Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham,'s new half-hour show on Comedy Central is not nearly as good as his taped concerts that also run on CC, but at least the show is all-new material with a twist. Dunham's puppets are put into ridiculous situations, like having Achmed the Dead Terrorist perform as a standup comic and the indescribable purple thing called Peanut going on a date with Hulk Hogan's busty daughter. Some simple, Muppet-like special effects allow the puppets to appear independent of Dunham. My favorite moment to date had cranky old Walter undergoing a physical exam. Dunham abruptly walks into the exam room, only to confront a naked Walter. They look at each other and both start screaming, more or less. In a more recent episode, Dunham pulled off the dirtiest joke I have ever heard on a commercial station during prime time, perhaps a little too dirty considering who might be watching at that hour. Dunham's humor tends to be risqué, however, so all is forgiven. In the same episode, he and his jive-talking black puppet enter an urban barbershop in search of blacks to be added to Dunham's traditionally all-white audience. Dunham does a couple of lame bits for the folks, like saying: "Don't you hate it when your tux gets caught in your Volvo car door?" He is greeted with dead silence, of course. Outside, Dunham's wall-eyed, buck-toothed redneck puppet has set up a table where he is offering to pay passing blacks to watch the show. This crazy, Texas-born comic with a slight lisp made $30 million last year! So he must be doing something right.
