A couple years ago, Jeff Dunham was voted “top comic” in Comedy Central’s stand-up showdown. While this may confuse anyone who has actually seen his (offensive, juvenile, un-funny) act, you have to remember that comedians are by and large an idiosyncratic lot, with their own traits and gimmicks, not to mention some long, hard-to-remember names. Clearly the majority of the voting public didn’t want to slog through all the choices and just went with “the dude with the puppets.” Afterwards we were subjected to several Comedy Central specials and the short-lived Jeff Dunham Show, and now the nearly unwatchable Controlled Chaos hopefully signals the fifteen minutes of fame for racist puppets is just about over.
Of course, Dunham is no dummy (pun unintended, I swear). He’s been doing his schtick for decades and knows a thing or two about playing to his base. On Controlled Chaos, every stupid joke and puppet sass-back is punctuated by raucous laughter, as if no one in Richmond, VA has ever heard jokes about tampons, Muslims, or masturbation delivered with such wit and panache. No offence to Virginia (it’s for lovers, after all) but you do realize that having a puppet sass back to a puppeteer is nothing ground-breaking, right? Though maybe everyone in the audience was faking a collective orgasm so the poor middle-aged man playing with dolls on stage wouldn’t feel so bad for wasting his life.
In terms of technique though, Dunham is excellent, and the only time the show approaches actual entertainment is when he showcases this technical prowess, operating multiple puppets at a time or talking very quickly between three or four different voices. And some of the puppets are pretty inspired (unlike, say, Achmed the Dead Terrorist), such as Jose the Jalapeño on a Stick, who tends to steal the show purely for being the capsicum equivalent of the Dos Equis guy.
But all that comes on the back end of so many jokes written for 12-year-olds. Or stolen from 12-year-olds, I can’t tell. Actually, the show seems designed to get 12-year-olds to watch, so that the next day they’ll go out onto the playground and repeat the jokes verbatim, catch phrases and swear words and all. Then they get beaten up by some 14-year-old bully who prefers observational humor, hopefully making them never want to see puppets ever again.
The Controlled Chaos Blu-ray is a half an hour longer than the Comedy Central special, has the option of censored or uncensored versions, and is full of all sorts of unfunny extras no one really should want to watch. It is available on DVD and Blu-ray on Amazon.
