August 22, 2019 • 48 mins
Ventriloquism – where a skilled performer “throws” their voice, making it seem like a dummy on their knee is talking – has taken a long, circuitous road from early prophets, to witches, then finally to the stage. Get to the bottom of this uncanny trick.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Maine and Greater New England. We're coming to see
you guys in Portland and we can't wait. We would
love to see you there. Yep, we'll be at the
State Theater on August. If you're interested. You can get
tickets and information at s y s K live dot com.
There's some lobster at us. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey you,
(00:28):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry, which,
by the way, we should say Jerry say hey to everybody.
That's right, Jerry's back. I think we scared everyone. I
like joked on a short stuff for one of the
recent episodes that she was gone. She's going from a
couple of episodes She's but people took it to mean
(00:50):
like Jerry was just gone. Yeah, so some people were
a little freaked up by that. So Jerry is not
going anywhere anyone. She doesn't want to as far as
we know, and we're not gonna let or even if
she does. Jerry's here, and you're here too. How are
you doing. I'm great? Neither one of us removing our lips. No,
that's how good we are. We've done this whole conversation
(01:10):
without any I mean, it's astounding what we can do
just a couple of events. We're basically like Edgar Bergen. Yeah,
that's a deep cut vent by the way, everyone, we're
probably gonna say a lot that is short for ventriloquist. Yes, uh,
And ventriloquism can be a mouthful, so I'm not gonna
(01:32):
I'm gonna try and say it as little as possible.
Ventriloquism can be as it can a mouthful and bellyful
and a mouthful. I had very mixed feelings about all
of this. Why Well, first of all, I think it
was it this that I talked about practicing ventriloquism when
(01:55):
I was a kid. Well, I don't call that. I
feel like it may have been movie crushed then, but
I definitely at one point on one of the shows
mentioned that at one point when I was a child,
I had a record ventriloquism, record really Train Yourself, and
for very briefly I thought it was something I wanted
to do, and I practiced it. Did you have your
little bow tie? No? I didn't have a yet didn't
(02:18):
have a costume. But I had a dummy and I
got a record. You had like a ventriloquist dummy. Yeah,
not a you know, not an advanced one that looks
like a cyborg when you turn it around. Sure, but
I mean like you had a dummy you could sit
on your knee and make the mouth. Yes, I always
wanted one of those. You had my dummy and it
(02:39):
didn't last long? Why not? No? I don't know. I
think I have a history in my childhood of starting
things like that and then being like man there that.
Plus the instructor on the record was really mean. I
can't even remember which one it was. I think it
was from like the sixties or something. Probably means sixties
record instructor. Yeah. But then I also, um, watch the movie,
(03:00):
you know, dumb Struck. I love that movie, and it's
just it just filled me with a lot of mixed feelings,
so because it was sad but also uplifting but also sad, yeah,
but also uplifting. Yeah. If you haven't seen the documentary
dumb Struck, you were missing out. It is a it's good, nice,
(03:21):
low fi h documentary that's really easy to to underestimate. Yeah,
And I think what I appreciated about it is they
took five stories of five and triloquists, and each of
them were at different points in their careers. From the
kid just starting out to the lady who wants nothing
(03:43):
more than to be on the cruise ship, to the
guy who was actively on the cruise ship to the
point where he killed his marriage. Yeah, well he's just
spoiling to the lady, you know, the other lady who
just she had all kinds of problems in life, Yeah,
but was also very uplifting in that her community rallied
around her, helped her out. To the big guy, Terry Fader.
(04:07):
Terry Fader, who you know is because net Worth if
you believe those sites of like a hundred and fifty
million bucks, Well, he signed a hundred million dollar deal
eight years ago with the Mirage that was for five years.
So he's he's still there, right, Okay, he hopefully negotiated
an even better deal four years ago. So I just
(04:28):
want to make sure for people who aren't aware of
Terry Fader in that deal. If you'll go back to
the beginning, we said we were talking about ventriloquists, ventriloquism.
Terry Faders the ventriloquist, and he signed the largest dollar
deal in the history of Las Vegas as a ventriloquist
at the time. But yeah, they captured that perfectly in
(04:49):
that documentary Dumbstruck. Yeah, just all the various components. And
then my whole I don't want to yuck someone's young,
but like many times, I don't find them funny. You're crazy,
And that's at the root of it, is like the
jokes weren't funny to me. Well, it's it's really they
kind of stick to that Volleyville tradition in a lot
(05:10):
of ways. And then bad jokes, yes, But then you
see the people in the audience just eating it up,
these old cruise cruisers, just like it's the best thing
in these old Vegas types that they've ever seen. So
but far be it from me to yucky yum, But
that was my emotions were all over the map ball Okay, Well,
(05:31):
I half regret suggesting this article, but at the same
time I find this delicious. So let's talk about ancient
Greece in Egypt. So um, just to make sure everybody
understands what we're talking about, Chuck Ventriloquism is where you
make it appear like a dummy is sitting on your
knee and that words are coming out of that dummy's mouth, right,
(05:54):
But doesn't have to be on your knee, No, and
it doesn't necessarily even have to be a dummy. In fact,
the earliest ones in Greece, like you were saying, even
before that, inco in Egypt Um around the Middle East,
there was accounts of ventriloquism, but they didn't say you
should have seen this ventriloquist I saw last night. He
was great. They said, you need to go see this
(06:15):
um medicine man or the soothsayer or the spiritualist, because
this guy can talk to the spirits in the tree
or in a rock or in his stomach. And that's
how ventriloquism originally got its start. It was a spiritual
practice that was essentially um scam artists. Yeah, I guess
that's a way to put it. But I mean, like
(06:37):
they were prophets and religious figures and this is one
of the things they did. Yeah, And I don't even
think we broke down really at its root. What we're
talking about, in its simplest terms, is speaking without moving
your lips basically, but there's there's a little more mustard
to it, right, But it's if you're speaking while moving
(06:58):
your lips, then you are a puppeteer. That's the distinction. Oh,
I see what you're saying. Yes, you're you're trying to
make it appear as if something else is speaking instead
of your whereas the puppeteer will just stand behind the curtain,
sure they don't care, and move their mouth like like
there's no tomorrow. Yeah, but the extra mustard I mentioned
is that, and this is frequently the case when somebody's
(07:20):
not using a dummy. A ventriloquist not only doesn't move
their mouth, they can adjust their voice to make it
sound like their voices coming from some other place away
from them. What's commonly called is throwing their voice. And
we'll talk about that later, right, But didn't that just
a I mean, they're really not throwing their voice. That's
(07:42):
just a mental trick. Yes, okay, well yes, but it's
not like they can do something with their voice to
make it sound like it's coming from a different place. No,
they can't. Well that's not the way the way I
read it was. It was just a mental trick of
believing that's happening. Like, you can't literally make your voice
sound like it's coming from a different place. So this
is this is it. Let's just talking about it now, Okay, fine, Um,
(08:05):
If you are talking to a ventriloquist and they make
it they throw their voice to make it sound like
somebody is under the bridge that you two are standing on,
if you went under the bridge, you would not hear
that voice coming from under the bridge. They can't throw
their voice, it's a terrible term for it. But they
(08:27):
can adjust their voice. They can modulate the volume, they
can make it sound muffled, they can make it sound
echoy they can make it sound like it's underwater. They
can make it sound like it's closer far away. So
that that's one component of the illusion of ventriloquism is
they can make it sound like you would expect it
to sound if there were a voice underwater, under a
(08:48):
bridge or something like I think I thought you were
talking about space and time, where it's really just a
vocal quality it is. And then combined with some other
magic that they do, some other slight of hand in
misdirection and all that, which again we'll talk about later. Yeah,
But it's the thing is too, the when you see
a ventriloquist, quote throwing their voice there generally throwing it
(09:12):
to a dummy that's about nine inches from their own voice. Yeah, typically,
so it's not something you know, no, but the original ventriloquists,
we didn't use dummies, so they were they were much
more adept at throwing their voice. Gotcha. See, So when
you went to see one of these belly prophets or whatever,
(09:35):
and they made it seem like they were speaking with
a tree, they were talking to a tree and the
tree was talking back. It sounded to the person standing
by them that the tree was talking for a number
of reasons, which we'll talk about later. That's very interesting,
I think so too. So uh b C. You can
keep talking about belly prophets. I guess we should explain
(09:56):
what that is. Um. It was literally like sometimes they
would talk to something inside their own stomach, and their
stomach was talking back. And that's where the name actually
comes from. If you talk about the Latin of the
Greek words for belly prophet or belly talker, it's ventriloquism,
ventus belly and l o q u I speak speaking
(10:19):
from the belly. That's where it comes from. Isn't that bizarre? Yeah,
but it wasn't Obviously, it wasn't an act at this point,
like an entertainment act. In fact, it was disparaged as
of the devil. And of course, you know when Christianity
came through town and the Spanish Inquisition, it was not
a good time to be a voice thrower. No, even
(10:41):
from like the earliest days of Christianity was considered a
form of necromancy, which was fostered and enabled by the devil.
So if you were a ventrilo quister, that kind of spiritualist,
you were basically Satan's minion. That's how ventriloquism was originally seen.
And there were probably a lot of people who were
killed over the centuries because in part they were ventriloquists,
(11:04):
that's right. But it eventually would become entertainment. Uh, once
everyone kind of got a little more rational and it
was like, it's not the devil, it's not Satan, and
it really transitioned to performance. But they still weren't using
the dummies at this point. No, they weren't. But I
want to I want to hit on that rational thing
(11:25):
ventriloquism was kind of rooted out as something that could
be explained through rationalism during the Enlightenment. That Enlightenment thinkers
kind of pounced on and said, here's how this works.
So remember that superstitious belief that you had that somebody
could commune with the spirits. This is how they did that,
(11:47):
so stop believing that. So that was a kind of
a tool of Enlightenment thinkers explaining ventriloquism. It's given away
all the magic tricks, basically, that's what they did. In fact,
there was a guy named Um Johann Baptiste of Las
Chapelle who wrote a five hundred and seventy two page
book exploring ventriloquism and explaining how it worked. Yeah, but
(12:08):
as far as the entertainment aspect, pre dummy the kind
of the first person named as a sixteenth century valet
to French King Francis. The first name was Louis Brabant,
and he would entertain the court there and Um, the
way it sort of came across to me was much
like a jester could poke fun at people that they
(12:30):
normally wouldn't allowed to poke fun of. This is what
this guy would do. But he would just do it
without moving his lips, and everyone thought it was hysterical.
