WEBVTT - How Ventriloquism Works 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:03.760 Hello, Maine and Greater New England. We're coming to see 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:06.360 you guys in Portland and we can't wait. We would 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:07.960 love to see you there. Yep, we'll be at the 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:11.119 State Theater on August. If you're interested. You can get 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:15.200 tickets and information at s y s K live dot com. 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:19.360 There's some lobster at us. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:28.240 a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey you, 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:30.840 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:34.120 Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, and there's Jerry, which, 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:37.200 by the way, we should say Jerry say hey to everybody. 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:42.040 That's right, Jerry's back. I think we scared everyone. I 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.320 like joked on a short stuff for one of the 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.440 recent episodes that she was gone. She's going from a 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:50.279 couple of episodes She's but people took it to mean 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.360 like Jerry was just gone. Yeah, so some people were 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.520 a little freaked up by that. So Jerry is not 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.279 going anywhere anyone. She doesn't want to as far as 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.480 we know, and we're not gonna let or even if 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.960 she does. Jerry's here, and you're here too. How are 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.880 you doing. I'm great? Neither one of us removing our lips. No, 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.600 that's how good we are. We've done this whole conversation 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.800 without any I mean, it's astounding what we can do 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:19.800 just a couple of events. We're basically like Edgar Bergen. Yeah, 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.360 that's a deep cut vent by the way, everyone, we're 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:28.720 probably gonna say a lot that is short for ventriloquist. Yes, uh, 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.559 And ventriloquism can be a mouthful, so I'm not gonna 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:34.520 I'm gonna try and say it as little as possible. 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:39.520 Ventriloquism can be as it can a mouthful and bellyful 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:46.160 and a mouthful. I had very mixed feelings about all 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:50.480 of this. Why Well, first of all, I think it 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.320 was it this that I talked about practicing ventriloquism when 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:57.720 I was a kid. Well, I don't call that. I 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.640 feel like it may have been movie crushed then, but 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.040 I definitely at one point on one of the shows 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.440 mentioned that at one point when I was a child, 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.320 I had a record ventriloquism, record really Train Yourself, and 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.440 for very briefly I thought it was something I wanted 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.320 to do, and I practiced it. Did you have your 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.440 little bow tie? No? I didn't have a yet didn't 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.600 have a costume. But I had a dummy and I 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.520 got a record. You had like a ventriloquist dummy. Yeah, 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.640 not a you know, not an advanced one that looks 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.080 like a cyborg when you turn it around. Sure, but 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:33.639 I mean like you had a dummy you could sit 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.520 on your knee and make the mouth. Yes, I always 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.400 wanted one of those. You had my dummy and it 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.239 didn't last long? Why not? No? I don't know. I 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.680 think I have a history in my childhood of starting 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.040 things like that and then being like man there that. 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:51.600 Plus the instructor on the record was really mean. I 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:53.080 can't even remember which one it was. I think it 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.280 was from like the sixties or something. Probably means sixties 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.960 record instructor. Yeah. But then I also, um, watch the movie, 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.959 you know, dumb Struck. I love that movie, and it's 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.040 just it just filled me with a lot of mixed feelings, 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:13.400 so because it was sad but also uplifting but also sad, yeah, 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.920 but also uplifting. Yeah. If you haven't seen the documentary 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:21.600 dumb Struck, you were missing out. It is a it's good, nice, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:29.639 low fi h documentary that's really easy to to underestimate. Yeah, 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:31.560 And I think what I appreciated about it is they 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:36.080 took five stories of five and triloquists, and each of 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:40.360 them were at different points in their careers. From the 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.800 kid just starting out to the lady who wants nothing 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.080 more than to be on the cruise ship, to the 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.800 guy who was actively on the cruise ship to the 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:51.440 point where he killed his marriage. Yeah, well he's just 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.960 spoiling to the lady, you know, the other lady who 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.720 just she had all kinds of problems in life, Yeah, 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.480 but was also very uplifting in that her community rallied 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:06.880 around her, helped her out. To the big guy, Terry Fader. 