Ventriloquists – How To Make Your Dummy Talk
Ventriloquists are the entertainers who make everyone say, “I didn’t even see their lips move!” unless, of course, you did see their lips move. And right there is the difference between good ventriloquists and not-so-good ones. Let’s look at the history and significant contributors to this form of entertainment. And, if you’re interested, you’ll discover how even you and a friend (the dummy) can dabble in this fascinating art form.
A Brief History of Ventriloquism
The word ventriloquism comes from Latin: Venter, meaning belly or stomach and loqui, meaning speak. So, ventriloquism means “to speak from the stomach”.
It originally involved religious practices. People at the time thought those with said skills could speak to the dead and predict the future. These skills have been mentioned throughout history and in many cultures, including Zulu, Inuit, Maori, etc. I find it interesting that those who are different are often associated with religion or the occult, good or evil, or sometimes both at the same time.
Famous Ventriloquists – Past
I remember three famous ventriloquists from when I was young. The first, and probably most famous, is Edgar Bergen (1903 – 1978), father of actress Candice Bergen. His two most famous dummies were named Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd. Mr Bergan often appeared on various TV variety shows with either Charlie or Mortimer on his lap, and they would have conversations. Interestingly, Charlie and Mortimer had different voices, but that’s what ventriloquism is all about.
Señor Wences (1896 to 1999) was a Spanish ventriloquist popular when I was a kid. He often appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, which was televised every Sunday at 8 p.m. for twenty-three years from 1948 to 1971. (As an aside, the Beatles first appeared in North America on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964.)
Señor Wences approached ventriloquism differently. Rather than having a dummy, his main character, Johnny, was a face drawn on his hand with lipstick and a doll’s body underneath. Another of his characters, Pedro, was a disembodied voice in a box. Pedro would often disrupt the act by calling out from his box with a voice that echoed like he was in an enclosed box. Señor Wences would open the box to ask Pedro if he was okay. Pedro would always answer, “S’awright.”
Famous ventriloquists are not only men. Shari Lewis (1933 – 1998) was also popular on variety shows. Her dummies were more like children’s hand puppets, and her target audience seemed to be children. Her famous characters were Lamb Chop, Charlie Horse, and Hush Puppy.
Famous Ventriloquists – Present
For those of you who have seen America’s Got Talent or any similar spinoff, Fill-in-the-Blank’s Got Talent, you know there are many different kinds of acts. There is singing, dancing, comedy, novelty, and unexplainable nonsense. I’ve often wondered how the judges and the general viewing audience can choose a winner when each act is so different, some even unique.
Anyway, the winner of the second season of America’s Got Talent in 2007 was a ventriloquist, Terry Fator. How could they choose a ventriloquist over all the other talented acts as being the best? If you watch the YouTube video below, you will see why.
Terry’s act is not only about ventriloquism. He is also an impressionist, a stand-up comedian, and a singer, and he does it all through his dummies. His talent, helped by his win on America’s Got Talent, landed him a five-year, multi-million-dollar contract in Vegas and seemingly unending opportunities.
As mentioned above, not all ventriloquists are men. Sometimes, they are young girls. Darci Lynne Farmer got her big break in 2017 when she won the twelfth season of America’s Got Talent at the tender age of just 13 years old. Like Shari Lewis many years before, Darci Lynne’s puppets and performance appealed mainly to a younger audience, but her talent was evident. Her ventriloquist and singing abilities were a hit with the judges and the AGT audience.
Required Personality for Ventriloquists
If you’re considering ventriloquism as a hobby or a career, it helps to have an outgoing personality, be naturally funny, and enjoy making people laugh. Entertainment is what it’s all about, and it would be challenging to be a successful ventriloquist without these personality traits.
However, it might be good therapy for an introvert. Imagine being able to express your true feelings and emotions through someone else, albeit a dummy. You could always smile and say, “That wasn’t me; that was the dummy talking.” I may give this a try myself.
