In the cavernous Tucson Arena Thursday night, it was hard not to feel a bit nostalgic for the days when comic ventriloquist Jeff Dunham played Laffs Comedy Caffe.
Those of us who have followed Dunham from his first Laffs shows in 1999 and in all the years since relished those annual three-day runs. You would sit elbow-to-elbow in the small club with strangers and laugh until your sides hurt and your face was painfully contorted into an unyielding smile.
The venue has changed but the end result was the same — unstoppable, double-over-in-your-seat laughter.
Only instead of a couple hundred people laughing, there were 6,300 of us loosely filling Tucson Arena Thursday night. The noise from the never-ending deep-bellied guffaws and applause was exhilarating.
It was not that Dunham's show held any surprises, beyond the gigantic screen needed over the stage to broadcast him for the folks in the arena's hinterlands. The show was a close take on his hugely popular Comedy Central special "Spark of Insanity," the same concert he brought to a sold-out Fox Tucson Theatre on the same night in 2007 that it debuted on the comedy network.
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But Dunham has always been loosely scripted. He gives himself enough wiggle room for improvising so that the old jokes feel only slightly worn, not outdated.
"Spark of Insanity" ranks as one of Comedy Central highest-rated shows, and the DVD has gone on to sell more than 10 million copies. It lifted Dunham to comedy's A-list in a big way, emboldening him to take even more chances during his live shows with his cast of lovable, irreverent and politically incorrect characters.
• Walter, the lovable curmudgeon, was even more outrageously racist as he took aim at the Hispanic casino bathroom attendant Manuel — "Thank you Man-well, here's another dollar" — and speaking of American Indians, he let out an "ah, yi, yi" warrior chant.
He also picked up where he left off in his love-hate relationship with Tucson.
"If a natural disaster hits here, there's not a lot to fall down," he smirked, then spouted the headlines: " 'A tornado hit Tucson today. A giant one-story building tumbled down.' "
• Peanut got away with feigning an exaggerated Chinese accent as he told a vulgar joke about calling in an order to a restaurant named Taste of China that the Chinese worker rattled off so fast that it sounded like the restaurant was named after a female body part. And when Dunham chided him for being racist, Peanut retorted, "Yeah, but it's funny."
• And Achmed the Dead Terrorist, the newest and arguably most popular member of the cast, was allowed to bemoan the fact that in his skeletal form, he lacks the anatomy to get sexually aroused. He now gets phantom erections, he said, as he segued into his newest song, "Blew Myself Up Blues," accompanied by Dunham's opener, Guitar Guy (Brian Haner).
If anyone Thursday was offended, it was hidden behind tears of laughter.
Thursday's show also gave us a more fully fleshed-out — pardon the pun — look at Achmed. The character — a Middle East terrorist with a towel draped around his skull and bulging eyes that bug out every time he threatens, "Silence, infidel! I keel you!" — has become the star attraction. Much of his popularity is courtesy of YouTube, where the video of him singing "Jingle Bombs" has had more than 16 million hits.
In addition to bemoaning his missing body parts, Achmed said he was in a funk after finding out that his father was Jewish. Who is he? Dunham inquired. "Barry Manilow," he sulked back. How do you know? Dunham asked. He sang that song about his mother, whom Achmed referred to by her long-drawn-out, unpronounceable Arabic name. In English, it's Mandy.
"Daddy, why won't you return my calls?" Achmed implored, and Dunham let out a giggle.
The fact that his characters can still crack him up is endearing, and it makes it even easier for us to believe they are independent of their puppet-master.
"He really believes it. Just play along," Peanut told Guitar Guy at one point Thursday night. "We're making a (ton) of money. Don't (mess) it up!"
That has always been the key to Dunham's success, going back to his club days. He has created characters with so much believable personality that you forget it's Dunham pulling the strings.
Review
Comedian Jeff Dunham in concert Thursday at Tucson Arena.
