The best jokes told are the ones you don’t know its a joke until its over. I’ve told some of the oldest dumb jokes ever and no one knew it was “that old” joke until it was over and they were laughing. How do I do it? The magic of CONVERSATION. You must be able to carry on a conversation with the puppet not just tell a joke. Most vents just tell jokes with the puppet they don’t have a conversation with the puppet and build the joke into the conversation. That is the BIG difference between a person with a puppet and a person with a character. I’ve had people tell me they watched this vent and that vent but their puppets didn’t seem real or believeable…Why? They just stood there and told one joke after another with no back story, reason or setup for the joke. The ventriloquist and puppet must have a connection or a reason to be together and be able to carry on a conversation about anything to be believeable. So the first thing you need is a back story…Why are you two together. The second thing you need is a reason or story as too why you two are here at this event today. Third thing you need is a story about where you are going from here, what are you doing next. Now build your string of jokes into these three things. This makes you and the puppet bigger than your 10 minutes on stage. This gives you a reason and a story to be together and that builds believeablity.
Get the book “Creating a Character” from Maher Studios it will help you alot on this topic.
Be a better ventriloquist…
Ken Groves