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:10.040 Terry Fader, who you know is because net Worth if 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.920 you believe those sites of like a hundred and fifty 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:16.000 million bucks, Well, he signed a hundred million dollar deal 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.919 eight years ago with the Mirage that was for five years. 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.880 So he's he's still there, right, Okay, he hopefully negotiated 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.960 an even better deal four years ago. So I just 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:29.919 want to make sure for people who aren't aware of 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.880 Terry Fader in that deal. If you'll go back to 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.880 the beginning, we said we were talking about ventriloquists, ventriloquism. 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:42.760 Terry Faders the ventriloquist, and he signed the largest dollar 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:47.000 deal in the history of Las Vegas as a ventriloquist 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.840 at the time. But yeah, they captured that perfectly in 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:53.400 that documentary Dumbstruck. Yeah, just all the various components. And 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:57.920 then my whole I don't want to yuck someone's young, 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:02.039 but like many times, I don't find them funny. You're crazy, 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:03.640 And that's at the root of it, is like the 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.920 jokes weren't funny to me. Well, it's it's really they 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.360 kind of stick to that Volleyville tradition in a lot 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.680 of ways. And then bad jokes, yes, But then you 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.880 see the people in the audience just eating it up, 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.880 these old cruise cruisers, just like it's the best thing 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.680 in these old Vegas types that they've ever seen. So 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.640 but far be it from me to yucky yum, But 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.360 that was my emotions were all over the map ball Okay, Well, 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:36.520 I half regret suggesting this article, but at the same 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.920 time I find this delicious. So let's talk about ancient 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.880 Greece in Egypt. So um, just to make sure everybody 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.520 understands what we're talking about, Chuck Ventriloquism is where you 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.440 make it appear like a dummy is sitting on your 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:54.640 knee and that words are coming out of that dummy's mouth, right, 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:56.400 But doesn't have to be on your knee, No, and 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:58.640 it doesn't necessarily even have to be a dummy. In fact, 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.960 the earliest ones in Greece, like you were saying, even 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.679 before that, inco in Egypt Um around the Middle East, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.160 there was accounts of ventriloquism, but they didn't say you 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.520 should have seen this ventriloquist I saw last night. He 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.120 was great. They said, you need to go see this 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.480 um medicine man or the soothsayer or the spiritualist, because 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.440 this guy can talk to the spirits in the tree 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.160 or in a rock or in his stomach. And that's 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.440 how ventriloquism originally got its start. It was a spiritual 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:35.359 practice that was essentially um scam artists. Yeah, I guess 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.120 that's a way to put it. But I mean, like 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.400 they were prophets and religious figures and this is one 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.400 of the things they did. Yeah, And I don't even 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:46.560 think we broke down really at its root. What we're 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.800 talking about, in its simplest terms, is speaking without moving 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.400 your lips basically, but there's there's a little more mustard 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.960 to it, right, But it's if you're speaking while moving 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:02.880 your lips, then you are a puppeteer. That's the distinction. Oh, 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.200 I see what you're saying. Yes, you're you're trying to 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.680 make it appear as if something else is speaking instead 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.400 of your whereas the puppeteer will just stand behind the curtain, 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.120 sure they don't care, and move their mouth like like 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.720 there's no tomorrow. Yeah, but the extra mustard I mentioned 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.480 is that, and this is frequently the case when somebody's 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:24.600 not using a dummy. A ventriloquist not only doesn't move 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.760 their mouth, they can adjust their voice to make it 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:32.720 sound like their voices coming from some other place away 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.560 from them. What's commonly called is throwing their voice. And 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.440 we'll talk about that later, right, But didn't that just 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.000 a I mean, they're really not throwing their voice. That's 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.000 just a mental trick. Yes, okay, well yes, but it's 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:46.600 not like they can do something with their voice to 