Jeff Dunham Comedy with character(s)

July 10, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Comedian-ventrilo- quist Jeff Dunham is no dummy.

A longtime veteran of the comedy club scene, the Dallas native, who as a self-taught ventriloquist youngster met the legendary Edgar Bergen of Charlie McCarthy fame and as a young comedian a little over a decade later made a memorable appearance on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” is milking his superstar status for all its worth.

The New York Times Magazine declared Dunham “the most successful comedian working in America,” while he was recently named Pollstar’s No. 1 Comedy Tour in North America for three years running. Oh yeah, Forbes magazine placed him on its Celebrity 100 roster of most powerful entertainers for the past two years.

Despite all of his ancillary successes — DVDs, books, comedy specials, film roles (recently he made his film debut in “Dinner For Schmucks” with Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd) — Dunham keeps an incessant touring schedule, which includes bringing his comedic crew of Walter the Grumpy Retiree, Achmed the Dead Terrorist, the beer-fueled redneck Bubba J and the manic purple creature Peanut back to Youngstown for a Wednesday show at the Covelli Centre. The Vindicator talked to Dunham about his successes, failures (sort of) and the haters that come along with the territory of being one of America’s top funnymen.

Q. Any memories of coming through Youngstown in the past?

A. I think it all started with the comedy club — what was it? — The Funny Farm. We’re coming back there because a lot of these cities where I did comedy clubs for so many years, the people just keep coming back. It’s been great in the past few years. I did 20 years of comedy clubs and then things started going big and we started doing these larger venues.

Q. What’s the biggest difference between those early shows at the Funny Farm and the upcoming Covelli Centre gig?

A. It’s literally the same formula I had in the third grade. I just feel like I can go a little further than the average person standing up in front of the classroom. I was able to make fun of the teachers and principals and school lunch ladies and nobody else could do that. But I could do that with a dummy, and it always got laughs. It’s the same way now. I’m just able to get up and push things a little further because it’s coming from the characters. I think it’s the same thing as “South Park.” As an animated show they can get away with a lot more than if those were live little kids. So there’s some sort of unspoken license there.

Q. Obviously your show is built around these characters. Any new ones coming soon?

A. I’m always looking for the next character. In fact we just finished taping the next Comedy Central special two weeks ago and that’ll come out in September. The two new kids this time are Achmed’s son AJ and then Peanut has his own dummy, a version of me. That’s an old ventriloquist bit but people love it. So those are the two new characters this time but when I walked off stage after we finished the taping, I thought now I get to start pursuing a couple of other ones. I already have them in the back of my mind and I’m going to start working on them soon.

Q. Looking back, are there any characters that didn’t work for whatever reason?

A. There are plenty of characters that I thought would work and didn’t. Usually it’s something where I’ll give it three tries, and if it’s just miserable after the third try, then I’ll finally give it up. Most of those were in the mid-’80s, just trying to find some characters that would define me and be completely unique. For years I was looking for something else. I would come up with these characters thinking they’d be a great main character and then it would die miserably. My favorite was Jos Jalapeno on a stick, which was going great. I thought I’m going to go with the food thing so I went with Tony the Talking Italian Meatball in a plate of Spaghetti. I had one joke. I said, “Do you speak Italian?” He said, “No, I don’t have no hands.” It was the only joke that worked

Q. How do you deal with the amount of haters your success has brought?

A. The Internet is a dangerous place because it’s a platform for cowards a lot of the times. It’s just too easy to sit in your basement with your underwear on and criticize others. What’s interesting to me is a lot of people are criticizing what all of the other people love the most. When you bring up the word racist, I say, “Wait a second.” If you heard I had an African-American dummy who is a pimp, boy does that sound racist. But if you see the show, then you know what I am saying and who he is making fun of. That’s my attempt of making fun of white people. It’s the same thing with a dead terrorist. Obviously the dummy is Muslim, but I’m not making fun of Muslim people. I’m making fun of terrorists. I’m making fun of what we in the free world pretty much think is ridiculous, which is killing for whatever reasons.

Q. Finally, if your show isn’t political or message-based, what is it?

A. I’ve never prided myself on the show having any socially redeeming value whatsoever because it doesn’t. It’s just goofy fun.