That's the whole comic tradition of ventriloquism, is the dummy
or the imaginary character, if there wasn't a dummy, can
say things that the ventriloquists himself for herself could never
get away with. But somehow society has been like, it's
(12:53):
fine if this inanimate object says it, even though it's
really this guy saying it. We've all decided it's line
that they say it. Yeah, I haven't society. I wish
you guys could see Chuck right now. He's just been
scowling like this whole episode, that scowling. But if you know,
like that guy with a big racist act, I'm not
one of those people that's going it's really just the dummy.
(13:15):
I'm going, No, that guy is a terrible comedian. Is
that what all this is about? Jeff Dunham is a ventriloquist. No, no, no,
But I'm certainly not a part of society thinking like
that cute little dummy saying terrible things. Okay, but that
is the long standing tradition, the comedy behind ventriloquism. Yeah,
not necessarily like racist stuff or anything like that, but
(13:38):
just zingers and in stinging comments that normally the ventrilo
because we would not be able to get away with well.
And not only that, I got the feeling from watching
that documentary that it's a little bit of a therapy
for people who don't feel like they can say the
things they really want to say, so they'll say him
through the dummy. Yeah, it was remarkable. In Dumbstruck they
(13:58):
say most ventrilo ust c atly the people who go
to this convention, that that is covered in the documentary.
Where are shy people? Yeah, that surprised me. And it's
like they're the dummies, their alter ego get a little uh,
it's interesting, a little deep for sure. For sure. That's
just the kindest way I can say it. Again, I'm
not yucking the um because people are getting a lot
(14:20):
out of it. It looks like, um, anytime you have
conventions like that, it's just as interesting slice of life.
They're hanging out together. Yes, any and all conventions for sure. Yeah,
Ventriloquist convention in particular. Yeah, and it always it's good
because I feel like a lot of times these are
people that may feel like they're outsiders and that they
(14:41):
have a family when they hook up with these communities.
I see there's something great about ventral equation. I mean, heck,
I'm the one that tried it as a kid. I
was certainly into it. Do you remember the name of
your dummy m I don't think I named him, and
I didn't go by them. I think it just happened
upon my house at some point. Oh, he just showed
up at your house. That didn't creep you out at all. Well,
(15:04):
it must have been my brother that bought it, But
hope it was enough for me to get a used
record and give it a shot for two weeks. They're
really seared into your memory too, that, Yeah it was
you know, I tried pretty hard for a couple of
weeks and just couldn't get you. I got it enough.
(15:25):
I don't hate Vince at all. I'm just not someone
going it's a dummy saying those things, not a person.
I got you. Um. But this is how it went
on for a while. In Europe at least people talked
like that. Well, there were people in courts all over
Europe basically transitioning from the gesture to ventriloquists right, because
(15:46):
the Enlightenment said, look at this weird trick that all
these spiritual like soothsayers have used over the centuries, over
the millennia, you can do it too. Here's how they did.
Let's all stop believing in it. And somehow astounding it
ended up becoming a performance art. It went from a
spiritual trick to performance art that people came to appreciate.
(16:08):
But it wasn't until the seventeen fifties that the I
guess they call them dummies. Uh, you could also call
them puppets. I've seen other people call them dolls, but
it seems like dummy is the is the proper term.
But an Austrian dude named Baron Dominion started using a
little doll with a little nutcracker mouth, and he could
(16:30):
move that jaw, that lower jaw, and all of a
sudden it started to catch on. At first though they
were using tons and tons of these dolls lined up
in a row. Yeah. They went from using none to
tons of them, yeah, and it got pretty unwieldy. And
then I think everyone sort of realized what you should
really do is get a dummy, give that dummy a personality.
(16:52):
And then let that be your act, right. And it
was one guy in particular who kind of started that
event named Fred Russell, who was British in the late
nineteenth century. And I mean the fashion was to have
like as many as thirty dummies on stage and you
would act out like a scene, like a courtroom scene
or something, and the event would use their their feet
(17:14):
to control everything with pneumatics and they would jump from
character to character. It must have been amazing to see.
But Fred Russell was like, I don't feel like carding
all these people around. I'm just gonna stick to one dummy,
which was innovative. But even more innovative was that he
created a character for that dummy. Rather than just like
(17:34):
having the dummy say whatever was needed for the sketch,
he would write sketches around the character his dummy, Coster Joe.
And so he basically is known as the father of
modern ventriloquism. Yeah, and that really established the uh, the
thing where you you sell the audience and the fact
that there are two people performing and it's a buddy
(17:55):
comedy act, but one of them has his hand in
the butt of an other. Yeah, and the guy who
has his hand in the butt of the others the
straight man, and the guy who um has the hand
in his butt is the wise cracker. That's right. That's
the way that I don't think any ventrilo quis has
ever done at the opposite. Someone should try that, surely,
(18:16):
I can't believe no one has. I'm sure someone has,
I hope. So I want to hear about him. Should
we take a break? I think we should. Man, all right,
let's take a break and we'll talk about Murphy Brown
right after this, Chuck, I wanna say from me and
(18:51):
everybody who listens to stuff, you should know we're very
proud of you for going through this experience of talking
about ventrilo quism. And you're past that. The fact that
I never got very far in my venture loquism career,
that's right. And it's just a small painful moment in
my child, right, But you're working it out, man, it's
(19:11):
worth it. What you know. The other thing is I
did was I got a record that taught my bird
how to talk. Oh yeah, did it work? Yeah? She
could go Hello, Dolly, no, and she could say hello obviously.
And I taught her to do a jungle call. What
is that? Co co co co car and then she
(19:32):
would whistle, uh, do a wolf whistle like a cat call,
so you'd walk into the room and go nice. Uh.
And then one else I think it whistled Dixie. Maybe
should have done a ventuloquism routine with your bird, Dolly.
She was pretty great. Cockat deal nice not cockatoo. No,
Coca teal is the one with the big head. Yeah,
the little smaller things that fly around your house and
(19:54):
poop on everything. Oh, Cockatoo is a big, bigger yeah. Okay,
that's a big white guy that I think barretta head
the fruit loops guy. No, that's a two can I
got you so? Uh. Candice Bergen is Murphy Brown. She
is also the daughter of Edgar Bergen, who was totally insane.
(20:14):
He was not insane. He was a one of the
most popular entertainers in the country. Yeah, for decades, for
a long long time. Not just one of the most
popular ventriloquist like you said, one of the most popular entertainers,
that's right. Uh. And he did something that one would
think it's not even possible, which is to have a
ventriloquism act on the radio. But that's I mean, that's
(20:37):
a good point, Tom. She wrote this article for us,
and he says, like that really points out like the
sea change that Fred Russell brought about, where he was
writing jokes based around this character that Edgar Bergen created,
this character of UM, Charlie McCarthy and also Mortimer Snurred,
and the characters and the jokes and the dialogue and
(20:59):
the fact that he jumped back and forth between himself
and these characters. That's what people cared about because, like
you're Berkin was actually not very good at not moving
his lips. Radio is perfect for him exactly. But he
was huge on the radio for like twenty years from
this ventriloquism routine. He was a ventriloquist on the radio
for twenty years, that's right. And uh he I don't
(21:21):
think he began the tradition, but he certainly reinforced the
tradition of UM going deep with the fact that these
are little people to them, like uh, he's he's certainly
not the first or last two give them their own bedrooms,
their own beds to um, you know, be sometimes they're
buried with their dummy. He he left ten thousand dollars
(21:45):
to Charlie McCarthy and his will, he left zero to Candice. Yeah,
I mean, what do you do with that? She? Yeah,
she did a lot with it. So what does the
doll literally do with that? Oh? I see it? To me?
I thought you meant, was Candice Bergin doing? Where's that
den grand today? You? I don't know who is where
that money went? I know Kennice Bergen didn't get it. Yeah, Um,
but she grew up sitting on her father's knee and
(22:07):
Charlie McCarthy would be on the other knee, and he'd
make them talk to each other, like he'd squeeze the
back of her neck when he wanted her to talk
or whatever, or open her mouth because he would talk
for her. She had a strange childhood for sure. Was
there resentment and stuff? Do you know? I think a
little yeah, if not a lot. Well, you were talking
about the fact that the strength of the jokes so
(22:28):
had to be why he was so popular on the radio,
and that's what they point. One of them makes him
that dumb struck videos like it's got to be funny.
No matter how good you are with the lips, it's
not funny. And I kept thinking, like, alright, when is
one of these people gonna be funny. Even the big
famous ones. Yeah, no, I mean like there's even the
(22:50):
almost two eventula Quisted. Even the the blue ones, the
not as family friendly ones are still pretty family friendly
really yeah, except for a few people that really just
want to shock. Really. One one just comes to mind,
as far as I could tell, Otto and George Otto
Peterson I believe is his name, Yeah, and his dummy.
George had a just absolutely filthy ventilla quest routine and
(23:15):
Otto was the straight man and George the dummy was
the um just the total foul mouthed basically guy from
Jersey is what he was doing. But he apparently those
two hosted the Adult Video Awards two years in a row,
and after the second year they're like, you can't come back.
You've offended all of the porn actors and they don't
(23:36):
want you to come back. Well, and then the Jeff
Dunham gott you mentioned, Um, we might as well say
that this guy sells out arenas doing h characters like
Ahmed the Dead terrorist and a Mexican immigrants and all
these stereotypes. But he does it through a puppet, so
it's fine. So it's fine. So you know, he has
the Guinness Record for the stand up comedian who sold
(23:59):
the most tickets and ever and that just mind boggling. Yeah,
and he should be reclassified though, because some real stand
up comedian in second places probably deserves that award. I'm
sure Kevin Hart's like, WTF, Yeah, it's probably him, right. Um,
So you've got Jeff Duneham in the World Record Book.