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.120 make it sound like it's coming from a different place. No, 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:51.800 they can't. Well that's not the way the way I 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:53.960 read it was. It was just a mental trick of 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.320 believing that's happening. Like, you can't literally make your voice 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.400 sound like it's coming from a different place. So this 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.400 is this is it. Let's just talking about it now, Okay, fine, Um, 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.880 If you are talking to a ventriloquist and they make 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:12.040 it they throw their voice to make it sound like 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.320 somebody is under the bridge that you two are standing on, 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.400 if you went under the bridge, you would not hear 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.720 that voice coming from under the bridge. They can't throw 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.320 their voice, it's a terrible term for it. But they 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.440 can adjust their voice. They can modulate the volume, they 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:32.560 can make it sound muffled, they can make it sound 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.280 echoy they can make it sound like it's underwater. They 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:37.959 can make it sound like it's closer far away. So 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:42.439 that that's one component of the illusion of ventriloquism is 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.880 they can make it sound like you would expect it 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.319 to sound if there were a voice underwater, under a 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.120 bridge or something like I think I thought you were 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:54.319 talking about space and time, where it's really just a 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.600 vocal quality it is. And then combined with some other 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.559 magic that they do, some other slight of hand in 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:05.400 misdirection and all that, which again we'll talk about later. Yeah, 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.760 But it's the thing is too, the when you see 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:12.160 a ventriloquist, quote throwing their voice there generally throwing it 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:16.320 to a dummy that's about nine inches from their own voice. Yeah, typically, 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.200 so it's not something you know, no, but the original ventriloquists, 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.760 we didn't use dummies, so they were they were much 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:30.440 more adept at throwing their voice. Gotcha. See, So when 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.200 you went to see one of these belly prophets or whatever, 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:37.160 and they made it seem like they were speaking with 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.280 a tree, they were talking to a tree and the 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.040 tree was talking back. It sounded to the person standing 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.160 by them that the tree was talking for a number 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.600 of reasons, which we'll talk about later. That's very interesting, 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.679 I think so too. So uh b C. You can 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:56.800 keep talking about belly prophets. I guess we should explain 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.560 what that is. Um. It was literally like sometimes they 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:04.080 would talk to something inside their own stomach, and their 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.200 stomach was talking back. And that's where the name actually 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.839 comes from. If you talk about the Latin of the 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.200 Greek words for belly prophet or belly talker, it's ventriloquism, 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:19.040 ventus belly and l o q u I speak speaking 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:23.760 from the belly. That's where it comes from. Isn't that bizarre? Yeah, 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.000 but it wasn't Obviously, it wasn't an act at this point, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.719 like an entertainment act. In fact, it was disparaged as 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.480 of the devil. And of course, you know when Christianity 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.040 came through town and the Spanish Inquisition, it was not 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.280 a good time to be a voice thrower. No, even 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.400 from like the earliest days of Christianity was considered a 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:49.040 form of necromancy, which was fostered and enabled by the devil. 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.880 So if you were a ventrilo quister, that kind of spiritualist, 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:56.640 you were basically Satan's minion. That's how ventriloquism was originally seen. 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:58.839 And there were probably a lot of people who were 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.760 killed over the centuries because in part they were ventriloquists, 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.559 that's right. But it eventually would become entertainment. Uh, once 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:13.800 everyone kind of got a little more rational and it 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.679 was like, it's not the devil, it's not Satan, and 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:21.199 it really transitioned to performance. But they still weren't using 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.480 the dummies at this point. No, they weren't. But I 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:25.200 want to I want to hit on that rational thing 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:31.360 ventriloquism was kind of rooted out as something that could 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:36.199 be explained through rationalism during the Enlightenment. That Enlightenment thinkers 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.320 kind of pounced on and said, here's how this works. 