At first I was intrigued by the idea of Comedy Central airing a ventriloquism act. It’s been a while since those were popular — it reminds me of the days of variety shows. It seems like you could really modernize the concept and have some fun with it. I thought it has the potential to be funny, albeit childish. So I watched the Jeff Dunham: Spark of Insanity show on TV.

I was extremely disappointed. This Jeff guy is not all that funny in the first place. He does some preliminary stand-up before he brings out the puppets, and I have to say, it just doesn’t do it for me. He’s one of those comics that will make some sort of amusing but trite observation about something and calls that a joke (the “new wave” of comedy, coming fresh to your home since Jerry Seinfeld first became popular — in the late 80′s). Granted, the jokes are amusing, but I’m being generous using that word. It’s just all been done before.

One of the things that stands out to me as a sign of a good stand-up comic is how they react to a joke not going over well. A lot of comics just say something like, “Hello? Are you listening?” or “Well that didn’t go over well.” The problem with Jeff is that he laughs at all of his own jokes (which works on some level when the puppets are making the joke, but ventriloquists are better off playing the straight man or it makes the act look like a bad sitcom where everyone is just standing around waiting to say their line which is a painfully obvious setup for the next punchline). So when the audience is only slightly laughing, he just continues to enjoy his own joke by smiling and looking away from the audience “regaining his composure,” I suppose. The audience (easily-amused and easily-persuaded as they are) usually feels a bit of collective awkwardness, which causes them to reevaluate the joke a bit, and they usually think “Oh, maybe that WAS funny” and start laughing as well. You’d be surprised how many “big laughs” he coerces out of them in just this manner. If he’s really lucky, sometimes he even gets them to start hooting and clapping this way as modern audiences do to show that they approve and are aware how “brilliant” he is. Of course he revels in it in his quiet, smiley sort of way. He milks every joke he tells — he just sits there and waits until it’s funny. It serves as further proof to me that todays comics are not as interested in performing a show well or having truly funny and original material as they are making people like them. After the show when people are deciding whether or not they enjoyed the show they think to themselves, “well I did laugh a lot.” Most comics seem like the biggest bunch of friendless approval-hogs. Jeff is their leader.

This is all going on throughout the show even while he has the puppets out. Now never mind the idea that the simple concept of telling jokes with dolls might seem a bit goofy to the 21st-century mind. The puppets, while colorful and seemingly well made to my untrained eye (although they are not entirely free from malfunction), are not funny. Most are based on unimaginative, overworked stereotypes, or at least a twist on such (“what about an Arabian character…. who’s dead!”). Of course there’s a hillbilly/redneck and a grumpy old white guy who makes jokes about how much he hates his wife (never seen that before!). The voices work, and he certainly has a talent of switching between his and the puppets’ easily, I’ll give him that. But, come ON! The jokes are just PATHETIC and so obvious, they borderline complete banality.

The only explanation I can think of as to why Jeff Dunham is doing this is that he was originally a stand-up comic doing the local scene. He just plain sucked so he decided to spice up his act one day and go to ventriloquist school. Somebody with connections to Comedy Central saw him and thought “Wow! This guy truly has a funny bit!” Frankly, I don’t know how people like this make it out of crappy Vegas shows.

It is amazing what stereotypes you can get away with simply by turning the object of your insults into a puppet. José the Jalapeño and Achmed the Terrorist and his pimp character are easy targets playing on the stereotypes of our culture. Heck, even Walter is the kind of age discrimination that limits our understanding of the senior set. If he were to tell his jokes without a puppet, he would be booed off stage like Michael Richards screaming “N*gger”. This DVD is only for those willing to embrace their inner racist.

I turned this video off after the first 10 minutes realizing that it was not at all my sense of humor or funny. Right away it’s clear this guy is not interesting or topical or unique. Dont waste you time.