.
01:24:32So, a little superstition, though, I'm not going to make him talk until he's on stage.
01:24:36I hope they like him. It's been a lot of effort, a lot of thought, a lot of good jokes written, so we'll see.
01:24:56Achmed, there's someone here I want you to meet.
01:24:59Look over there. Okay, don't peek. Okay, I'm not going to peek. Could you stay over here?
01:25:02No? No! Okay!
01:25:19Who the hell is that?
01:25:22Hello, father.
01:25:34It's your son, Achmed Jr.
01:25:37AJ?
01:25:40That's right.
01:25:42Wait, I thought you were dead.
01:25:44Surprise.
01:25:47This is great. Hey, what happened to your face?
01:25:50Oh, yeah, my bad.
01:25:56On the road supporting his latest DVD, Controlled Chaos, Dunham continues down his improbable path.
01:26:03The kid who played with dolls, who became one of the biggest stars in the world.
01:26:07Sitting in the hotel room watching race cars and drinking beer.
01:26:14I actually thought he had the talent to do it, but I just never knew anyone would give him the chance
01:26:19because they always had that thing that, oh, he's a ventriloquist.
01:26:23You know, that's kind of a corny thing, and I'm glad he didn't give up.
01:26:27Okay, listen, you, Achmed, what you're getting hostile.
01:26:30Of course I'm getting hostile. I'm a terrorist, you idiot. You piss me off, I kill you.
01:26:35Would that really solve anything?
01:26:37Pretty much, yeah, I think it does.
01:26:40He just kept plugging away. This is what he did, this is what he loved, this is what he wanted, and he went out and got it.
01:26:47You're using an unneeded F.
01:27:01Am I pissing you off?
01:27:05Ventriloquism, it's such a small, tiny, tiny little art form.
01:27:10It's amazing that he has turned this into this huge business.
01:27:15He's even received a long-sawed stamp of approval from his mother and father.
01:27:20The moment of acceptance was when the nurses and doctors and friends started thanking them
01:27:26or telling them to thank me or telling them stories of how somebody ill in their family
01:27:31or when they were sick or when they were really down, how they would watch the DVDs
01:27:35and how much laughter and joy it brought in.
01:27:38Jeff is one of these once-in-a-lifetime geniuses that comes along,
01:27:43and we were fortunate that we would be able to be his parents.
01:27:48Just shy of 50, Dunham continues to reach higher.
01:27:52I don't know if Jeff believes in a zenith of a career.
01:27:56I think that if he does, he's going to go as long as he can before he hits it.
01:28:00What are you doing? Put that damn thing away.
01:28:02We left out a couple of the new jokes.
01:28:04I don't care, put that damn thing away.
01:28:06No, wait, literally, wait, no, now, I don't want to do that.
01:28:08What? No, we do it, no, we just have to put it away.
01:28:14He's already looking at what we're doing next year, and maybe a new character,
01:28:21maybe a new bit, a new routine, whatever it is, he's not focused on his accomplishments,
01:28:27which is the reason he's here.
01:28:29I don't want to be a terrorist.
01:28:31But I want you to be just like me.
01:28:34Well, I'm not, and I won't be.
01:28:36Ahmed, can you accept that?
01:28:38I guess I can try.
01:28:41And AJ, what if he doesn't accept it?
01:28:43I kill you.
01:28:45That's my boy!
01:28:49It was the fourth grade.
01:28:50I specifically remember laying in bed,
01:28:53praying that I could become the very best at what I did at the time,
01:29:00and that was being a ventriloquist.
01:29:02I had nothing else as a kid that I was really interested in.
01:29:05And for some reason, this quirky little art fascinated the heck out of me.
01:29:09And I had this desire to pursue being the very best and the most notable at it.
01:29:16And I'm not saying I'm the very best at it,
01:29:18but this journey that has brought me this far into these places is really amazing.
01:29:23Silence!
01:29:26I kill you!
01:29:31José Jalapeño.
01:29:34On the stick.
01:29:40I'm doing birdies!
01:29:43Shut the hell up!
01:29:45I'm one of the luckiest guys on the planet,
01:29:47and you never know when it's going to end.
01:29:49You never know when your 15 minutes of fame is going to end.
01:29:51I've just been really blessed and really thankful.

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