You got Terry Fader with a hundred million dollar um
(24:21):
mirage deal selling out every single day. And then there's
a show called America's Got Talent one to three including
Terry Fader eventula Quist have won that show. Yeah, three
eventulo quis. So there's like a weird ventrilo quism renaissance
going on right now. Yeah, and Fader and Um, I
(24:41):
think who was the other one? Darcy Yeah, Darcy Land
Farmer are notable. She was just twelve years old. They
are notable for um being good singers, and they will
have their dummy sing songs. And I think that's generally
what seems to knock people out is when this beautiful
voice comes out of that felt mouth, you know, like
Terry Fader's dummy does a rendition of Edda James that
(25:05):
last it's really something to hear and see. It's amazing. Yeah. So, um,
it's weird because you've got Edgar Bergen from the thirties
to the late fifties it was a huge heyday of ventriloquism,
and then you've got this kind of resurgence in the
two thousand, two thousand tens. But in between, it's not
(25:26):
like it ever really went away. Some of the most
recognizable um ventriloquism dummies like Lamb chop Lester, the Dummy, Madam,
Jerry Mahoney, Madam, all those came in between those two times. Yeah,
and they existed on The Gong Show and the Sunny
and Share Show, and they would make these appearances in
the boom of the seventies variety show. Sure, so it's
(25:49):
not like it ever went away. And it makes you
wonder if ventriloquism ever really will go away because for one,
as everyone to a person can agree, it's astoundingly hilarious
us the jokes are. And then secondly, to see you
truly good ventriloquists perform, it's it's something to see. It
is thrilling, is it to an extent? Yes, I think
(26:12):
that the one thing I can say that impresses me
is when it's really fast back and forth between the two,
because that is just physically impressive to me to be
able to do that and to do the hand movements
and sink it out in time. It out really right exactly.
Or if you're like the great Lester, to drink while
you're while you're vent dummy is talking. Yeah, I looked
(26:34):
into that trick. It's really making a sound. He's not talking,
the dummy isn't. But what the what they're doing is
they're not drinking. They have tricked glasses. Yeah. Wow, they
fooled me. So we talked about the Ventriloquism Museum because
we were talking about dumb Struck. But there is a museum.
(26:54):
It's a converted house in the suburbs in a subdivision
I think in in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, right across Cincinnati,
and there are I think a thousand dummies where this
is like where they live now. It's a nightmare room,
is what it is. Have you seen it. It's in
that documentary right okay, and there's pictures of it all over.
But it's a bit of a nightmare room. Um. But
(27:17):
it's really cool, especially if you're a ventriloquist. Because as
part of this saying like here, please, you know, take
care of my dummy after I die. The dummies will
be kept in good condition. They will be kept clean, washed,
behind the ears, all that stuff. But no one, no
one will animate them. It's just part of it. Not
(27:37):
even the curator of the museum can touch these things.
You can handle them, the curator can, but to to
animate them make them talk is a gross violation of
the dummy vent relationship that was created over the years. Yeah,
no other hands shall be up the butt right except
for its original owner. But I think that's fantastic. You
(28:00):
don't want to disrespect someone's dummy like that now. And
the Smithsonian article kind of put it in perspective. They said,
like nobody's just gonna come along and pick up chuck
berries guitar lucile and start strumming on it or whatever.
Where was that from Smithsonian? Because BB King has Lucille.
Oh well, they got it wrong. I got it wrong too.
There was a Smithsonian magazine article. That's weird, that's Smithsonian.
(28:23):
Thanks again, Smithsonian. Uh what was it wrong again? Gay
guy to Springfield. When I said earlier that that room
is a nightmare. Um, I wasn't disparaging dummies or event trilloquism.
There is a um, a long standing sort of thing
in pop culture that dummies are uh you know, will
(28:44):
come alive at night and kill you. Decidedly creepy when
they're just laying there on a couch or something. It
doesn't help that when they're not being animated that they're
referred to as dead. Yeah, that's laying there, floppy eyes, open,
mouth ape, and it's just creepy looking. We gotta read
this some quote from the writer um who wrote this,
(29:08):
Oh Lauren Canter. That's here. When draped across the table
or chair away from the performer, the dolls floppy limbs
resembled out of a dead body, but the eyes remain
open and the mouth is fixed with a terrifying smile,
as if the body is a poorly embalmed child corpse. Yeah,
it's decidedly creepy, so much so that it's been I mean,
(29:28):
most recently in Toy Story four. Uh have you seen
that yet? There's Benson. Benson is a is a dummy
that's every time played up like it's every time he appears.
It's like a horror movie, gives a horror movie staying
and he's in the dramatic lighting and that movie magic.
I remember when I was a kid with Anthony Hopkins
in did You Ever See Dead Silence? No? But I
(29:50):
just remember seeing that Magic trailer when I was seven
and thinking it was the scariest looking thing I've ever seen.
It was a pretty scary one, although I'll bet you
dollars to doughnuts it's probably not scary all of it.
I saw it recently. Fairly scary. Um. The scariest ventriloquism
TV show or movie of all time is an Alfred
(30:10):
Hitchcock Presents episode called The Glass Eye. Just go watch it.
Go find it on Netflix, on Prime, on Hulu, I
don't care. Just go find the Glass I think it's
season three. If Alfred Hitchcock Presents and thank me later.
It will give you chills. Is I'm getting chills right now?
Is talking about? It was genuinely scary to check that out,
(30:32):
Just beautifully done well and it sort of sets itself
up that way, and that you have a inanimate thing
that you bring to life and all you have to
do in the story is cross it in some way.
Either by forgetting about it, leaving it behind, or getting
a new one. Right. Jealousy is a big thing. Jealousy,
and then that thing comes to life and kills you
(30:52):
in your sleep. It's just it's all waiting to be
But first it starts by killing your friends and loved ones.
Oh sure, you're right, exactly. You just wake up and
your wife's gone, Your dummies in there smiling, the windows open,
that's right. Oh man, I gotta see that now, the
glass eye. I think I think we should take a
break and then we'll come back and finally talk about
(31:14):
throwing your voice. Are you okay with that? Yeah, let's
do it, Okay, all right, we've kind of hinted at
(31:40):
it a little bit, we've given a lot of it away,
but we're gonna talk about throwing your voice and again
to just come right out and say it. No matter
what you read on the internet, no matter what you've
heard from your friend, uh Jimmy, from the dummy that
talks to you at night while you're trying to sleep,
who cares. You cannot throw your voice. It's impossible to
(32:01):
make your voice come from a different location, but you
can make your voice sound like it's coming from a
different location if you're really good at it, and that's
growing your voice. Yeah, and part of the trick is
a visual illusion that happens when someone is standing there
watching a human being with a puppet and the puppets talking,
(32:23):
and you see that with your eyeballs, you are your
your brain is tricked into just believing. But again, that's
when you know the dummy is only a foot away. Anyway,
if you're an audience member two ft away, it's not
much of a leap. So the it's actually your brain
doing something. It's not you saying I'm going to decide
I decided I'm going to just go all in with
(32:43):
this Ventriloquist. Your brains actual it does. Your brain is
actually being tricked because there's something appropriately called the Ventriloquist
effect where if your eyes and your ears are telling
you two slightly different things, your brain over right over
rides your ears and goes with your eyes. So if
your eyes are telling your brain, hey, I think that
(33:05):
voice is coming from that dummy, because the dummies lips
are moving in time with the sound, the brain is
gonna be like, okay, it's coming out of the dummy,
even though your ears are like, no, it's coming a
little to the right of the dummy. Your brain says,
shut up, ears and actually overrides what your ears are
sending it and merges it with what your eyes are
(33:25):
sending it, so that you subjectively experience the sound coming
out of the dummy. And it sounds bizarre. But if
you stop and think about it, if you're watching TV
and you've just got that little speaker built into the
bottom of the TV, it's not like the sound of
people talking appears to be coming out of the speaker
in the bottom of the TV. It seems like it's
coming out of the people's lips. Same exact thing. That's
(33:48):
the ventriloquist effect. Yeah, slightly different with movies because they
actually put speakers behind the movie screen to help with
that effect. Well, the movie screen so large. But even
if you just s some jangkee TV that just has
that terrible speaker built into the bottom or the right
side or something, it's not like you're like, I can't
even follow this? What other TVs? What? What else is
(34:09):
out there that I don't know about? Don't the eldest
have speakers? Uh? No, you could have home speakers connected
to your TV, right some speakers might have the some
TV might have the speaker in the top left, right
in the bottom right. It's all over the place. It's
a free for all, gotcha. Another thing that really helps
us effect too, And this is what you want to
do anyway, if you want to get act as, you
want to really give that dummy a distinct personality from
(34:34):
your own. Uh, it should sound very different. Um, a
lot of times it's a different accent. You just really
want to put a distance between who you are and
how you talk and who that dummy is and how
they talk. Yeah, because when you when you talk like
that the first couple of times the dummy speaks, not
only is it delivering some of the funniest jokes you'll
(34:55):
ever hear in your life, it's also simultaneously training the
audience that this is what the dummy sounds like. So
when you combine the Ventriloquist effect, that your brain is
overriding what your ears are telling it with the ventriloquist
looking at the dummy while the dummies talking like, look, everybody,
this is where our attention should be focused because this
(35:15):
is who's talking. And then the dummy has its own personality.
Those things together are the magic of ventriloquism. That's what
makes ventriloquism work. That's how we come to see an
inanimate object like a dummy, speaking like a hilarious yokel.
I'm wondering what the deal is with why they're not
(35:38):
funny to me? I don't know, man, I think that
dummy may have killed like your family dog or something,
and you just block that out. I think I'm a
discerning uh comedy fan. What the deal is is? They're
not There's never been some a great comedian. It was like, man,
I am a smoking hot comedian, so let me get
a dummy up here. It's it's sort of like prop comedy,
(36:01):
I guess, and it's the most basic form. Speaking of
prop comedy, shout out to Carrot Top, who is still around.
He's got his own Vegas residences. Do you know that
didn't but doesn't surprise me. I saw him one day
on the street in Vegas, uh no, down in Florida,
just walking around. I shouted, Carrot Top. Now he's on
his mopad. I shouted Carrot Top, and he turned around
(36:22):
and sped off. Of course he did, because he threw
a rubber chicken at him. No, I just shouted carrot
and said, what could you do with this? So um,
I kind of take offense to that because I like
to consider myself pretty discerning comedy wise. You are, and
that's why I'm shocked that you do. You sit around
and watch this and you're legitimately laughing at how funny
(36:44):
it is. No, never, but I am impressed with the
skill and the the stagecraft. Been saying it's very funny. No,
I don't know if I've ever had an Eventil Chris
Dummy make me laugh? Okay, I guess I see what
you're saying now. I'm just trying to get to the
bottom of how you really feel about the jokes. You know.
