Ventriloquist Central Blog

It is funny but I received an email from a regular that commented to me that the art of throwing your voice was gone. He was even afraid that if you use the word ventriloquist or ventriloquism you could be chastised because those are archaic terms and today the performers of this great art are and want to be called Comedians with puppets.

I myself think that is way off. If you are a ventriloquist you are just that. You do throw your voice ( so to speak ) and are breathing life into your figure. Just because one of the greatest ventriloquists of our time, Jeff Dunham, books himself as a comedian ( which he in fact is ) certainly doesn’t mean you can’t call yourself a ventriloquist. As a matter of fact if you were able to get the writers to do the comedy Jeff has and work as hard as he has you too would be called a comedian.

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Here’s a video of a rare ventriloquist figure. The early Maher figures are rare to find today and “Tiny” is possibly the rarest of all of the original catalogued Maher figures.

Madeleine Maher was the builder of the figures early on and like some of the builders of today the were conversion figures. She used the Dummy Dan figures as a base and did some re sculpting and added movements.

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I have a young friend that I correspond with from Canada and he asked me a few questions that I thought maybe I would answer openly instead of just to him because they have been asked of me before.

His first question was two fold; what inspired me to collect ventriloquist figures and the inspiration to start Ventriloquist Central.

From the youngest age I can remember I was always bringing home items. As young as 5 I would go out with my red wagon and pick trash barrels for treasures. Once I found some old books that I brought home and my mom would not let me bring them into the house. I had to get rid of them.

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