Just about anything with a mouth is fair game. "It used to be that the crowds would only believe the wooden characters," says veteran vent Jimmy Nelson, who, with his figure Danny O'Day, was a regular on the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1950s. Today's figures run the gamut from the cooked pig, a talking toilet, a fuzzy chicken with neon feathers and a fire-breathing dragon named Scorch, to soft Muppet-like figures, including sumo wrestlers, genies, King Tut and punked-out teenagers. Baby boomers too young to remember Edgar Bergen's famous radio act in the 1940s are watching Shari Lewis' PBS program Lamb Chop's Play-Along with their children. And a new generation of talented young vents is making its way into comedy clubs and cable programming. Ventriloquism mail-order king Clinton Detweiler believes these are the factors that have enabled his business, founded in 1934, to increase by almost 50 percent over the past two years.
While professional vents still ply more traditional venues-cruise ships, Las Vegas hotels, and comedy clubs-new venues, such as churches, corporate offices and schools, have also emerged. Gospel ventriloquism is one of the fastest growth sectors in the art-about 50 to 70 percent of his business, according to Detweiler. Liz and Dale VonSeggen run a highly successful company, One Way Street, which coordinates regional puppet festivals, and sells materials and advice to churches interested in starting their own "puppet ministries." In late 20th century lexicon, ventriloquism is a communications tool.
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| With Wendell, vent Buddy Big
Mountain brings laughs and a message about alcohol abuse to young residents of the Jemez Pueblo, near Albuquerque. Ventriloquism is also used to teach kids AIDS awareness and the Gospel. |
Take Buddy Big Mountain, who teaches antidrug messages and AIDS awareness to children and adults at tribal reservations all over the country. Born in New Jersey, he's part Mohawk, Comanche, Apache and Welsh. With his ponytail, broad shoulders and disarming grin, he affects a deadpan delivery that catches the audience off guard.
In his AIDS awareness routine, Big Mountain asks his favorite character, a soft puppet named Wendell, what he'd do if his best friend were HIV positive. "Shoot 'im? " Wendell replies. "No, " laughs Buddy. "Hang 'im? " "No, no!" says Buddy. "Hang 'im, then shoot 'im?" "No, Wendell!" Buddy then gives Wendell the facts about how the disease is-and is not-transmitted, and later tells me, "They laugh now, but you hope they'll think about the problem later."
Vent Dale Brown, with his figure, Chip Martin, finds the same thing performing his corporate gigs. With a mix of education and entertainment, he can roast the CEOs of America's top companies while they're watching from the front row. It boils down to what the Greek fabulist Aesop achieved: by telling metaphorical or moral parables through the mouths of animals, he was able to give advice to the king without appearing to do so. This technique often strikes deep chords. One of America's most successful vents, Ronn Lucas believes that ventriloquism interests us because of the vents' knack for picking up the different voices floating around in our heads. And because of their ability to play on the ways we fragment our own lives, talking differently to our mothers, fathers, friends, bosses and children.