REVIEW: Dunham serves up guilty laughs on a shtick

By Diana Nollen

CEDAR RAPIDS - Comedian Jeff Dunham is a guilty pleasure.

The wildly popular ventriloquist packed the U.S. Cellular Center to the rafters Thursday night (2/25), treating the sold-out crowd of 6,000 people to more than two hours of politically incorrect humor.

I feel so awful for laughing at the derisions emitted by Dunham's puppet posse of Walter, a grumpy old codger with bushy eyebrows and a perpetual frown; Achmed the Dead Terrorist, a skeleton with glowing eyes; Peanut, a naughty lavender furball; Jose Jalapeno on a Stick; and Bubba J, a NASCAR-lovin', beer-swiggin' redneck.

Dunham's skewers know no boundaries. Everything he says is offensive to someone, which means it should be offensive to everyone. And yet we laugh. And buy $50 talking puppets and other overpriced merchandise; buy his DVDs; cause consistently high ratings for his TV shows and specials; and collectively click on his YouTube videos 300 million times.

So why do we lavish the love on someone who perpetuates intolerance?

I'm no psychologist, but I'm guessing we wouldn't laugh so hard if all the words were coming out of Dunham's mouth instead of the mouths of adorable puppets with larger-than-life personalities. It's cute little Peanut mocking ethnic accents, not Dunham. It's Achmed who wants to “keel” us, not Dunham. It's Bubba J who met his wife at a family reunion, not Dunham.

We don't see Dunham's lips move, so he must not be saying all these shameful things that make us laugh.

Achmed seemed to be the crowd's favorite character, until Dunham had to pull out a cheat sheet to remember all his Bubba J lines, which the audience embraced by shouting them out a split-second faster.

“It's kinda sad when your audience knows your act better than you do,” Dunham said with a sheepish grin. He did warn the audience that it had been a long time since he'd had Bubba out of the box, but people all around the arena seemed to revel in supplying the punch lines.

The puppets have eyebrows that wiggle, mouths that move and eyes that offer a window to their souls. Dunham's a master manipulator who makes their personalities sparkle while he plays straight-man.

He's very good at the mechanics of his craft, making him the best ventriloquist on the scene. He knows how to turn on the charm and aw-shucks innocence with his boyish good looks.

So we let him get away with killing us softly with his words.

“Guitar Guy” Brian Haner opened the show with equal parts comic hilarity and musical prowess.

He sings of becoming Jesse James behind the wheel as he navigates traffic in Los Angeles and somehow finds the humor in parenting a 13-year-old daughter and a son who's living his dream as a bona fide rock star (Synyster Gates, lead guitarist for Avenged Sevenfold). “I taught my son to play; now he's my 401K.”

Haner's more gentle humor and blazing guitar work strike a needed balance for Dunham's razor-sharp edges.