Review: Biography: Jeff Dunham – Talking Heads

Joining the world of missing persons and she was.

Today, ventriloquism is a medium that is super hot all over the world. This once long-forgotten art form has just recently given us a slew of outstanding performances on the Got Talent global brand that has brought home quite a few winners like Terry Fator, Darci Lynne, and Paul Zerdin for us here in the States has certainly helped satiate our appetite for live-puppet performances. Back in the late eighties through the early nineties, it was a completely different story. In America, we really just have had two that became somewhat household names, Otto & George, and Jeff Dunham. While the former would be the de-facto act of it’s variety in the NYC tri-state area, the latter’s story on how he became the most successful in the genre is nothing short of the stuff that makes opportunism great.

A&E’s Biography: Jeff Dunham – Talking Heads does an enthralling job of showing us the highs and lows of Jeff Dunham. Going from being a silly kid from Texas to international stardom is no simple task, and for two-hours we get a not-so rosy journey of getting to the top. By far the most devastating portion of his journey, an interview from a pre-FOX News Bill O’Reilly, helps set the stage for laughs, cries, shouts of congratulations, and triumph. It’s hard to fathom sometimes how people got famous before the internet, but in this tale that features interviews from the likes of Jeff’s super-great management team, his friends, Howie Mandel, and even Jay Leno, we get the full ride of Jeff’s career whether it was he trying to get on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the development of his characters which quickly lead to the international controversy that was Achmed, and the raising of a family while spending most of his early days on the road, Jeff’s story is not unlike some of comedy’s great legends that have come before him, but are an important keepsake in this era of “quick-fame” that is dependent on social media which ends up being just as fleeting. I get asked all the time, “How can I get my brand out there?” Jeff’s story of how he involved the audience in his clubbing days and even personally mailing out newsletters in cities that he was performing in so as to build that following from scratch that would pay dividends years later. That’s the type of hard work and determination that gets you to playing in sold-out arenas the world-over.

If you’re someone interested in a fascinating tale of resurrecting the ventriloquism medium coupled with the not-so-easy road to stardom this is a great watch. My only downfall with the two-hour doc is that we only spend a short amount of time in Jeff’s hometown with shots at him performing in his alma mater and revisiting his childhood home. I would’ve liked to have seen him dig a bit more and maybe visit his old college haunts and such, but these are otherwise small gripes in one of the most harrowing documentaries of 2019.