Ahead of Indianapolis tour launch, Jeff Dunham surveys the comedy landscape

By almost any metric, comedian and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham is one of the most prolific performers working today.

Since 2006, Dunham has released 11 comedy specials. By his marketing team's count, he has performed more than 1,390 live shows for a total of more than 7.25 million people in 15 years of near-ceaseless touring.

Dunham will launch his latest tour, titled Still Not Canceled, with a Dec. 28 performance at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. During a phone conversation with IndyStar, Dunham discussed his writing process, frenetic schedule and how the nature of ventriloquism allows him to sidestep controversy while discussing politics and other prickly issues.

Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

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IndyStar: You've just recently wrapped the Seriously tour, and now a new tour, Still Not Canceled, will launch here in Indy immediately after.

Dunham: That’s correct. Here's the secret sauce: Usually, I have a new special every 18 months to two years, and that special is built by just doing the show on the road. Every single show is slightly different because I’m chipping away the old material and adding in new stuff. So it's like a snowball rolling down the hill: Chunks will fly off and I'll add on some new ones as it rolls.

Your touring schedule is a monster. I think you set a world record one time for tickets sold during a single tour. I imagine you’re doing a lot of your writing on the road?

I did a podcast with Jeff Foxworthy yesterday, and we talked about this very thing. I did 18 years of comedy clubs, and I've yet to be tucked back into one since. Most of the guys, like Foxworthy and Chappelle and those guys, they'll do their tour. Then, they get off the road and work on the new stuff by going to the comedy clubs. But I don't like doing that.

This is why I've constantly been on the road now since ‘07 doing these arenas. Except for the pandemic and my honeymoon – and those two don't go together, by the way – I've never taken more than two weeks off in all those years.

It's every way of writing. I'll be sitting at a stoplight and think of a joke, and I'll talk it into my recorder on my phone. Or I wake up in the middle of the night and think of something, get up and write it down or type it into the phone. Or I'll sit down at the desk and do it the hard way.

But the best way is when ad libs happen on stage. And I walk off stage and say one of my guys write that down. When it really happens on stage, and it works great, you keep that and add to it.

When you are writing the new material, do you feel like you're doing stand-up bits for multiple comedians? Or do you feel more like you're doing a script for a cast of characters?

That's why I love what I do. I do my own standup at the beginning of the show, but people have asked me would you ever want to quit and just do straight stand up? No, you dance with who brought you. Good comedy has two main ingredients: conflict and tension. That's what makes a great comedy movie or a sitcom or whatever. It's the tension and conflict between characters. And rather than just tell jokes, I can do that on stage because it's more than one person.

It enables me also to discuss, rather than talk about, certain topics that are in the news or the zeitgeist or whatever you want to call it. Some stuff other comedians have trouble talking about, because even just talking about the subject will get you canceled. But I can point and counterpoint and discuss and argue on stage with tension and conflict. It can be built right in so it's like a mini sitcom on stage.

And so to answer your question, when I'm writing, sometimes it's just jokes. But if the jokes are borderline – we shouldn't be talking about that or that maybe that's not OK to say – then I can jump right in and say that and say what the audience is thinking or what the trolls online might say.

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Is that how you came up with the name of the tour? Some folks have begun to lump you in with Foxworthy and other “conservative comedians.” You have a new character who’s making fun of young, sensitive people, and you do Biden jokes and things like that.

When Trump was in office, I had a lot of fun with that. We did a bunch of videos where Walter would dress up like Trump, and we called him Grump.  We made fun of everything there was to make fun of with Donald Trump. And now Biden's in office, and that's free game.

This is the thing that makes me scratch my head. In the days of Will Rogers, Bob Hope, Carson, Leno – you never really knew what any of those guys’ politics were. They didn't talk about it. They made jokes about who was in office and what was going on in the world and commented on society. They didn't judge. They didn't call people names.

What's happened today, and it confuses me, is so many comedians – and all the late night guys – will pick a side and then just bash the other side and do mean jokes. And then they're alienating a potential 47% of their audience when they don't need to do that.

I love the idea of making fun of what is there in front of everybody and what is easily made fun of and fun to make fun of. But you don't do it in a mean-spirited way. I pride myself on the fact that many people now from the Left see my show and go, you know, Walter is Biden, but we're not trashing the left. We're just making fun of what we're all seeing on a daily basis. And people walk away going “yeah, that was fine.” And the same thing when Trump was in office, and Walter would dress up like Grump. People from the Right would come to the show and go “yeah, that was fine.”

And I’m sure you’ve had friends who were “canceled” in some way …

Sure. People are getting canceled left and right, not just in comedy. You say one thing wrong, and it's out there and you're done. I came up with that name. And everybody who works for me – management, agents, publicists – they all thought I was kidding. And I'm like, no, I'm not kidding.

Foxworthy said yesterday he's two bad decisions away from hanging drywall. You know what I mean? I'm one joke away from working on cars. How can you not wake up and think I'm still OK, I haven't said anything stupid yet.

Yeah. And social media means everything is omnipresent and open to criticism at all angles. 

Sure. I would hate to be a comedian coming up right now who doesn't have some sort of following because there's nobody there with your back. Everybody's gonna jump on and pile on with the hate.

I had the luxury of having been in this business for decades and have a loyal following, and they know they're coming to a fun show. Nobody's going to get hurt. It's goofy, stupid comedy. It's not a Dennis Miller. There are no references you’d have to be a Rhodes scholar to understand.

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Here’s one last question I ask everyone, and the results are always different. Do you have any specific memories, good or bad, of Indianapolis? Can you think of any specific performances here, either in your arena days or in your club days? 

You know what's sad about all these arena dates is being on the tour bus. I see nothing because my show is almost two-and-a-half hours long. I do all the talking. There are no pauses, so I really have to watch my voice. I literally get off the tour bus, set up for the show, have dinner, do the show and get straight back to the bus.

To keep my voice, I don't talk to anybody. I don't get on the phone. It's just sitting on that bus either working on a dummy, because I have a shop on the bus, or I'm writing jokes and working on the routines.

Honestly, I wake up on the bus and the first thing I do is look on my phone and see if there's a Starbucks close by that I can walk to. That's the only time I ever get out and see anything. If you asked me that question in 10 years, every city would probably look exactly the same to me: It looks like the inside of a bus.

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Rory Appleton is the pop culture reporter at IndyStar. Contact him at 317-552-9044 and rappleton@indystar.com, or follow him on Twitter at @RoryDoesPhonics.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Jeff Dunham on cancel culture, ripping politicians and writing jokes