(37:06):
Also shade out. Shout out to shade out, shout yeah
it is, and if it works, shout out to what
is it? Nate Burghassy, Oh, I finally saw that guy Special.
You've been talking him up because he lived up to
the hype man. He is hilarious. He's coming to Atlanta
in uh December again. Let's go. You want to go,
(37:28):
Let's go, all right, we can go backstage. Maybe, Oh
that'd be great. You might remember me. That'd be really cool.
Give me backstage. I'll try. We'll both bring our ventula
because dummies, and we'll heckle him with the dummies. Yeah, well,
we would never say. Here's the thing, I love puppets
and puppeteering. I'm like a kid in a in a
candy store when it comes to stuff like that. Have
(37:48):
you been to the Center for Puppet Tree Yards? Remember? Oh? Yeah,
we had our TV show premiere there. Yeah, I love it.
So there there's I don't know, something happens between puppets
comedy and the weird Venn diagram that is ventriloquism where
I just I can't go there. Maybe do you not
like singers and one liners Henny Youngman type stuff, because
(38:10):
that's what a lot of events, A lot of it
is very old school. Yeah, they're not. I'd like to
maybe see something a little more modern, like a Jeff Dunn.
I'm like an evening with type of comedy. I see
you want a storytelling. Oh what's the guy's name? Oh
my god, what is his name? This is not making
for good podcast? Is it a comedian? Oh? You want
(38:32):
to see Neil Hamburger doing ventrilo That would be pretty great,
that would be astounding. Is he still around. I don't know.
I mean, they had that movie a couple of years back.
I'm sure he's still around, all right, So let's talk
about how to do this, because this is the stuff
that really as a kid, I would sit around in
the mirror with that dumb record on practicing my bs f's, ms, ps,
(38:58):
vs and w's because you can't really say those letters
with your mouth closed, because when you're when you're talking
as eventual, because your mouth closed, your teeth are shut
and it's just the tip of your tongue moving back
and forth. Your tongue is actually retracted to the back
of your mouth. So it's an astounding that just that
small handful of letters are the ones that are hard
(39:19):
to pronounce. It is, But if you look at that
other long list, I mean, anyone with no training whatsoever,
you can probably get in front of a mirror and
not move their lips and go a C, D, E, G, H, I,
j K, L H O q R S t U
x z. So you're training paid off. This was the
(39:40):
moment you were training for it. But when it comes
to those other ones, and the one I really remember
was bees and ends, So you swap out d s
for bees. So instead of saying the word boy b
o y, you say doy, right, but you don't say doy,
you say yeah you try to and girls. Yeah, exactly.
(40:02):
And that's the trick, is his context. When you hear
doys and girls, your brain wants to hear boys and girls,
and uh, your brain wants to hear uh, what's another
one here? I don't wonder that one part when the
guy did Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
he did it really like, these are the ones that
(40:23):
are really good at it. You just can't see right.
And that's the thing you and I are, well, I
should say I'm not very good at it. I'm not either,
but um ventillo Christs are. And if this sounds really weird,
all you have to do is say, well, i've seemed
ventilo christ before, I've never noticed, and they would say exactly, yeah,
that's how good we are. Start listening a little bit
for peas and teas. Instead of saying the repeater, you
(40:45):
would say, teeter, take the tech of tickled tech teppers,
which sounds ridiculous. But the practice, practice, practice part, you know,
and even in that documentary, you know, some of them
were better than others even within that movie. So you
could see a master at work like Dan Horn or
the Vegas guy Terry Fader and Dan Horn. I do
(41:09):
need to shout out that everyone remarked about his articulation.
What do they call it though, just like how you
move the puppet basically not even the mouth stuff. Handwork. Yeah,
the handwork and um, the manipulation is just off the
charts for him. He really brings it to life. But yeah, yeah,
he was really really good. But then you would see
(41:30):
someone else, um, like the beauty contestant who Kimberly he
really wanted to be on the cruise ship performing and
she was okay, but you could you know she you
could hear those teas sometimes and you could hear those
bees or d's for bees. I didn't notice, well, I
was really had the headphones in and that was really
(41:53):
picking it apart. I was studying, and I think that,
I mean, it's like a magician. Some people go there
and watch the magic act and some people we'll see
there and try and figure out what they're doing. I
think some people go and they just check out and
they're like, this is the funniest dang thing I've ever seen,
and other people just stare at the lips with their
arms cross waiting to catch them. Right, it's a weird thing.
There's actually a scene like that in Dead Silence, that
(42:15):
horror movie where boys like I could see your lips
move and that boy who is who's in? That's the
lead knowing you've heard of? Okay, so although what's Donnie Wahlberg,
isn't it? He plays a cop, almost a hapless cop
who kind of alternates between like a tough guy and
a guy who can get pushed the floor easily by
(42:37):
a man who's fifty pounds lighter than him. I thought
this is an old movie, so this is he doesn't seven? Okay,
semi recently worth seeing. It actually is super scary in
a few parts Dead Silence, Dead Silence. It's a little hokey,
but it's a cult I want to say, a cult classic.
Not yet, it's a cult favorite. Give it a few years.
(42:57):
It's got a cold already, it's got a cold following,
you know, I don't know if it's a cult classic.
We should read the rest of these though, just in
case people do want to practice DS for bees for
f you use E T H as your substitution, u
ms become ends like I said, nothings instead of muffins,
(43:17):
tease like we said, become pas vs, become th h
E liked for victory. Yeah. Again, sounds ridiculous coming out
of our mouths, right, but we're talking like imagine if
you played up like an accent or it's a little
kid who has like buck teeth or something like that,
then it's explained. It makes all tricks of the trade exactly.
(43:39):
And another trick of the trade is to uh not
use those words much, right. Rewrite the sentence, yeah, rewrite
it so instead of d for boy doy just a kid. Sure,
like the Elmer Fudd rule, which was well, remember Elmer
Fudd could like he I guess, stuttered, I guess, and
then we just abandoned whatever we're we're trying to say, Oh,
(44:01):
it was porky pig, your porky pig. There's another thing
about porky pig. Remember when we were talking about Donald Duck.
How Donald Duck wore a shirt with no pants that's
actually called porky pig in it? A shirt with no pants. Yeah,
somebody walking around with just a shirt on, which I've
said before, I know this because I've mentioned in an
episode before I was it's the most horrific look a
(44:23):
man ever Donald, and somebody wrote in and so that's
actually called porky pig in it, and I'm like, that's
classic and disturbed people that well. I mean, it's like
if you're getting dressed, but who puts on their shirt
before their underwear. There's some weirdos out there who do,
or I guess a lot of people don't wear underwear.
There you go, you just figured it out. I just
(44:44):
remember the scene an Animal House when Donald Sutherland has
on that cardigan sweater and he goes and gets like
a box of cereal off the shelf, porky pigging it
and his sweater races up and you see his butt. Yeah,
it's disturbing. Oh man, not a good look. There's one
other thing on to say, we we need to get
technically here because we've been real silly. But ventriloquists when
(45:04):
they are speaking, they talk in a resonant voice, so
it's got a real hump to it, and there's a
lot of air involved that they pushed through their nose
and their closed teeth. At the same time, breathing is
very important, so they get a real resonant voice, which
is one way that they can project it. They can
make it sound like it's further away by modulating their voice.
(45:25):
And there's a ventriloquist called Paul's Arden. He won America's
Got Talent too, and he's taken it old school where
he goes out like some of the old ventriloquists who
um worked before dummies did uh and fools um hapless
bystanders into thinking somebody's crying out from a dumpster and
needs help or something like that. He's also the guy,
(45:47):
I think that it's on America's Got Talent that does
a mask on a real human. He got Howie Mandel
up there, and the lady came out and would put
a mask on Howie Mandel. And knowing how how We
Mandel is about germs, I could see him just like, yeah,
this person is putting a mask on his face with
their hands, and he was kind of like okay. But
(46:08):
then there's either a remote control or something behind him
where he moves the mouth, So Howie Mandel just has
to sit there right. He does the eventually quizit with
Howowie Mandel's moving mouth, Ye has the dummy. It's pretty hilarious.
It is. Well, if you want to know more about
ventula quis M, go practice, go figure it out. You
can do it. We know you can't. And since I
(46:30):
said you can do it, it's time for a listener mail.
Hey guys, my name is Nathan. I'm twenty eight years old.
I'm a systems engineer and Waka Shaw Wisconsin. Here's how
you pronounced Did you see that? Uh? He has a
fancy named Abby. You get married Nick August. He's been
(46:51):
listening to us for six months and he's hooked, so
he says this. I just finished the eyewitness testimony episode
and I finally have something to write in about the
movie The Twelve Angry Men. Yeah. It was made in
the nineteen fifties about a jury comprised of twelve angry men.
The movie covers a lot about prejudice, prejudice, morality, and
everything else that goes along with courtroom dramas. But one
(47:12):
of the penultimate scenes regarding eyewitness test is regarding eyewitness testimony.
I don't want to give it anything away, but it
really shows how someone can be completely confident in something
they've seen, but what might not be really what happened
when you look at the details without knowing it. The
movie challenges memory versus reality and how we're all victims
to emotion. Pretty good for a movie about a bunch
(47:33):
of white dudes uh in the nineteen fifties, I totally
suggested as a much must watch, especially with the current
climate of political affairs. To that, keep up the good work, guys.
Welcome back Jerry. II. How that guy I know? And
that's from Nathan? Did you add that? No? Wow? Well,
welcome back Jerry. Guys. Good he's heard this episode before. Well,
(47:57):
she'd been back before this, so you're late, Nathan. Okay,
it was Nathan, Nathan. Thanks a lot, and thank you
for um teaching us how to pronounce with KESHI and
hello to Abby. Good luck on that wedding. Yeah, mozle,
tough guys. UM send us the extra breadmaker or whatever
you get that you don't want, Okay, I'll take a breadmaker,
(48:18):
all right, let's do it. We'll split custody, all right.
If you want to get in touch with Chuck me
or Jerry or Frank the chair too, even um, you
can go to stuff you Should Know dot com and
follow our social links. Onto the social media's and find
us there um. You can also send us a good
old fashioned email to Stuff Podcast at i heeart radio
dot com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeart Radios.
