Review: Jeff Dunham: Beside Himself

In Jeff Dunham’s latest special, you can tell some of his little guys have been around the block a few times. During the course of his new hour on Netflix entitled Jeff Dunham: Beside Himself, “Peanut” starts to come apart during his routine right before Jeff tosses him across the stage followed soon by Achmed’s body falling apart! But, make no mistake, every one of Jeff’s puppets, save for the new one “Larry” who had debuted this evening (more on him later) is given the superstar treatment. Big booming WWE style entrances, crowd participation in the “hit” jokes, and you can’t help but wonder why a TV show of all these characters hasn’t been ordered in this day and age.

In terms of subject matter, Jeff goes to a lot of different places this go ’round. In fact, the first 10 minutes is Jeff minus the puppets which I actually found both enjoyable and crucial for laying the foundation of several recurring gags throughout the hour like Jeff getting pink eye from his dog-asshole picking children. Later, we get Jeff’s very sound take on the increasing rise of political correctness (which no one in the 10,000 seated Dallas arena was interested in hearing about and even egged Jeff on to take more chances, especially with the return of “Jose”) and the oxymoronic notion that those who tag everybody who is white as being racist. And on almost on cue, Jeff even states, “there are news outlets at home that 100% disagree with the 10,000 laughings tonight”, which if I didn’t know any better was a foreshadowing of what eventually happened with Dave Chappelle’s most recent and brilliant special Sticks & Stones despite the fact that THIS special was taped in June.

And yes, we get numerous bits about politics, though Jeff is careful not to totally invest in either side of the argument and instead pokes fun both ways that certainly gets the crowd united in chastising their common enemy, the faceless internet. “Larry” is Dunham’s tool for talking about Trump and while he doesn’t stick around for long and is possibly a clone of “Peanut” in more ways than one, he gets his point across even if he kind of bombs on the crowd. Speaking of bombings, “Achmed” is still aces as is “Peanut”, but I think I would’ve been okay if Jeff had left Bubba Jay at home this go ’round.

In any event, Jeff still shows a solid prowess when he’s on stage. His characters are hilarious still and well-known and at the end of the day, the crowds want to hear a selection of songs they’ve heard a bunch of times before no matter how many times they’ve heard them. But the fact that some of those guys are literally falling apart is any indication, it might be time to inject some new blood.