Jeff Dunham

This is the 114th post in our Celebrity of the Day series.



Jeff Dunham was born in Texas in 1962. He began learning the ventriloquism that he is known for at the age of 8 and he considers it a skill that anyone can teach themselves.

It was in 1990 that his comedy began really taking off. He was invited to perform on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and was then invited to come sit on the couch.

Since then Dunham and his most popular puppet Walter have made a number of appearances including in a Hertz commercial, Hollywood Squares, 60 Minutes II, Entertainment Tonight and Good Morning America.

In 2003 he was given his own solo performance on Comedy Central as part of Comedy Central Presents. He has since had three Comedy Central specials entitled Jeff Dunham : Arguing with Myself, Jeff Dunhma: Spark of Insanity, and Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special.

In was in 2009 that Jeff Dunham really joined forces with Comedy Central as the network signed a contract which included another special, DVD's, merchandise, a tour covering 60 cities and his very own show on the network entitled The Jeff Dunham Show.


Jeff Dunham is reported to be among the highest earning standup comics according to Forbes.com. And it is no wonder with his DVD's going quadruple platinum and his comedy bits on youtube earning millions of hits.

Jeff Dunham's characters are known to be offensive to just about everyone at some point in time but they are always fun and entertaining to watch, they are Walter, Peanut, Jose Jalapeno on a stick, Bubba J, Sweet Daddy Dee, Melvin the Superhero Guy and Achmed the Dead Terrorist.

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