(48:44):
How stuff works for more podcasts for my heart Radio
because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows
Hello, Maine and Greater New England. We're coming to see
you guys in Portland and we can't wait. We would
love to see you there. Yep, we'll be at the
State Theater on August. If you're interested. You can get
tickets and information at s y s K live dot com.
There's some lobster at us. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey you,
(00:28):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry, which,
by the way, we should say Jerry say hey to everybody.
That's right, Jerry's back. I think we scared everyone. I
like joked on a short stuff for one of the
recent episodes that she was gone. She's going from a
couple of episodes She's but people took it to mean
(00:50):
like Jerry was just gone. Yeah, so some people were
a little freaked up by that. So Jerry is not
going anywhere anyone. She doesn't want to as far as
we know, and we're not gonna let or even if
she does. Jerry's here, and you're here too. How are
you doing. I'm great? Neither one of us removing our lips. No,
that's how good we are. We've done this whole conversation
(01:10):
without any I mean, it's astounding what we can do
just a couple of events. We're basically like Edgar Bergen. Yeah,
that's a deep cut vent by the way, everyone, we're
probably gonna say a lot that is short for ventriloquist. Yes, uh,
And ventriloquism can be a mouthful, so I'm not gonna
(01:32):
I'm gonna try and say it as little as possible.
Ventriloquism can be as it can a mouthful and bellyful
and a mouthful. I had very mixed feelings about all
of this. Why Well, first of all, I think it
was it this that I talked about practicing ventriloquism when
(01:55):
I was a kid. Well, I don't call that. I
feel like it may have been movie crushed then, but
I definitely at one point on one of the shows
mentioned that at one point when I was a child,
I had a record ventriloquism, record really Train Yourself, and
for very briefly I thought it was something I wanted
to do, and I practiced it. Did you have your
little bow tie? No? I didn't have a yet didn't
(02:18):
have a costume. But I had a dummy and I
got a record. You had like a ventriloquist dummy. Yeah,
not a you know, not an advanced one that looks
like a cyborg when you turn it around. Sure, but
I mean like you had a dummy you could sit
on your knee and make the mouth. Yes, I always
wanted one of those. You had my dummy and it
(02:39):
didn't last long? Why not? No? I don't know. I
think I have a history in my childhood of starting
things like that and then being like man there that.
Plus the instructor on the record was really mean. I
can't even remember which one it was. I think it
was from like the sixties or something. Probably means sixties
record instructor. Yeah. But then I also, um, watch the movie,
(03:00):
you know, dumb Struck. I love that movie, and it's
just it just filled me with a lot of mixed feelings,
so because it was sad but also uplifting but also sad, yeah,
but also uplifting. Yeah. If you haven't seen the documentary
dumb Struck, you were missing out. It is a it's good, nice,
(03:21):
low fi h documentary that's really easy to to underestimate. Yeah,
And I think what I appreciated about it is they
took five stories of five and triloquists, and each of
them were at different points in their careers. From the
kid just starting out to the lady who wants nothing
(03:43):
more than to be on the cruise ship, to the
guy who was actively on the cruise ship to the
point where he killed his marriage. Yeah, well he's just
spoiling to the lady, you know, the other lady who
just she had all kinds of problems in life, Yeah,
but was also very uplifting in that her community rallied
around her, helped her out. To the big guy, Terry Fader.
(04:07):
Terry Fader, who you know is because net Worth if
you believe those sites of like a hundred and fifty
million bucks, Well, he signed a hundred million dollar deal
eight years ago with the Mirage that was for five years.
So he's he's still there, right, Okay, he hopefully negotiated
an even better deal four years ago. So I just
(04:28):
want to make sure for people who aren't aware of
Terry Fader in that deal. If you'll go back to
the beginning, we said we were talking about ventriloquists, ventriloquism.
Terry Faders the ventriloquist, and he signed the largest dollar
deal in the history of Las Vegas as a ventriloquist
at the time. But yeah, they captured that perfectly in
(04:49):
that documentary Dumbstruck. Yeah, just all the various components. And
then my whole I don't want to yuck someone's young,
but like many times, I don't find them funny. You're crazy,
And that's at the root of it, is like the
jokes weren't funny to me. Well, it's it's really they
kind of stick to that Volleyville tradition in a lot
(05:10):
of ways. And then bad jokes, yes, But then you
see the people in the audience just eating it up,
these old cruise cruisers, just like it's the best thing
in these old Vegas types that they've ever seen. So
but far be it from me to yucky yum, But
that was my emotions were all over the map ball Okay, Well,
(05:31):
I half regret suggesting this article, but at the same
time I find this delicious. So let's talk about ancient
Greece in Egypt. So um, just to make sure everybody
understands what we're talking about, Chuck Ventriloquism is where you
make it appear like a dummy is sitting on your
knee and that words are coming out of that dummy's mouth, right,
(05:54):
But doesn't have to be on your knee, No, and
it doesn't necessarily even have to be a dummy. In fact,
the earliest ones in Greece, like you were saying, even
before that, inco in Egypt Um around the Middle East,
there was accounts of ventriloquism, but they didn't say you
should have seen this ventriloquist I saw last night. He
was great. They said, you need to go see this
(06:15):
um medicine man or the soothsayer or the spiritualist, because
this guy can talk to the spirits in the tree
or in a rock or in his stomach. And that's
how ventriloquism originally got its start. It was a spiritual
practice that was essentially um scam artists. Yeah, I guess
that's a way to put it. But I mean, like
(06:37):
they were prophets and religious figures and this is one
of the things they did. Yeah, And I don't even
think we broke down really at its root. What we're
talking about, in its simplest terms, is speaking without moving
your lips basically, but there's there's a little more mustard
to it, right, But it's if you're speaking while moving
(06:58):
your lips, then you are a puppeteer. That's the distinction. Oh,
I see what you're saying. Yes, you're you're trying to
make it appear as if something else is speaking instead
of your whereas the puppeteer will just stand behind the curtain,
sure they don't care, and move their mouth like like
there's no tomorrow. Yeah, but the extra mustard I mentioned
is that, and this is frequently the case when somebody's
(07:20):
not using a dummy. A ventriloquist not only doesn't move
their mouth, they can adjust their voice to make it
sound like their voices coming from some other place away
from them. What's commonly called is throwing their voice. And
we'll talk about that later, right, But didn't that just
a I mean, they're really not throwing their voice. That's
(07:42):
just a mental trick. Yes, okay, well yes, but it's
not like they can do something with their voice to
make it sound like it's coming from a different place. No,
they can't. Well that's not the way the way I
read it was. It was just a mental trick of
believing that's happening. Like, you can't literally make your voice
sound like it's coming from a different place. So this
is this is it. Let's just talking about it now, Okay, fine, Um,
(08:05):
If you are talking to a ventriloquist and they make
it they throw their voice to make it sound like
somebody is under the bridge that you two are standing on,
if you went under the bridge, you would not hear
that voice coming from under the bridge. They can't throw
their voice, it's a terrible term for it. But they
(08:27):
can adjust their voice. They can modulate the volume, they
can make it sound muffled, they can make it sound
echoy they can make it sound like it's underwater. They
can make it sound like it's closer far away. So
that that's one component of the illusion of ventriloquism is
they can make it sound like you would expect it
to sound if there were a voice underwater, under a
(08:48):
bridge or something like I think I thought you were
talking about space and time, where it's really just a
vocal quality it is. And then combined with some other
magic that they do, some other slight of hand in
misdirection and all that, which again we'll talk about later. Yeah,
But it's the thing is too, the when you see
a ventriloquist, quote throwing their voice there generally throwing it
(09:12):
to a dummy that's about nine inches from their own voice. Yeah, typically,
so it's not something you know, no, but the original ventriloquists,
we didn't use dummies, so they were they were much
more adept at throwing their voice. Gotcha. See, So when
you went to see one of these belly prophets or whatever,
(09:35):
and they made it seem like they were speaking with
a tree, they were talking to a tree and the
tree was talking back. It sounded to the person standing
by them that the tree was talking for a number
of reasons, which we'll talk about later. That's very interesting,
I think so too. So uh b C. You can
keep talking about belly prophets. I guess we should explain
(09:56):
what that is. Um. It was literally like sometimes they
would talk to something inside their own stomach, and their
stomach was talking back. And that's where the name actually
comes from. If you talk about the Latin of the
Greek words for belly prophet or belly talker, it's ventriloquism,
ventus belly and l o q u I speak speaking
(10:19):
from the belly. That's where it comes from. Isn't that bizarre? Yeah,
but it wasn't Obviously, it wasn't an act at this point,
like an entertainment act. In fact, it was disparaged as
of the devil. And of course, you know when Christianity
came through town and the Spanish Inquisition, it was not
a good time to be a voice thrower. No, even
(10:41):
from like the earliest days of Christianity was considered a
form of necromancy, which was fostered and enabled by the devil.
So if you were a ventrilo quister, that kind of spiritualist,
you were basically Satan's minion. That's how ventriloquism was originally seen.
And there were probably a lot of people who were
killed over the centuries because in part they were ventriloquists,
(11:04):
that's right. But it eventually would become entertainment. Uh, once
everyone kind of got a little more rational and it
was like, it's not the devil, it's not Satan, and
it really transitioned to performance. But they still weren't using
the dummies at this point. No, they weren't. But I
want to I want to hit on that rational thing
(11:25):
ventriloquism was kind of rooted out as something that could
be explained through rationalism during the Enlightenment. That Enlightenment thinkers
kind of pounced on and said, here's how this works.
So remember that superstitious belief that you had that somebody
could commune with the spirits. This is how they did that,
(11:47):
so stop believing that. So that was a kind of
a tool of Enlightenment thinkers explaining ventriloquism. It's given away
all the magic tricks, basically, that's what they did. In fact,
there was a guy named Um Johann Baptiste of Las
Chapelle who wrote a five hundred and seventy two page
book exploring ventriloquism and explaining how it worked. Yeah, but
(12:08):
as far as the entertainment aspect, pre dummy the kind
of the first person named as a sixteenth century valet
to French King Francis. The first name was Louis Brabant,
and he would entertain the court there and Um, the
way it sort of came across to me was much
like a jester could poke fun at people that they
(12:30):
normally wouldn't allowed to poke fun of. This is what
this guy would do. But he would just do it
without moving his lips, and everyone thought it was hysterical.
