MY DINNER WITH FUMPY

I’m a ventriloquist.

Now that most people have stopped reading this, I’ll add (too late) that I’m a ventriloquist with a twist.

While most ventriloquists and their dummies do comedy, Fumpy and I switched to drama. We figured today’s audiences were a little too sophisticated to laugh at a ventriloquism act, so we decided we just wouldn’t go for laughs at all.

Of course, when I say “we decided,” that’s not strictly true. Actually, it was Fumpy’s idea. Yes, I know it’s a cliche for a mentally unstable ventriloquist to believe his dummy is a sentient being, but trust me, Fumpy is a sentient being. And I have the emotional scars to prove it.

In any case, we were in our room after a show one night at a motel lounge in North Platte, Nebraska, where we were booked for two weeks. We had just bombed, and we were passing a bottle of Thunderbird between us to ease the pain.

Then, out of the blue, Fumpy said, “I have an idea, Tham.” (My name is Sam; Fumpy has a lisp.) “Let’th do drama. Comedy ith too hard.”

It sounded like a crazy idea, but Fumpy has a temper, especially when he’s drinking, so I agreed. Plus, we had nothing to lose.

I passed out on my bed but my wooden friend stayed up all night writing us a new, dramatic act.

He called it My Dinner With Fumpy. He read it to me in the morning over the continental breakfast that was left outside our door.

I told him it was great, and I meant it. It was about two old friends who meet for dinner and have a wide-ranging philosophical discussion.

I had to learn a lot of lines. Ironically, even though Fumpy can speak, he doesn’t speak in the act because of his lisp. We didn’t want people to think a ventriloquist was making fun of people with lisps by having his dummy speak with one. So I use my ventriloquism skills and he simply moves his lips.

After a few final nights of bad comedy, I had memorized my lines and we switched to My Dinner With Fumpy. The crowd didn’t know what to make of it at first. Then they figured out what to make of it but didn’t like it. They started booing.

Fumpy got so angry that he spoke in his own voice.

“You thtupid jerkth! Nebrathka thuckth!”

Surprisingly, this got a big laugh. Probably the biggest laugh of our career. We switched gears on a dime and went into our usual comedy routine, but with Fumpy speaking for himself, lisp and all. We were a big hit, and at the end of our two-week run the manager offered us a six-month extension.

It turns out that today’s audiences aren’t too sophisticated for ventriloquism. Quite the opposite. They’re not sophisticated enough for it unless you dumb it down with something like a lisp or a whoopee cushion (which we also added).

So, now I say my lines and Fumpy says his. My actual ventriloquism skills are getting rusty, but now, since we’re cheating, I can appear to pull off amazing ventriloquistic feats, like eating a haggis while Fumpy lisps insults at the crowd.

What would Edgar Bergen think of all this? He probably wouldn’t approve. But I’ll bet Charlie McCarthy would love it.