Comedian Jeff Dunham’s on his new Bio Pic

Love him or hate him, you have to give comedian Jeff Dunham his due. For the past two years, he has been the top-grossing comedian in the world, while clips of his performances have well over a quarter of a billion hits on Youtube. Tonight, BioChannel salutes Dunham with his first Biography special, Jeff Dunham: Birth of a Dummy. To help promote the special, Dunham took time out of his busy schedule to sit down with New Raleigh for a few moments and discuss his life and career.

New Raleigh: So, Birth of a Dummy is the best title Bio could come up with, huh?

Jeff Dunham: (laughs) Well, the reason they did that is because they follow me around as I build a new character for my act. They thought it was cute.

NR: What can we expect from your special?

JD: What's interesting is that, with most biographies, the big question is, "How was this person able to overcome so much tragedy?" With my life, the only dirt they could dig up was that I was divorced a few years ago. "Oh my gosh, how did he live through that?!?" There's no cocaine addiction, there are no DUIs where I ran someone over one night on the way home; there is no real garbage in my past to make it that interesting. They were basically stuck interviewing my family members, friends, old girlfriends, anyone that could tell them that I have always known what I wanted to do with my life; I always pursued that one thing; and I never quit.

NR: I had an opportunity a couple of years ago to interview Louis CK, and when discussing other comics' success stories, he said, "Jeff Dunham deserves every nice thing that is happening for him now." He mentioned how, when he was first starting out, every time he would play some rundown bar or bowling alley your picture would always be on the wall, because you had played there a dozen times before.

JD: Yeah, the late 80s were horrible for comedy. At that point, any Holiday Inn could just put up a spotlight and a riser and suddenly it was a comedy club.

NR: While it's clear that there is a large segment of comedy fans that don't care for your act, it must be nice to know that you have the respect of your peers, as Louis' quote points out and being cast on 30 Rock for a guest spot by Tina Fey seemingly shows.

JD: It was tough at the beginning of my career. I would find epitaphs written about me on the walls of the green rooms of the clubs I would perform in. No one thought a ventriloquist was a real comedian, so it was a little hard for some to take. It's nice to hear kind words from your peers, even if they're secondhand, because the trouble with being a headliner is you never see other headliners because you both are always working at the same time.

NR: Let's discuss your pre-headliner days. When did you break into comedy?

JD: I started working on my ventriloquism at 8, and I started working local comedy clubs a little before college, 1980-81. During college I would take the summers off and travel to any clubs that would take me in the middle 80s. In 1988 I finally moved to Los Angeles and really pursued it on a 24/7 basis. I don't know when that official "breaking in" time was; it was just a slow, constant work schedule.

NR: It seems that ventroliquism was always a part of your life as a child. Was it just a hobby, your version of comic book collecting, that somehow became much bigger?

JD: No, it was always more than a hobby. Even as a child I knew that this was what I would be doing as an adult, that I wouldn't be in real estate, I would be doing this for a living when I grew up. I knew I would be on stage with a dummy, but even at that early age I wasn't shooting for the middle; I didn't want to be performing at Kiwanis clubs for the rest of my life.

NR: At what point in your career did you realize that you had made it?

JD: To be honest with you, I have no idea what that means. If we are talking monetarily, I was pulling down $70,000 working churches and such just on the weekends while still in college, so I realized I was on the right track. Really though, is having "made it" when you can't go to the grocery store without being swamped by people? If so, I'm not there yet.

Jeff Dunham: Birth of a Dummy premieres tonight on BioChannel at 8pm, with the special being reran throughout the week. Bio can be found locally on Time Warner Cable on channels 266 and 1266. For a more detailed schedule of upcoming airings, visit biography.com.

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Entertainment , Other posts by Isaac Weeks.