That's the whole comic tradition of ventriloquism, is the dummy
or the imaginary character, if there wasn't a dummy, can
say things that the ventriloquists himself for herself could never
get away with. But somehow society has been like, it's
(12:53):
fine if this inanimate object says it, even though it's
really this guy saying it. We've all decided it's line
that they say it. Yeah, I haven't society. I wish
you guys could see Chuck right now. He's just been
scowling like this whole episode, that scowling. But if you know,
like that guy with a big racist act, I'm not
one of those people that's going it's really just the dummy.
(13:15):
I'm going, No, that guy is a terrible comedian. Is
that what all this is about? Jeff Dunham is a ventriloquist. No, no, no,
But I'm certainly not a part of society thinking like
that cute little dummy saying terrible things. Okay, but that
is the long standing tradition, the comedy behind ventriloquism. Yeah,
not necessarily like racist stuff or anything like that, but
(13:38):
just zingers and in stinging comments that normally the ventrilo
because we would not be able to get away with well.
And not only that, I got the feeling from watching
that documentary that it's a little bit of a therapy
for people who don't feel like they can say the
things they really want to say, so they'll say him
through the dummy. Yeah, it was remarkable. In Dumbstruck they
(13:58):
say most ventrilo ust c atly the people who go
to this convention, that that is covered in the documentary.
Where are shy people? Yeah, that surprised me. And it's
like they're the dummies, their alter ego get a little uh,
it's interesting, a little deep for sure. For sure. That's
just the kindest way I can say it. Again, I'm
not yucking the um because people are getting a lot
(14:20):
out of it. It looks like, um, anytime you have
conventions like that, it's just as interesting slice of life.
They're hanging out together. Yes, any and all conventions for sure. Yeah,
Ventriloquist convention in particular. Yeah, and it always it's good
because I feel like a lot of times these are
people that may feel like they're outsiders and that they
(14:41):
have a family when they hook up with these communities.
I see there's something great about ventral equation. I mean, heck,
I'm the one that tried it as a kid. I
was certainly into it. Do you remember the name of
your dummy m I don't think I named him, and
I didn't go by them. I think it just happened
upon my house at some point. Oh, he just showed
up at your house. That didn't creep you out at all. Well,
(15:04):
it must have been my brother that bought it, But
hope it was enough for me to get a used
record and give it a shot for two weeks. They're
really seared into your memory too, that, Yeah it was
you know, I tried pretty hard for a couple of
weeks and just couldn't get you. I got it enough.
(15:25):
I don't hate Vince at all. I'm just not someone
going it's a dummy saying those things, not a person.
I got you. Um. But this is how it went
on for a while. In Europe at least people talked
like that. Well, there were people in courts all over
Europe basically transitioning from the gesture to ventriloquists right, because
(15:46):
the Enlightenment said, look at this weird trick that all
these spiritual like soothsayers have used over the centuries, over
the millennia, you can do it too. Here's how they did.
Let's all stop believing in it. And somehow astounding it
ended up becoming a performance art. It went from a
spiritual trick to performance art that people came to appreciate.
(16:08):
But it wasn't until the seventeen fifties that the I
guess they call them dummies. Uh, you could also call
them puppets. I've seen other people call them dolls, but
it seems like dummy is the is the proper term.
But an Austrian dude named Baron Dominion started using a
little doll with a little nutcracker mouth, and he could
(16:30):
move that jaw, that lower jaw, and all of a
sudden it started to catch on. At first though they
were using tons and tons of these dolls lined up
in a row. Yeah. They went from using none to
tons of them, yeah, and it got pretty unwieldy. And
then I think everyone sort of realized what you should
really do is get a dummy, give that dummy a personality.
(16:52):
And then let that be your act, right. And it
was one guy in particular who kind of started that
event named Fred Russell, who was British in the late
nineteenth century. And I mean the fashion was to have
like as many as thirty dummies on stage and you
would act out like a scene, like a courtroom scene
or something, and the event would use their their feet
(17:14):
to control everything with pneumatics and they would jump from
character to character. It must have been amazing to see.
But Fred Russell was like, I don't feel like carding
all these people around. I'm just gonna stick to one dummy,
which was innovative. But even more innovative was that he
created a character for that dummy. Rather than just like
(17:34):
having the dummy say whatever was needed for the sketch,
he would write sketches around the character his dummy, Coster Joe.
And so he basically is known as the father of
modern ventriloquism. Yeah, and that really established the uh, the
thing where you you sell the audience and the fact
that there are two people performing and it's a buddy
(17:55):
comedy act, but one of them has his hand in
the butt of an other. Yeah, and the guy who
has his hand in the butt of the others the
straight man, and the guy who um has the hand
in his butt is the wise cracker. That's right. That's
the way that I don't think any ventrilo quis has
ever done at the opposite. Someone should try that, surely,
(18:16):
I can't believe no one has. I'm sure someone has,
I hope. So I want to hear about him. Should
we take a break? I think we should. Man, all right,
let's take a break and we'll talk about Murphy Brown
right after this, Chuck, I wanna say from me and
(18:51):
everybody who listens to stuff, you should know we're very
proud of you for going through this experience of talking
about ventrilo quism. And you're past that. The fact that
I never got very far in my venture loquism career,
that's right. And it's just a small painful moment in
my child, right, But you're working it out, man, it's
(19:11):
worth it. What you know. The other thing is I
did was I got a record that taught my bird
how to talk. Oh yeah, did it work? Yeah? She
could go Hello, Dolly, no, and she could say hello obviously.
And I taught her to do a jungle call. What
is that? Co co co co car and then she
(19:32):
would whistle, uh, do a wolf whistle like a cat call,
so you'd walk into the room and go nice. Uh.
And then one else I think it whistled Dixie. Maybe
should have done a ventuloquism routine with your bird, Dolly.
She was pretty great. Cockat deal nice not cockatoo. No,
Coca teal is the one with the big head. Yeah,
the little smaller things that fly around your house and
(19:54):
poop on everything. Oh, Cockatoo is a big, bigger yeah. Okay,
that's a big white guy that I think barretta head
the fruit loops guy. No, that's a two can I
got you so? Uh. Candice Bergen is Murphy Brown. She
is also the daughter of Edgar Bergen, who was totally insane.
(20:14):
He was not insane. He was a one of the
most popular entertainers in the country. Yeah, for decades, for
a long long time. Not just one of the most
popular ventriloquist like you said, one of the most popular entertainers,
that's right. Uh. And he did something that one would
think it's not even possible, which is to have a
ventriloquism act on the radio. But that's I mean, that's
(20:37):
a good point, Tom. She wrote this article for us,
and he says, like that really points out like the
sea change that Fred Russell brought about, where he was
writing jokes based around this character that Edgar Bergen created,
this character of UM, Charlie McCarthy and also Mortimer Snurred,
and the characters and the jokes and the dialogue and
(20:59):
the fact that he jumped back and forth between himself
and these characters. That's what people cared about because, like
you're Berkin was actually not very good at not moving
his lips. Radio is perfect for him exactly. But he
was huge on the radio for like twenty years from
this ventriloquism routine. He was a ventriloquist on the radio
for twenty years, that's right. And uh he I don't
(21:21):
think he began the tradition, but he certainly reinforced the
tradition of UM going deep with the fact that these
are little people to them, like uh, he's he's certainly
not the first or last two give them their own bedrooms,
their own beds to um, you know, be sometimes they're
buried with their dummy. He he left ten thousand dollars
(21:45):
to Charlie McCarthy and his will, he left zero to Candice. Yeah,
I mean, what do you do with that? She? Yeah,
she did a lot with it. So what does the
doll literally do with that? Oh? I see it? To me?
I thought you meant, was Candice Bergin doing? Where's that
den grand today? You? I don't know who is where
that money went? I know Kennice Bergen didn't get it. Yeah, Um,
but she grew up sitting on her father's knee and
(22:07):
Charlie McCarthy would be on the other knee, and he'd
make them talk to each other, like he'd squeeze the
back of her neck when he wanted her to talk
or whatever, or open her mouth because he would talk
for her. She had a strange childhood for sure. Was
there resentment and stuff? Do you know? I think a
little yeah, if not a lot. Well, you were talking
about the fact that the strength of the jokes so
(22:28):
had to be why he was so popular on the radio,
and that's what they point. One of them makes him
that dumb struck videos like it's got to be funny.
No matter how good you are with the lips, it's
not funny. And I kept thinking, like, alright, when is
one of these people gonna be funny. Even the big
famous ones. Yeah, no, I mean like there's even the
(22:50):
almost two eventula Quisted. Even the the blue ones, the
not as family friendly ones are still pretty family friendly
really yeah, except for a few people that really just
want to shock. Really. One one just comes to mind,
as far as I could tell, Otto and George Otto
Peterson I believe is his name, Yeah, and his dummy.
George had a just absolutely filthy ventilla quest routine and
(23:15):
Otto was the straight man and George the dummy was
the um just the total foul mouthed basically guy from
Jersey is what he was doing. But he apparently those
two hosted the Adult Video Awards two years in a row,
and after the second year they're like, you can't come back.
You've offended all of the porn actors and they don't
(23:36):
want you to come back. Well, and then the Jeff
Dunham gott you mentioned, Um, we might as well say
that this guy sells out arenas doing h characters like
Ahmed the Dead terrorist and a Mexican immigrants and all
these stereotypes. But he does it through a puppet, so
it's fine. So it's fine. So you know, he has
the Guinness Record for the stand up comedian who sold
(23:59):
the most tickets and ever and that just mind boggling. Yeah,
and he should be reclassified though, because some real stand
up comedian in second places probably deserves that award. I'm
sure Kevin Hart's like, WTF, Yeah, it's probably him, right. Um,
So you've got Jeff Duneham in the World Record Book.