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.240 So remember that superstitious belief that you had that somebody 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.079 could commune with the spirits. This is how they did that, 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.199 so stop believing that. So that was a kind of 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:54.400 a tool of Enlightenment thinkers explaining ventriloquism. It's given away 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:57.080 all the magic tricks, basically, that's what they did. In fact, 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:00.240 there was a guy named Um Johann Baptiste of Las 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:03.960 Chapelle who wrote a five hundred and seventy two page 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:08.800 book exploring ventriloquism and explaining how it worked. Yeah, but 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.440 as far as the entertainment aspect, pre dummy the kind 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.600 of the first person named as a sixteenth century valet 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:21.080 to French King Francis. The first name was Louis Brabant, 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.160 and he would entertain the court there and Um, the 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.640 way it sort of came across to me was much 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:30.040 like a jester could poke fun at people that they 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.760 normally wouldn't allowed to poke fun of. This is what 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:34.880 this guy would do. But he would just do it 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:37.160 without moving his lips, and everyone thought it was hysterical. 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:42.360 That's the whole comic tradition of ventriloquism, is the dummy 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.600 or the imaginary character, if there wasn't a dummy, can 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:49.079 say things that the ventriloquists himself for herself could never 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:53.280 get away with. But somehow society has been like, it's 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.800 fine if this inanimate object says it, even though it's 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.240 really this guy saying it. We've all decided it's line 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.840 that they say it. Yeah, I haven't society. I wish 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:06.839 you guys could see Chuck right now. He's just been 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.839 scowling like this whole episode, that scowling. But if you know, 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.360 like that guy with a big racist act, I'm not 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.600 one of those people that's going it's really just the dummy. 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:17.480 I'm going, No, that guy is a terrible comedian. Is 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.280 that what all this is about? Jeff Dunham is a ventriloquist. No, no, no, 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.480 But I'm certainly not a part of society thinking like 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.880 that cute little dummy saying terrible things. Okay, but that 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:34.400 is the long standing tradition, the comedy behind ventriloquism. Yeah, 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.480 not necessarily like racist stuff or anything like that, but 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:43.640 just zingers and in stinging comments that normally the ventrilo 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.160 because we would not be able to get away with well. 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.000 And not only that, I got the feeling from watching 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.200 that documentary that it's a little bit of a therapy 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:53.679 for people who don't feel like they can say the 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.000 things they really want to say, so they'll say him 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:58.880 through the dummy. Yeah, it was remarkable. In Dumbstruck they 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.360 say most ventrilo ust c atly the people who go 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.960 to this convention, that that is covered in the documentary. 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.199 Where are shy people? Yeah, that surprised me. And it's 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:12.800 like they're the dummies, their alter ego get a little uh, 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.880 it's interesting, a little deep for sure. For sure. That's 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:18.480 just the kindest way I can say it. Again, I'm 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.840 not yucking the um because people are getting a lot 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:24.160 out of it. It looks like, um, anytime you have 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:28.400 conventions like that, it's just as interesting slice of life. 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:33.360 They're hanging out together. Yes, any and all conventions for sure. Yeah, 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.200 Ventriloquist convention in particular. Yeah, and it always it's good 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:38.920 because I feel like a lot of times these are 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:41.640 people that may feel like they're outsiders and that they 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.440 have a family when they hook up with these communities. 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.400 I see there's something great about ventral equation. I mean, heck, 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.000 I'm the one that tried it as a kid. I 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:52.960 was certainly into it. Do you remember the name of 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.240 your dummy m I don't think I named him, and 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.280 I didn't go by them. I think it just happened 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.400 upon my house at some point. Oh, he just showed 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.040 up at your house. That didn't creep you out at all. Well, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:06.560 it must have been my brother that bought it, But 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.760 hope it was enough for me to get a used 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:15.120 record and give it a shot for two weeks. They're 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.360 really seared into your memory too, that, Yeah it was 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:20.880 you know, I tried pretty hard for a couple of 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.920 weeks and just couldn't get you. I got it enough. 