The skills may be more ambitious and demanding to achieve, though not impossible. They require an interest in the topic, practice, dedication, and patience. (I may have to work on that last one.) Now, let’s look at the skills required to become an accomplished ventriloquist.
Learning the Skills to Become a Ventriloquist
The first step to becoming a ventriloquist is learning the necessary physical skills. You’ve got nothing without those. You must be able to throw your voice, speak without moving your lips, and create different voices. None of these come naturally, so you must learn and practice them. It won’t be easy, but it will be time-consuming, frustrating, and probably even painful. But don’t give up. If you are motivated enough, you can do it.
The skills:
- Certain letters and sounds in English require movement of the lips when spoken naturally, especially at the beginning of words. These are p, b, f, v, m, q, and w. You can minimize, or even eliminate, lip movement in your pronunciation with practice, lots of practice. Another way is to substitute sounds that don’t require lip movement. However, this will likely create an accent or even a perceived speech impediment.
- Practice “throwing your voice”, which means making your voice sound as if it’s coming from somewhere other than you and often from a distance. This skill definitely needs to be practiced because it isn’t natural and could be painful. You can accomplish this by taking a deep breath through your nose with your tongue almost touching the roof of your mouth. Tighten your stomach muscles, constrict your air passage so your breath is trapped in your throat, and speak while exhaling slowly.
- Change your voice. The dummy’s voice must be different from yours. It can be different in speed or timbre. As stated above, it can even have a foreign accent, which could help with pronunciation.
Creating Your Characters
You would typically want to start with one character. The character can be as simple as a sock puppet or an elaborate custom-made dummy. The most important thing is that it must not be you. It mustn’t look or sound like you or have your personality. You and your created character will be an entertaining team playing off of one another. Therefore, it can’t be a clone of you. The contrast in looks and personalities will make your performance enjoyable and memorable for the audience.
In time, if you enjoy your ventriloquist hobby, you will likely create more than one character to partner with. It would be like a guitar player having many guitars when he can only play one at a time. You will want to have more characters to expand your interests, skills, and creativity. As with the guitar player, your want will be much stronger than your need.
You can learn this hobby purely for your own amusement, and that’s fine. However, if you become good at it, your family or friends will coerce you into performing in front of them. Later, if you have the confidence, you may even perform in front of a paying audience. Your characters should be relatable to your specific audience at the time. Keep that in mind when creating your characters.
Developing a 10 – 15 Minute Routine
You’ve created your characters, their looks and personalities. Now, what are you going to do with them? Just like a stand-up comedian, you must have a routine or several routines. In your routine, anything goes as long as it is appropriate to your audience. That’s your only real restriction. You don’t want to offend your audience.
In preparation for creating your routine, consider the following: What would you enjoy seeing if you were in the audience? What would you enjoy performing? What are your talents?
Okay. What are your talents? This one may not be that important because you can already talk without moving your lips, which most people can’t do. And it’s not you; it will be mostly your dummy with some interaction between you and the dummy. Some witty banter would be good. It doesn’t matter if you are a storyteller, a joker, an impressionist, a singer, or a mime; you can work it into your act. A mime might be difficult, but you wouldn’t have to worry about not moving your lips. Almost anything will work, especially if it’s rehearsed. It really doesn’t matter because it’s not you; it’s the dummy. The only thing that would reflect poorly on you is if the performance is offensive or not entertaining. The dummy gets credit for everything else. Just enjoy yourself.
The above essay is for entertainment and English language study only. For suggestions on how to use this post to improve your English reading and listening comprehension, click here.