You got Terry Fader with a hundred million dollar um
(24:21):
mirage deal selling out every single day. And then there's
a show called America's Got Talent one to three including
Terry Fader eventula Quist have won that show. Yeah, three
eventulo quis. So there's like a weird ventrilo quism renaissance
going on right now. Yeah, and Fader and Um, I
(24:41):
think who was the other one? Darcy Yeah, Darcy Land
Farmer are notable. She was just twelve years old. They
are notable for um being good singers, and they will
have their dummy sing songs. And I think that's generally
what seems to knock people out is when this beautiful
voice comes out of that felt mouth, you know, like
Terry Fader's dummy does a rendition of Edda James that
(25:05):
last it's really something to hear and see. It's amazing. Yeah. So, um,
it's weird because you've got Edgar Bergen from the thirties
to the late fifties it was a huge heyday of ventriloquism,
and then you've got this kind of resurgence in the
two thousand, two thousand tens. But in between, it's not
(25:26):
like it ever really went away. Some of the most
recognizable um ventriloquism dummies like Lamb chop Lester, the Dummy, Madam,
Jerry Mahoney, Madam, all those came in between those two times. Yeah,
and they existed on The Gong Show and the Sunny
and Share Show, and they would make these appearances in
the boom of the seventies variety show. Sure, so it's
(25:49):
not like it ever went away. And it makes you
wonder if ventriloquism ever really will go away because for one,
as everyone to a person can agree, it's astoundingly hilarious
us the jokes are. And then secondly, to see you
truly good ventriloquists perform, it's it's something to see. It
is thrilling, is it to an extent? Yes, I think
(26:12):
that the one thing I can say that impresses me
is when it's really fast back and forth between the two,
because that is just physically impressive to me to be
able to do that and to do the hand movements
and sink it out in time. It out really right exactly.
Or if you're like the great Lester, to drink while
you're while you're vent dummy is talking. Yeah, I looked
(26:34):
into that trick. It's really making a sound. He's not talking,
the dummy isn't. But what the what they're doing is
they're not drinking. They have tricked glasses. Yeah. Wow, they
fooled me. So we talked about the Ventriloquism Museum because
we were talking about dumb Struck. But there is a museum.
(26:54):
It's a converted house in the suburbs in a subdivision
I think in in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, right across Cincinnati,
and there are I think a thousand dummies where this
is like where they live now. It's a nightmare room,
is what it is. Have you seen it. It's in
that documentary right okay, and there's pictures of it all over.
But it's a bit of a nightmare room. Um. But
(27:17):
it's really cool, especially if you're a ventriloquist. Because as
part of this saying like here, please, you know, take
care of my dummy after I die. The dummies will
be kept in good condition. They will be kept clean, washed,
behind the ears, all that stuff. But no one, no
one will animate them. It's just part of it. Not
(27:37):
even the curator of the museum can touch these things.
You can handle them, the curator can, but to to
animate them make them talk is a gross violation of
the dummy vent relationship that was created over the years. Yeah,
no other hands shall be up the butt right except
for its original owner. But I think that's fantastic. You
(28:00):
don't want to disrespect someone's dummy like that now. And
the Smithsonian article kind of put it in perspective. They said,
like nobody's just gonna come along and pick up chuck
berries guitar lucile and start strumming on it or whatever.
Where was that from Smithsonian? Because BB King has Lucille.
Oh well, they got it wrong. I got it wrong too.
There was a Smithsonian magazine article. That's weird, that's Smithsonian.
(28:23):
Thanks again, Smithsonian. Uh what was it wrong again? Gay
guy to Springfield. When I said earlier that that room
is a nightmare. Um, I wasn't disparaging dummies or event trilloquism.
There is a um, a long standing sort of thing
in pop culture that dummies are uh you know, will
(28:44):
come alive at night and kill you. Decidedly creepy when
they're just laying there on a couch or something. It
doesn't help that when they're not being animated that they're
referred to as dead. Yeah, that's laying there, floppy eyes, open,
mouth ape, and it's just creepy looking. We gotta read
this some quote from the writer um who wrote this,
(29:08):
Oh Lauren Canter. That's here. When draped across the table
or chair away from the performer, the dolls floppy limbs
resembled out of a dead body, but the eyes remain
open and the mouth is fixed with a terrifying smile,
as if the body is a poorly embalmed child corpse. Yeah,
it's decidedly creepy, so much so that it's been I mean,
(29:28):
most recently in Toy Story four. Uh have you seen
that yet? There's Benson. Benson is a is a dummy
that's every time played up like it's every time he appears.
It's like a horror movie, gives a horror movie staying
and he's in the dramatic lighting and that movie magic.
I remember when I was a kid with Anthony Hopkins
in did You Ever See Dead Silence? No? But I
(29:50):
just remember seeing that Magic trailer when I was seven
and thinking it was the scariest looking thing I've ever seen.
It was a pretty scary one, although I'll bet you
dollars to doughnuts it's probably not scary all of it.
I saw it recently. Fairly scary. Um. The scariest ventriloquism
TV show or movie of all time is an Alfred
(30:10):
Hitchcock Presents episode called The Glass Eye. Just go watch it.
Go find it on Netflix, on Prime, on Hulu, I
don't care. Just go find the Glass I think it's
season three. If Alfred Hitchcock Presents and thank me later.
It will give you chills. Is I'm getting chills right now?
Is talking about? It was genuinely scary to check that out,
(30:32):
Just beautifully done well and it sort of sets itself
up that way, and that you have a inanimate thing
that you bring to life and all you have to
do in the story is cross it in some way.
Either by forgetting about it, leaving it behind, or getting
a new one. Right. Jealousy is a big thing. Jealousy,
and then that thing comes to life and kills you
(30:52):
in your sleep. It's just it's all waiting to be
But first it starts by killing your friends and loved ones.
Oh sure, you're right, exactly. You just wake up and
your wife's gone, Your dummies in there smiling, the windows open,
that's right. Oh man, I gotta see that now, the
glass eye. I think I think we should take a
break and then we'll come back and finally talk about
(31:14):
throwing your voice. Are you okay with that? Yeah, let's
do it, Okay, all right, we've kind of hinted at
(31:40):
it a little bit, we've given a lot of it away,
but we're gonna talk about throwing your voice and again
to just come right out and say it. No matter
what you read on the internet, no matter what you've
heard from your friend, uh Jimmy, from the dummy that
talks to you at night while you're trying to sleep,
who cares. You cannot throw your voice. It's impossible to
(32:01):
make your voice come from a different location, but you
can make your voice sound like it's coming from a
different location if you're really good at it, and that's
growing your voice. Yeah, and part of the trick is
a visual illusion that happens when someone is standing there
watching a human being with a puppet and the puppets talking,
(32:23):
and you see that with your eyeballs, you are your
your brain is tricked into just believing. But again, that's
when you know the dummy is only a foot away. Anyway,
if you're an audience member two ft away, it's not
much of a leap. So the it's actually your brain
doing something. It's not you saying I'm going to decide
I decided I'm going to just go all in with
(32:43):
this Ventriloquist. Your brains actual it does. Your brain is
actually being tricked because there's something appropriately called the Ventriloquist
effect where if your eyes and your ears are telling
you two slightly different things, your brain over right over
rides your ears and goes with your eyes. So if
your eyes are telling your brain, hey, I think that
(33:05):
voice is coming from that dummy, because the dummies lips
are moving in time with the sound, the brain is
gonna be like, okay, it's coming out of the dummy,
even though your ears are like, no, it's coming a
little to the right of the dummy. Your brain says,
shut up, ears and actually overrides what your ears are
sending it and merges it with what your eyes are
(33:25):
sending it, so that you subjectively experience the sound coming
out of the dummy. And it sounds bizarre. But if
you stop and think about it, if you're watching TV
and you've just got that little speaker built into the
bottom of the TV, it's not like the sound of
people talking appears to be coming out of the speaker
in the bottom of the TV. It seems like it's
coming out of the people's lips. Same exact thing. That's
(33:48):
the ventriloquist effect. Yeah, slightly different with movies because they
actually put speakers behind the movie screen to help with
that effect. Well, the movie screen so large. But even
if you just s some jangkee TV that just has
that terrible speaker built into the bottom or the right
side or something, it's not like you're like, I can't
even follow this? What other TVs? What? What else is
(34:09):
out there that I don't know about? Don't the eldest
have speakers? Uh? No, you could have home speakers connected
to your TV, right some speakers might have the some
TV might have the speaker in the top left, right
in the bottom right. It's all over the place. It's
a free for all, gotcha. Another thing that really helps
us effect too, And this is what you want to
do anyway, if you want to get act as, you
want to really give that dummy a distinct personality from
(34:34):
your own. Uh, it should sound very different. Um, a
lot of times it's a different accent. You just really
want to put a distance between who you are and
how you talk and who that dummy is and how
they talk. Yeah, because when you when you talk like
that the first couple of times the dummy speaks, not
only is it delivering some of the funniest jokes you'll
(34:55):
ever hear in your life, it's also simultaneously training the
audience that this is what the dummy sounds like. So
when you combine the Ventriloquist effect, that your brain is
overriding what your ears are telling it with the ventriloquist
looking at the dummy while the dummies talking like, look, everybody,
this is where our attention should be focused because this
(35:15):
is who's talking. And then the dummy has its own personality.
Those things together are the magic of ventriloquism. That's what
makes ventriloquism work. That's how we come to see an
inanimate object like a dummy, speaking like a hilarious yokel.
I'm wondering what the deal is with why they're not
(35:38):
funny to me? I don't know, man, I think that
dummy may have killed like your family dog or something,
and you just block that out. I think I'm a
discerning uh comedy fan. What the deal is is? They're
not There's never been some a great comedian. It was like, man,
I am a smoking hot comedian, so let me get
a dummy up here. It's it's sort of like prop comedy,
(36:01):
I guess, and it's the most basic form. Speaking of
prop comedy, shout out to Carrot Top, who is still around.
He's got his own Vegas residences. Do you know that
didn't but doesn't surprise me. I saw him one day
on the street in Vegas, uh no, down in Florida,
just walking around. I shouted, Carrot Top. Now he's on
his mopad. I shouted Carrot Top, and he turned around
(36:22):
and sped off. Of course he did, because he threw
a rubber chicken at him. No, I just shouted carrot
and said, what could you do with this? So um,
I kind of take offense to that because I like
to consider myself pretty discerning comedy wise. You are, and
that's why I'm shocked that you do. You sit around
and watch this and you're legitimately laughing at how funny
(36:44):
it is. No, never, but I am impressed with the
skill and the the stagecraft. Been saying it's very funny. No,
I don't know if I've ever had an Eventil Chris
Dummy make me laugh? Okay, I guess I see what
you're saying now. I'm just trying to get to the
bottom of how you really feel about the jokes. You know.
