Guest Blog – Bob Abdou – Association With Other Ventriloquists

You never know who you will meet when you associate with other entertainers. That was the case for me last month. I attended a monthly magicians club meeting and some older fellow came up to me and said that his father loved ventriloquism. We hit it off right away, he told me stories when he was younger and saw his father do a vent act for the family and do simple magic.

The man’s name is Jim and he lived in Houston as a child, his father loved magic and vent but only did it as a hobby. Jim then went into detail about his fathers dummy. I said it sounds like a Frank Marshall. He said, “Yes, my father got it directly from this Marshall guy in the 30’s. We both got more excited in our conversation, Jim loved talking about his dad and I loved hearing stories about vent.

We decided to meet for lunch and we were to bring our dummies. Above is the photo of our lunch date, Jim brought his father’s dummy, it is signed inside the head 8/10/38 by Frank Marshall. What is also unique about this dummy is that it smoked, it has a piece inside the bottom lip where a fake cigarette would be and inside the control stick is a connector for a tube to blow out smoke. 

In the picture, you can see the section in the mouth were the cigarette would go. I thought it was a broken section of teeth. The dummy is still dressed the same way Jim’s father used him from his early days. The dummy you see me holding is my newest member of my dummy family, a Bob Isaacson figure that is a great treasure and an incredible creation made by Bob himself. 

The point of this story is, you never know who you will meet when it comes to vent. So get outta the house and start meeting people, vent is bigger than we think!!
 
Bob Abdou
www.mrpuppet.com
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