This was sent in to us from Bob Abdou:
Hey Dan and Steve,
Found this great article from the 1954 Puppetry Journal Festival printed 60 years ago:
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Functioning Hands On A Ventriloquist Figure
I have never had nor have I seen a ventriloquist figure that had fingers or thumb that moved by way for any controls.
As matter of fact I actually think that might be a rather hard thing to make function while performing. How would you control the mouth movement and control hand movement at the same time? I think it would be rather difficult.
Of course arm movement has been done for decades with levers inside the body for moving same or by thread but that of course is not finger movement. There certainly have been some that had hands that had posable fingers so that the character could hold an item such as a cigarette.
Frank Marshall’s “Nosey” Jerry Mahoney
All of us in the ventriloquist world love Jerry Mahoney as a character and in our minds we always picture Jerry the way Paul Winchell redid him with his heavy eyebrows and heavy eye liner.
But this picture (above) shows Jerry the way Paul purchased him from Frank Marshall. You can see he has the very thin eyebrows, almost no eyeliner and the wig is the standard style Frank used on his figures.
Pivot Point Of Ventriloquist Figure Mouth – Part 2
Yesterday I wrote a blog about the pivot point of a ventriloquist figure’s mouth and Bill Matthews asked for a picture or diagram.
Our good friend Greg Claassen (author of McElroy Magic) sent us this page out of his book to share with everyone.
Pivot Point Of Ventriloquist Figure Mouth
It really is amazing how bad some figure makers did when it came to placement of the mouth in the figures head and how the mouth palate worked once done. A great example of how not to do a mouth was by Craig Lovik, who may have sold more figures in his time than most anyone else. He never really figured out the geometry of the mouth to have the jaw swing in the correct manner.
Lovik’s mouth always opened so that the top portion of the palate protruded showing the points of the palate. Also he cut the neck wrong resulting in a huge gap under the chin.Many were fortunate to have Clinton Detweiler repair that large gap.
