Jeff Dunham is undoubtedly the most successful ventriloquist comedian of our lifetime. The 60-year-old from Dallas made his first appearance on The Tonight Show back in 1990, competed in disguise as “Pi-Rat” this fall on The Masked Singer, and in between, he has released 10 comedy specials. Six on Comedy Central starting in 2006, followed by a primetime NBC special, two Netflix specials, then back to Comedy Central during the pandemic, where he debuted a “Completely Unrehearsed Last-Minute Pandemic Holiday Special” for the Friday after Thanksgiving 2020. His 11th special, Me The People, came out this Black Friday, also exclusively on Comedy Central. Dunham sat down with me to talk about his career and the state of comedy/ventriloquism.
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Kurt Braunohler started performing comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City in 1998, and took an experimental filmmaking improv group to the Edinburgh Fringe long before meeting Kristen Schaal — with whom Kurt would start a variety show called Hot Tub, win awards and kudos at festivals from Aspen to Australia, and eventually begin his own solo career as a stand-up comedian and actor. He has hosted a game show on IFC, hired a skywriter to puff out the letters HOW DO I LAND?, jet-skied down the Mississippi River for Comedy Central, and appeared on shows such as The Good Place, Bob’s Burgers, and movies such as The Big Sick and Barbarian. In 2022, he released his second stand-up special, Perfectly Stupid, which premiered on the Moment platform before getting wider distribution. Kurt spoke with me about that decision, as well as the other big decisions in his life and career.
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Frankie Quiñones is a stand-up comedian and actor best known for his character work. Frankie stars as Luis on the Hulu series, This Fool, which was just picked up for a second season. He also co-starred in a web series that got bought by TBS, The Dress Up Gang, put out his own stand-up and sketch special on HBO Max, Superhomies, has begun recurring as cousin Miguel on the FX on Hulu comedy, What We Do In The Shadows, and just launched his own podcast, The Frankie Quiñones Show, presented by Will Ferrell’s Big Money Players Network and iHeart Radio. Frankie joined me over Zoom to talk about creating characters such as Creeper and Emo Primo, his real-life relationship with This Fool co-star Chris Estrada, and more.
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Born in China, Jioaying Summers first came to America for college in Kentucky speaking no English, then went to Hollywood looking for stardom. Summers has found it so far already on TikTok, where she has gained more than 1.2 million followers, and has created her own stage, The Hollywood Comedy, where she and other aspiring comedians can develop their voices. Since the pandemic, Summers has released a half-hour special as part of “Comedy InvAsian 2.0,” available on Prime Video, and hosted a stand-up showcase, LMAOF, for OnlyFans. Summers will perform at the 2022 New York Comedy Festival, running her hour, “Tiger MILF,” and she spoke with me in Los Angeles ahead of that.
If you like this conversation, please consider subscribing to my Substack called Piffany at Piffany.Substack.com so you can read bonus commentary on this episode as well as more comedy news and insights. Thanks in advance, and now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to it!