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.040 I don't hate Vince at all. I'm just not someone 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.200 going it's a dummy saying those things, not a person. 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:35.160 I got you. Um. But this is how it went 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.520 on for a while. In Europe at least people talked 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:41.280 like that. Well, there were people in courts all over 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:46.280 Europe basically transitioning from the gesture to ventriloquists right, because 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.840 the Enlightenment said, look at this weird trick that all 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.800 these spiritual like soothsayers have used over the centuries, over 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.640 the millennia, you can do it too. Here's how they did. 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.600 Let's all stop believing in it. And somehow astounding it 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.680 ended up becoming a performance art. It went from a 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.960 spiritual trick to performance art that people came to appreciate. 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:12.560 But it wasn't until the seventeen fifties that the I 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:15.360 guess they call them dummies. Uh, you could also call 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.640 them puppets. I've seen other people call them dolls, but 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.360 it seems like dummy is the is the proper term. 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:27.120 But an Austrian dude named Baron Dominion started using a 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.400 little doll with a little nutcracker mouth, and he could 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:33.960 move that jaw, that lower jaw, and all of a 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.240 sudden it started to catch on. At first though they 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:39.240 were using tons and tons of these dolls lined up 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.360 in a row. Yeah. They went from using none to 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.840 tons of them, yeah, and it got pretty unwieldy. And 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.200 then I think everyone sort of realized what you should 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.960 really do is get a dummy, give that dummy a personality. 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.120 And then let that be your act, right. And it 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:57.440 was one guy in particular who kind of started that 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.840 event named Fred Russell, who was British in the late 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:05.480 nineteenth century. And I mean the fashion was to have 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:09.000 like as many as thirty dummies on stage and you 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.320 would act out like a scene, like a courtroom scene 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:14.720 or something, and the event would use their their feet 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:18.080 to control everything with pneumatics and they would jump from 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.480 character to character. It must have been amazing to see. 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.200 But Fred Russell was like, I don't feel like carding 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:25.639 all these people around. I'm just gonna stick to one dummy, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.680 which was innovative. But even more innovative was that he 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:34.200 created a character for that dummy. Rather than just like 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.159 having the dummy say whatever was needed for the sketch, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.560 he would write sketches around the character his dummy, Coster Joe. 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:45.399 And so he basically is known as the father of 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:50.480 modern ventriloquism. Yeah, and that really established the uh, the 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.240 thing where you you sell the audience and the fact 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:55.720 that there are two people performing and it's a buddy 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.159 comedy act, but one of them has his hand in 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.360 the butt of an other. Yeah, and the guy who 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:03.200 has his hand in the butt of the others the 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.320 straight man, and the guy who um has the hand 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.920 in his butt is the wise cracker. That's right. That's 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.479 the way that I don't think any ventrilo quis has 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.400 ever done at the opposite. Someone should try that, surely, 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.040 I can't believe no one has. I'm sure someone has, 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.040 I hope. So I want to hear about him. Should 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:23.399 we take a break? I think we should. Man, all right, 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.280 let's take a break and we'll talk about Murphy Brown 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:51.200 right after this, Chuck, I wanna say from me and 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.000 everybody who listens to stuff, you should know we're very 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.080 proud of you for going through this experience of talking 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:02.200 about ventrilo quism. And you're past that. The fact that 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.320 I never got very far in my venture loquism career, 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.320 that's right. And it's just a small painful moment in 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:11.920 my child, right, But you're working it out, man, it's 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:13.760 worth it. What you know. The other thing is I 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:15.880 did was I got a record that taught my bird 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:20.000 how to talk. Oh yeah, did it work? Yeah? She 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:24.640 could go Hello, Dolly, no, and she could say hello obviously. 