Vocabulary
- ventriloquist – noun; person with the skill of speaking or uttering sounds so that they appear to come from the speaker’s dummy; a performer who talks or sings without moving their lips
- dabble – intransitive verb; take a casual or superficial interest or part (in a subject or activity); take a not-so-serious interest in something
- disembodied – adjective; separate or free from the body; coming from somewhere unknown (in this context)
- spinoff – noun; something, e.g. a television program, book, magazine, etc., derived from another product of a similar type; a televsion show copying or similar to another television show
- nonsense – noun; foolish talk, ideas, etc.; a silly, foolish, or ridiculous act (in this context)
- impressionist – noun; an entetainer who impersonates famous people etc.; someone who can sound or act like someone else
- appeal – intransitive verb; to be attractive or of interest; interesting to
- evident – adjective; plain or obvious (visually or intellectually); obvious or easily seen
- trait – noun; a distinguishing feature or characteristic esp. of a person; physical or personality
- introvert – noun; a person predominantly concerned with his or her own thoughts and feelings rather than with external things; a person who is more comfortable alone than in large groups
- albeit – conjunction; though; although only
- ambitious – adjective; strongly determined; wanting to do well or get ahead
- minimize – transitive verb; reduce to or estimate at, the smallest possible amount or degree; make less
- eliminate – transitive verb; remove, get rid of; get rid of
- substitute – transitive verb; use or insert (a person or thing) in place of another; use something similar
- speech impediment – noun;physical disability that affects normal speech, usually pronunciation
- accomplish – transitive verb; perform; compete; succeed in doing; make it happen
- constrict – transitive/intransitive verb; make or become narrow or tight; tighten up
- timbre – noun; the distinctive character or quality of a sound; e.g. a man’s voice compared to a woman’s voice
- clone – noun; a person or thing regarded identical as another; two the same
- coerce – transitive verb; persuade or restrain (an unwilling person) by force; to force someone to do something
- restriction – noun; a limitation placed on an action; something you must not do
- banter – noun; good-humoured teasing; joking back and forth about nothing serious or important
- mime – noun; a performer who uses gesture and expression without using words; a performer who speaks with motions and facial expressions only
Comprehension Questions
- Should you be able to see a ventriloquist’s lips move when they speak?
Yes or No - A ventriloquist usually works with
(a) his brother, (b) his sister, (c) a dummy, or (d) his kid - What was Candice Bergen’s father’s name?
(a) Charlie McCarthy, (b) Mortimer Snerd, (c) Frank Sinatra, or (d) Edgar Bergen - What nationality was Señor Wences?
(a) French, (b) Spanish, (c) Italian, or (d) Portuguese - What did Señor Wences call the face drawn on his hand?
(a) Johnny, (b) Billy, (c) Bobby, or (d) Freddy - Did Shari Lewis perform mainly for a younger audience?
Yes or No - Have you ever watched America’s Got Talent or any other Fill-in-the-Blank’s Got Talent?
Yes or No - What is the name of the ventriloquist who won the second season of America’s Got Talent in 2007?
(a) Jerry Baitor, (b) Donny Hater, (c) Joey Dater, or (d) Terry Fator
Resources
- Wikipedia – Ventriloquism
And Now For Your Enjoyment
Here is the all-star cast known as USA for Africa performing “We Are the World”, followed by Terry Fator’s version with his famous lookalike and soundalike dummy heads. Please watch both versions and witness what an amazing and talented ventriloquist and all-around performer Terry Fator is!
Lyrics
"We Are the World"
as recorded by USA for Africa (1985)
written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie
There comes a time when we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
Oh, and it's time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all
We can't go on pretending day by day
That someone, somehow will soon make a change
We're all a part of God's great big family
And the truth - you know love is all we need
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
Well, send 'em you your heart
So they know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us
By turning stone to bread
And so we all must lend a helping hand
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
When you're down and out
There seems no hope at all
But if you just believe
There's no way we can fall
Well, well, well, let's realize
Oh, that a change can only come
When we, stand together as one (yeah, yeah, yeah)
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving (so let's start giving)
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me (ah, let me here it)
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving (let's start giving)
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
Come on, now
Let me hear you
We are the world (we are the world), we are the children (we are the children)
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving (so let's start giving)
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
We are the world (we are the world), we are the children (we are the children)
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving (so let's start giving)
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
(So let's start giving)
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving (so let's start giving)
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me
We are the world (get go), we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving (alright, if you hear what I say)
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
