Jeff Dunham is Not Funny

"The Jeff Dunham Show," Comedy Central's new TV sensation is bringing the old fashioned art of ventriloquism back to the mainstream. With over 5 million viewers tuning in for the October premier, the highest ratings in Comedy Central history, Jeff Dunham is poised on the verge of superstardom, even if few people have ever heard of the 47 year old puppet wielding comedian.

I'm not a fan of puppets and though I've caught parts of his stand up in the past, I may have been too willing to change the channel just because of what he's got attached to his hand without really giving him a chance so I caught a rerun of the premiere as well as the second episode, just to be sure I wasn't missing anything awesome.

After all, how can that many people be wrong? Well I have no idea but they are very, very wrong. I almost feel bad saying this, but Jeff Dunham is not fucking funny whatsoever. His jokes are so old that you can't help but wonder if he's updated his act since 1994. He seems nice, like your dad's nice inoffensive white bread buddy whose tired jokes you always laugh at out of politeness. I can't control my overpowering sense of not being amused by his lame characters, stale jokes and terrible celebrity guests. And it is pretty infuriating that this painfully unclever person gets his own TV show.

His unimaginative dummy characters are mostly stereotypes such as the crotchety old man, Walter, a beer swilling redneck, Bubba J, an African-American pimp, Sweet Daddy Dee, a Latino jalapeño on a stick with a sombrero, José, a skeleton with a turban known as Achmed the dead terrorist, and a lavender 'thing' named Peanut. Although they are stereotypes, his characters are too lame and cliché to even be offensive. It's really just sad that a grown man is still telling the same jokes that I got a kick out of when I was 7.

The one character that could be seen as offensive is the skeletal Achmed, whose catchphrase is a heavily accented "Silence! I keel you!" Dunham washes his hands of portraying people of the Middle East as terrorists by claiming that Achmed is not a Muslim (because of one specific line in which the puppet states that he doesn't think he's Muslim because he's stamped with the words "Made in China"). As of June 2009, Dunham's introduction of Achmed is the fourth most watched Youtube video of all time.

Like telling a joke into an echoing cave and hearing it back six years later, his jokes are severely dated and Dunham is too busy being a hack to put his own spin on the themes he employs. The grumpy old man territory is as fresh as "Dennis the Menace" and redneck jokes have been a Jeff Foxworthy staple since 1993. Terrorist jokes? Snore. "You're so white" jokes? Really? As one online poster said, he's about as funny as the emails your grandma forwards you.

His guest spots are thinly veiled advertisements for "celebrities" who were mainstays of the D-list back in 2004. Brooke Hogan has her shining moment as she is awkwardly escorted on a date by Peanut. Her entrance, shot in music video style to emphasize her car and legs, ends up looking like an unintended parody because before she took off her huge sunglasses, I was 100% certain that it was a man in drag. That would have been funny. Dunham and Peanut stoop to hawking her new album totally unironically and the segment actually explains why: because Ms. Hogan and Dunham have the same publicist. It's sickening.

In what I assume will be a recurring segment, "Walter's awkward interview with a rock band," the grumpy old man interviews Joel and Benji Madden of Good Charlotte in an obvious commercial for their over-priced clothing line featuring $90 brass knuckle necklaces. Good Charlotte has always been the Fisherprice version of rock music, safe, recognizable, soft around the edges and for those easily distracted by bright colors. I believe they may have been popular among middle school girls for a split second back in 2002. Maybe someone forgot to tell the Madden brothers that the brass knuckle motif stopped being cool when they began putting it on bibs for infants.

I guess the problem could be summed up in the total lack of social commentary. The difference between making fart jokes and making real comedy is that fart jokes are what they are and nothing more, true comedy is funny because it doesn't take the world at face value - it spins things, sometimes very subtly and sometimes very much in your face and exposes the ridiculous behind seemingly straight and boring reality. It is the comedian's job to comment, to ridicule, to expose and to poke fun at the establishment, misplaced stereotypes and all those who think they are high and mighty. It would be funny if Peanut decided that in real life Brooke Hogan looked too much like a man. It would be funny if Walter commented on why in the world anyone would need a $90 brass knuckle necklace. The comedian is supposed to say what we're all thinking - not regurgitate commercial propaganda. And for Dunham this is a missed opportunity because these puppet characters have the potential for the exposure of hypocrisy among a variety of social groups and the skewering of public personalities that would usually be off limits for a white comedian. Instead, Dunham goes for the easy laugh and the predictable benign clichés. I find that insulting. Please don't pander to me, please don't try to sell me poor-quality, overpriced products being peddled by talentless hacks. I call bullshit on you, Dunham. You might be a decent ventriloquist but you are in no way funny.