More holiday fun

Because the Find Famous Ventriloquist Faces in the Yule Log Fire game was immensely popular (A full third of my three regular readers played - whooooo'da thunk?), we're going to have more fun.

Here's the rules:

• Start the video right exactly at midnight tonight, after you've kissed your love and made your Happy New Year's shout.
• Now, watch it closely. Stare at it. Then, when you see the following faces magically appear in the fireworks, check them off:

 Mortimer Snerd

Charlie McCarthy

Jerry Mahoney

Knuckhead Smith

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

Walter (Jeff Dunham's)

Walter T Airedale (Terry Fator's)

Winston the Turtle

Lamp Chop

Senor Wences' hand

Jerry Lewis

• Don't stop until they've all appeared.
• Replay the video as necessary.
• Send me an email at bushmandaniel@gmail.com when you've seen them all.
• Be the first.  The time stamp on the email decides the winner.

 To be sure you know how important this is, I'll say it three times:

PRIZE!

PRIZE!

PRIZE!

You can use it as a team party game, too, but only individual winners can claim prizes.

I hope this gets your New Year off to a great start.


Pffft!!!!!,

Dan Bushman
Budding Ventriloquist

PS - No cheating by watching it all afternoon! I only am putting it out here now so you can weave it into your celebratory plans. Don't make me call the police.

Bowl me over

I like a good college football game as much as anybody, I guess, and everybody is a college football fan this time of year. It's bowl game time.

*** "Back in the Day" Alert***

When I was growing up, though, there was maybe 10 bowl games. If you included the Astro Blue Bonnet Bowl, the most exotically named, you would start watching bowl games on New Year's Eve Eve, and stop at about 10 o'clock New Year's Day. There was a Rose, a Sun, a Citrus, a Cotton, a Sugar, an Orange, a Gator, and maybe a Fiesta Bowl. Weeks later, there would be a Senior Bowl - but that one didn't count.

Not one of them had a corporate name or sponsor.

Now there's about 50 bowl games.  My Wisconsin Badgers just won the Champs Sports Bar and Grill Home of the Champs Burger Bowl. Rah.  It was one thing when it became the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, but does all the romance have to be taken away so we are left with the Mienecke Car Care Bowl and the Little Ceasars Pizza Bowl? (I must admit, the Pizza Bowl a ring to it.)

But instead of fighting this losing battle, I am going to embrace it.

I figure with a little leg work, some local support, and a whole lot of earnest goodwill, by this time next year you'll be hearing:

"You're looking live at Newton Field in Beautiful Hudson, Wisconsin where the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Panthers take on the St. Catherine's University Wildcats in the first annual Budding Ventriloquist Bowl."

I wonder if the hospital will lend me their chopper for aerial shots?

***

UW-Milwaukee is my alma mater. They do not have a Division Anything football team and have not for a long time. St. Kate's is a women's college. Like the video I posted yesterday, you have to start somewhere.

***

Early Line: St. Kate's  + 4

Episode None

Be sure, this is not the pilot of the series. This is not even a teaser to the pilot to the series.

This video represents a number of firsts.  It is:

• The first prescripted video I've made. And considering I sank about 10 minutes into script development, it is quite remarkable.
• You will want to make remarks, I guarantee it.
• The first attempt I've made to understand the intracacies of my flip camera.
• It said on the packaging, "Do not attempt to film a remake of Gone With the Wind with this device."  You will find this hard to believe when you see the quality.
• The first time I've had to figure out lighting for a video. You will notice this too.
• My first post with any kind of video.
• Pretty cool that it's me, isn't it?
• Would you believe I was really shooting for "quaint"?

Hold on to your socks and press the play button!

***

Okay, I know. It's really bad. A technical and comedic disaster. It was one minute and 11 seconds of your life you will never get back. Sorry about that.

But it's a start. Consider this a true, pure trial balloon; a technical run; a flight of fancy; a test. Consider this the benchmark to judge all the video efforts I will post on this blog, and to judge my ventriloquism, and to judge my jokes.

Remember, the space shuttle blasts off from ground zero; so do most things. Or as my friend Steve from Ventriloquist Central said when I started this blog, "We all started somewhere."

***

Rather than spend the last few posts of 2009 doing more retrospective chit-chat, I'm opting to forge ahead and post prepwork of sorts for what I think is going to be an outstanding 2010. I have a commitment for a gig next December, by the way. For real! I'll explain what it is sometime soon.

All I have to do between now and next December is learn how to do ventriloquism. And get a real dummy or two. And write material. And practice, practic, practice.

Piece'a cake.

***

If you go to Youtube and search on the words budding and ventriloquist, this video is the first listing. How cool is that?

Merry Christmas

Holiday Fun

So you've opened your presents, eaten too much, run out of batteries for all the new gadgets...

Here's some special holiday fun from Budding Ventriloquist.

First, get this video running, preferably on another window/tab/etc.
Click here to run video

Now, watch it closely. Stare at it. Then, when you see the following faces magically appear in the fire, check them off:

1. Mortimer Snerd
2. Charlie McCarthy
3. Jerry Mahoney
4. Knuckhead Smith
5. Achmed the Dead Terrorist
6. Walter (Jeff Dunham's)
7. Walter T Airedale (Terry Fator's)
8. Winston the Turtle
9. Lamp Chop
10. Senor Wences' hand
11. Jerry Lewis

Don't stop until they've all appeared. Replay the video as necessary. Write me when you've seen them all.  Be the first - there's a prize involved.