(37:06):
Also shade out. Shout out to shade out, shout yeah
it is, and if it works, shout out to what
is it? Nate Burghassy, Oh, I finally saw that guy Special.
You've been talking him up because he lived up to
the hype man. He is hilarious. He's coming to Atlanta
in uh December again. Let's go. You want to go,
(37:28):
Let's go, all right, we can go backstage. Maybe, Oh
that'd be great. You might remember me. That'd be really cool.
Give me backstage. I'll try. We'll both bring our ventula
because dummies, and we'll heckle him with the dummies. Yeah, well,
we would never say. Here's the thing, I love puppets
and puppeteering. I'm like a kid in a in a
candy store when it comes to stuff like that. Have
(37:48):
you been to the Center for Puppet Tree Yards? Remember? Oh? Yeah,
we had our TV show premiere there. Yeah, I love it.
So there there's I don't know, something happens between puppets
comedy and the weird Venn diagram that is ventriloquism where
I just I can't go there. Maybe do you not
like singers and one liners Henny Youngman type stuff, because
(38:10):
that's what a lot of events, A lot of it
is very old school. Yeah, they're not. I'd like to
maybe see something a little more modern, like a Jeff Dunn.
I'm like an evening with type of comedy. I see
you want a storytelling. Oh what's the guy's name? Oh
my god, what is his name? This is not making
for good podcast? Is it a comedian? Oh? You want
(38:32):
to see Neil Hamburger doing ventrilo That would be pretty great,
that would be astounding. Is he still around. I don't know.
I mean, they had that movie a couple of years back.
I'm sure he's still around, all right, So let's talk
about how to do this, because this is the stuff
that really as a kid, I would sit around in
the mirror with that dumb record on practicing my bs f's, ms, ps,
(38:58):
vs and w's because you can't really say those letters
with your mouth closed, because when you're when you're talking
as eventual, because your mouth closed, your teeth are shut
and it's just the tip of your tongue moving back
and forth. Your tongue is actually retracted to the back
of your mouth. So it's an astounding that just that
small handful of letters are the ones that are hard
(39:19):
to pronounce. It is, But if you look at that
other long list, I mean, anyone with no training whatsoever,
you can probably get in front of a mirror and
not move their lips and go a C, D, E, G, H, I,
j K, L H O q R S t U
x z. So you're training paid off. This was the
(39:40):
moment you were training for it. But when it comes
to those other ones, and the one I really remember
was bees and ends, So you swap out d s
for bees. So instead of saying the word boy b
o y, you say doy, right, but you don't say doy,
you say yeah you try to and girls. Yeah, exactly.
(40:02):
And that's the trick, is his context. When you hear
doys and girls, your brain wants to hear boys and girls,
and uh, your brain wants to hear uh, what's another
one here? I don't wonder that one part when the
guy did Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
he did it really like, these are the ones that
(40:23):
are really good at it. You just can't see right.
And that's the thing you and I are, well, I
should say I'm not very good at it. I'm not either,
but um ventillo Christs are. And if this sounds really weird,
all you have to do is say, well, i've seemed
ventilo christ before, I've never noticed, and they would say exactly, yeah,
that's how good we are. Start listening a little bit
for peas and teas. Instead of saying the repeater, you
(40:45):
would say, teeter, take the tech of tickled tech teppers,
which sounds ridiculous. But the practice, practice, practice part, you know,
and even in that documentary, you know, some of them
were better than others even within that movie. So you
could see a master at work like Dan Horn or
the Vegas guy Terry Fader and Dan Horn. I do
(41:09):
need to shout out that everyone remarked about his articulation.
What do they call it though, just like how you
move the puppet basically not even the mouth stuff. Handwork. Yeah,
the handwork and um, the manipulation is just off the
charts for him. He really brings it to life. But yeah, yeah,
he was really really good. But then you would see
(41:30):
someone else, um, like the beauty contestant who Kimberly he
really wanted to be on the cruise ship performing and
she was okay, but you could you know she you
could hear those teas sometimes and you could hear those
bees or d's for bees. I didn't notice, well, I
was really had the headphones in and that was really
(41:53):
picking it apart. I was studying, and I think that,
I mean, it's like a magician. Some people go there
and watch the magic act and some people we'll see
there and try and figure out what they're doing. I
think some people go and they just check out and
they're like, this is the funniest dang thing I've ever seen,
and other people just stare at the lips with their
arms cross waiting to catch them. Right, it's a weird thing.
There's actually a scene like that in Dead Silence, that
(42:15):
horror movie where boys like I could see your lips
move and that boy who is who's in? That's the
lead knowing you've heard of? Okay, so although what's Donnie Wahlberg,
isn't it? He plays a cop, almost a hapless cop
who kind of alternates between like a tough guy and
a guy who can get pushed the floor easily by
(42:37):
a man who's fifty pounds lighter than him. I thought
this is an old movie, so this is he doesn't seven? Okay,
semi recently worth seeing. It actually is super scary in
a few parts Dead Silence, Dead Silence. It's a little hokey,
but it's a cult I want to say, a cult classic.
Not yet, it's a cult favorite. Give it a few years.
(42:57):
It's got a cold already, it's got a cold following,
you know, I don't know if it's a cult classic.
We should read the rest of these though, just in
case people do want to practice DS for bees for
f you use E T H as your substitution, u
ms become ends like I said, nothings instead of muffins,
(43:17):
tease like we said, become pas vs, become th h
E liked for victory. Yeah. Again, sounds ridiculous coming out
of our mouths, right, but we're talking like imagine if
you played up like an accent or it's a little
kid who has like buck teeth or something like that,
then it's explained. It makes all tricks of the trade exactly.
(43:39):
And another trick of the trade is to uh not
use those words much, right. Rewrite the sentence, yeah, rewrite
it so instead of d for boy doy just a kid. Sure,
like the Elmer Fudd rule, which was well, remember Elmer
Fudd could like he I guess, stuttered, I guess, and
then we just abandoned whatever we're we're trying to say, Oh,
(44:01):
it was porky pig, your porky pig. There's another thing
about porky pig. Remember when we were talking about Donald Duck.
How Donald Duck wore a shirt with no pants that's
actually called porky pig in it? A shirt with no pants. Yeah,
somebody walking around with just a shirt on, which I've
said before, I know this because I've mentioned in an
episode before I was it's the most horrific look a
(44:23):
man ever Donald, and somebody wrote in and so that's
actually called porky pig in it, and I'm like, that's
classic and disturbed people that well. I mean, it's like
if you're getting dressed, but who puts on their shirt
before their underwear. There's some weirdos out there who do,
or I guess a lot of people don't wear underwear.
There you go, you just figured it out. I just
(44:44):
remember the scene an Animal House when Donald Sutherland has
on that cardigan sweater and he goes and gets like
a box of cereal off the shelf, porky pigging it
and his sweater races up and you see his butt. Yeah,
it's disturbing. Oh man, not a good look. There's one
other thing on to say, we we need to get
technically here because we've been real silly. But ventriloquists when
(45:04):
they are speaking, they talk in a resonant voice, so
it's got a real hump to it, and there's a
lot of air involved that they pushed through their nose
and their closed teeth. At the same time, breathing is
very important, so they get a real resonant voice, which
is one way that they can project it. They can
make it sound like it's further away by modulating their voice.
(45:25):
And there's a ventriloquist called Paul's Arden. He won America's
Got Talent too, and he's taken it old school where
he goes out like some of the old ventriloquists who
um worked before dummies did uh and fools um hapless
bystanders into thinking somebody's crying out from a dumpster and
needs help or something like that. He's also the guy,
(45:47):
I think that it's on America's Got Talent that does
a mask on a real human. He got Howie Mandel
up there, and the lady came out and would put
a mask on Howie Mandel. And knowing how how We
Mandel is about germs, I could see him just like, yeah,
this person is putting a mask on his face with
their hands, and he was kind of like okay. But
(46:08):
then there's either a remote control or something behind him
where he moves the mouth, So Howie Mandel just has
to sit there right. He does the eventually quizit with
Howowie Mandel's moving mouth, Ye has the dummy. It's pretty hilarious.
It is. Well, if you want to know more about
ventula quis M, go practice, go figure it out. You
can do it. We know you can't. And since I
(46:30):
said you can do it, it's time for a listener mail.
Hey guys, my name is Nathan. I'm twenty eight years old.
I'm a systems engineer and Waka Shaw Wisconsin. Here's how
you pronounced Did you see that? Uh? He has a
fancy named Abby. You get married Nick August. He's been
(46:51):
listening to us for six months and he's hooked, so
he says this. I just finished the eyewitness testimony episode
and I finally have something to write in about the
movie The Twelve Angry Men. Yeah. It was made in
the nineteen fifties about a jury comprised of twelve angry men.
The movie covers a lot about prejudice, prejudice, morality, and
everything else that goes along with courtroom dramas. But one
(47:12):
of the penultimate scenes regarding eyewitness test is regarding eyewitness testimony.
I don't want to give it anything away, but it
really shows how someone can be completely confident in something
they've seen, but what might not be really what happened
when you look at the details without knowing it. The
movie challenges memory versus reality and how we're all victims
to emotion. Pretty good for a movie about a bunch
(47:33):
of white dudes uh in the nineteen fifties, I totally
suggested as a much must watch, especially with the current
climate of political affairs. To that, keep up the good work, guys.
Welcome back Jerry. II. How that guy I know? And
that's from Nathan? Did you add that? No? Wow? Well,
welcome back Jerry. Guys. Good he's heard this episode before. Well,
(47:57):
she'd been back before this, so you're late, Nathan. Okay,
it was Nathan, Nathan. Thanks a lot, and thank you
for um teaching us how to pronounce with KESHI and
hello to Abby. Good luck on that wedding. Yeah, mozle,
tough guys. UM send us the extra breadmaker or whatever
you get that you don't want, Okay, I'll take a breadmaker,
(48:18):
all right, let's do it. We'll split custody, all right.
If you want to get in touch with Chuck me
or Jerry or Frank the chair too, even um, you
can go to stuff you Should Know dot com and
follow our social links. Onto the social media's and find
us there um. You can also send us a good
old fashioned email to Stuff Podcast at i heeart radio
dot com. Stuff you should know is production of iHeart Radios.
(48:44):
How stuff works for more podcasts for my heart Radio
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