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When he gets really excited, all 14 movable parts of the McElroy brothers' Reggie Trickpus take off wiggling. |
So, can you say
'butter' and not move your mouth?
A real lip twister. But with
tricks that go all the way back to Aesop and Aristophanes, ventriloquists can do it with a
poker face
Fiddling with
a radio atop the television set, Nacho Estrada twists the dials; it shrieks with loud
whines, pops and other grating electronic sounds. A nervous silence fills the crowded
hotel room. "Turn the thing off," I think, secretly embarrassed for the man.
But then, as he looks up and steps back, the sounds continue. He grins at me and the noise fades to a buzz, then disappears. I notice that the radio has been turned off the entire time. I've just had my first lesson in the celebrated art of "throwing" one's voice, here at the 19th Annual International Ventriloquist Convention in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Though I know he pulled a fast one, my eyes and ears still refuse to believe it.
Estrada, a Mexican-American from the Southwest, is an inveterate prankster, a standout at a convention of professional and amateur comedians and their sidekicks. Thus far at the conference, located in this small town across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, I have seen nothing of the classic ventriloquism of the 1950s. For the next three days, several hundred ventriloquists, many with a figure in tow, will wander the halls of the Drawbridge Estate, getting double takes and dropped mouths from the hotel staff and those attending more traditional meetings. Here, "vents" will learn tricks of the trade, exchange gossip and relax.
But, where, I want to know, is Charlie McCarthy, the wiseacre young Irish lad perched on a man's knee, spouting hokey puns? How about the Lamb Chop and Mortimer Snerd figures from my childhood, and dumbfaced Knucklehead Smiff and Danny O'Day?
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| "Vents"
and their figures ham it up at the 1993-19th Annual International Ventriloquist Convention. |