And happy holidays from Dan, your budding ventriloquist.

Ok, deep breath, and....

On the twelfth  of Christmas my true love gave to me,

Twelve Running Gags

Eleven New Tuxedos,

Ten Steady Gigs,

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Fans Applauding,

Seven Monkey Puppets,

Six Hours Practice

Five Funny Jokes

(Ja)eff Dunham Tickets,

Three Good Springs,

Two Moving Eyebrows,

And a full-sized ventriloquist dummy.

The End.

***
As Elvis once (or twice) said, "Thankyaverymuch."

Tie a tie around an old oak tree?

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

Eleven New Tuxedos

Ten Steady Gigs,

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Fans Applauding,

Seven Monkey Puppets,

Six Hours Practice

Five Funny Jokes

(Ja)eff Dunham Tickets,

Three Good Springs,

Two Moving Eyebrows,

And a full-sized ventriloquist dummy.
***

Any ventriloquist worth his salt dreams of playing playing Vegas, and a tuxedo is pretty much mandatory equipment.  But rather than throw out pictures of Jeff Dunham or Terry Fator to prove the "Vegas-Ventriloquist-Tuxedo" triumvirate, I see more the classic tuxedo images, like the Rat Pack or Tony Orlando and Dawn. 

True enough, my lasting image of Tony Orlando might just be due to hair envy.

I myself have a "pre-owned" tuxedo. Owning a tuxedo is not a luxury. And owning one that was only $5 at an estate sale was the buy of the century.  For $5, you can wear it to cub scout potlucks without a lot of "investment worry."

The last time I wore it was to President Obama's Inaugural back in January, which I attended via teleconference. Or tele-something.

Opening Act?

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

Ten Steady Gigs

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Fans Applauding,

Seven Monkey Puppets,

Six Hours Practice

Five Funny Jokes

(Ja)eff Dunham Tickets,

Three Good Springs,

Two Moving Eyebrows,

And a full-sized ventriloquist dummy.

***

For you byteheads, I'm talking paid performances, not hard drive capacity.  If I knew exactly what a byte looked like, I wonder if it would make for a good ventriloquist dummy face?

Just kick me

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

Nine Ladies Dancing

Eight Fans Applauding,

Seven Monkey Puppets,

Six Hours Practice

Five Funny Jokes

(Ja)eff Dunham Tickets,

Three Good Springs,

Two Moving Eyebrows,

And a full-sized ventriloquist dummy.

***

Please note that the "nine ladies dancing" mentioned above are not the same nine ladies dancing from the pedestrian version of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Because any aspiring ventriloquist dreams of one day playing Radio City Music Hall, the only question is whether the ventriloquist is opening for the Rockettes, or the Rockettes are opening for the ventriloquist.

As the song dates back to England in the 1840s, and the Rockettes were founded in America in 1925, the dancing ladies in the pedestrian version where obviously not the Rockettes. This makes my "nine ladies" being the Rockettes very original, if not more original than the proported original.

Go ahead. Argue with that logic.

Dare ya.

Nice Surprise

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

Eight Fans Applauding

Seven Monkey Puppets

Six Hours Practice

Five Funny Jokes

(Ja)eff Dunham Tickets,

Three Good Springs,

Two Moving Eyebrows,

And a full-sized ventriloquist dummy.

***

Shopping in the bookstore in downtown Hudson, the young lady working there asks, "Are you Dan Bushman?"

After I answer yes, she says, "I'm Jayna. I follow your blog."

While I have to say I never thought I would hear those words, my wife was even more stunned. "What?" she said from a couple shelves over in the small shop.

To explain, Jayna is the daughter of old friends from my cub scout leader days and wife of a fellow at my company. She also popped up as the third person to be officially a follower of this blog.  Jayna's also a new mom of a beautiful baby, Isabel, and the author of the very nicely-done blog with the unusual name Chevyface that chronicles her momhood.

I guess there was a reason we went shopping downtown in our little town rather than to the big box stores today. Over time, the date Christmas spirit strikes me gets later and later. This year I really needed a jump start. We ran into people we know in the little stores, and in the case of the bookstore, I ran into a new friend.

And I think I'll smile now though Friday.

***

Thank you, Jayna, for giving me a nice surprise, a good laugh, and (little did you know) the jump start to some holiday spirit for me. Isabel's got a good mom. She's a kind lady, for sure.

Flying Monkeys?

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me,

Seven Monkey Puppets

Six Hours Practice

Five Funny Jokes

(Ja)eff Dunham Tickets,

Three Good Springs,

Two Moving Eyebrows,

And a full-sized ventriloquist dummy.
***

In the pedestrian version of the Twelve Days of Christmas, the lines are "seven swans a-swimming" and "six geese a-laying". If you've ever encountered a swan or a goose in real life, trust me - they are mean, nasty creatures that bite very hard. 

Giving your beloved ventriloquist a bunch of monkey puppets and a few hours to work on some schtick is much kinder gifting, to be sure.