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.840 And I taught her to do a jungle call. What 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:32.040 is that? Co co co co car and then she 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.640 would whistle, uh, do a wolf whistle like a cat call, 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.679 so you'd walk into the room and go nice. Uh. 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:41.680 And then one else I think it whistled Dixie. Maybe 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:45.399 should have done a ventuloquism routine with your bird, Dolly. 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.280 She was pretty great. Cockat deal nice not cockatoo. No, 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:51.920 Coca teal is the one with the big head. Yeah, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.399 the little smaller things that fly around your house and 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:58.359 poop on everything. Oh, Cockatoo is a big, bigger yeah. Okay, 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:00.640 that's a big white guy that I think barretta head 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.000 the fruit loops guy. No, that's a two can I 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:10.520 got you so? Uh. Candice Bergen is Murphy Brown. She 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:14.440 is also the daughter of Edgar Bergen, who was totally insane. 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.040 He was not insane. He was a one of the 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.480 most popular entertainers in the country. Yeah, for decades, for 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:22.480 a long long time. Not just one of the most 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.840 popular ventriloquist like you said, one of the most popular entertainers, 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.880 that's right. Uh. And he did something that one would 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.720 think it's not even possible, which is to have a 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:37.680 ventriloquism act on the radio. But that's I mean, that's 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:39.959 a good point, Tom. She wrote this article for us, 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.680 and he says, like that really points out like the 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:46.000 sea change that Fred Russell brought about, where he was 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.120 writing jokes based around this character that Edgar Bergen created, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:55.159 this character of UM, Charlie McCarthy and also Mortimer Snurred, 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.359 and the characters and the jokes and the dialogue and 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.080 the fact that he jumped back and forth between himself 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:05.320 and these characters. That's what people cared about because, like 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:07.840 you're Berkin was actually not very good at not moving 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.040 his lips. Radio is perfect for him exactly. But he 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.520 was huge on the radio for like twenty years from 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.439 this ventriloquism routine. He was a ventriloquist on the radio 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:21.880 for twenty years, that's right. And uh he I don't 0:21:21.880 --> 0:21:24.240 think he began the tradition, but he certainly reinforced the 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:28.600 tradition of UM going deep with the fact that these 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.600 are little people to them, like uh, he's he's certainly 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:36.000 not the first or last two give them their own bedrooms, 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:41.400 their own beds to um, you know, be sometimes they're 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:45.200 buried with their dummy. He he left ten thousand dollars 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:48.680 to Charlie McCarthy and his will, he left zero to Candice. Yeah, 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:50.600 I mean, what do you do with that? She? Yeah, 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:52.920 she did a lot with it. So what does the 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:55.000 doll literally do with that? Oh? I see it? To me? 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.080 I thought you meant, was Candice Bergin doing? Where's that 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.280 den grand today? You? I don't know who is where 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.639 that money went? I know Kennice Bergen didn't get it. Yeah, Um, 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:06.800 but she grew up sitting on her father's knee and 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:09.640 Charlie McCarthy would be on the other knee, and he'd 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.159 make them talk to each other, like he'd squeeze the 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:13.880 back of her neck when he wanted her to talk 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.480 or whatever, or open her mouth because he would talk 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:20.200 for her. She had a strange childhood for sure. Was 0:22:20.240 --> 0:22:22.040 there resentment and stuff? Do you know? I think a 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:26.480 little yeah, if not a lot. Well, you were talking 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:28.240 about the fact that the strength of the jokes so 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:31.680 had to be why he was so popular on the radio, 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:33.800 and that's what they point. One of them makes him 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:35.720 that dumb struck videos like it's got to be funny. 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:38.320 No matter how good you are with the lips, it's 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:42.200 not funny. And I kept thinking, like, alright, when is 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:44.640 one of these people gonna be funny. Even the big 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:49.440 famous ones. Yeah, no, I mean like there's even the 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:55.159 almost two eventula Quisted. Even the the blue ones, the 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.520 not as family friendly ones are still pretty family friendly 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.399 really yeah, except for a few people that really just 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:05.200 want to shock. Really. One one just comes to mind, 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:08.040