DUMMY
DAYS
America's Favorite Ventriloquists
from Radio and Early TV
by Kelly Asbury
foreword by Leonard Maltin
afterword by Jeff Dunham
Dummy Days were simple times. They were the days of Bergen and McCarthy
on the radio. Of Winchell and Mahoney on their own TV show, Nelson and
O’Day on Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater, Señor
Wences on Ed Sullivan and Shari Lewis on Captain Kangaroo.
There were no swear words (“shucks” doesn’t count). No political
statements (even Eleanor Roosevelt loved dummies). No car chases or
guns (well, maybe a cap pistol). Just lots and lots of yuks as grownups
made wooden-headed dolls with flapping jaws talk. Yep, they were the
Dummy Days.
So, for everyone who ever uttered “S’awright?-S’awright,” sang along
with Farfel as he spelled his homage to Nestle's “chaw-claaaat” or
learned to be nice with Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse, here comes Kelly
Asbury’s Dummy
Days: America’s Favorite Ventriloquists from Radio and Early TV,
bringing back the best of the Golden Age of ventriloquism. And for
those who missed out, don’t despair! Asbury profiles the five
consummate vents who turned a vaudevillian gimmick into an American art
form: the legendary Edgar Bergen, the surreal Señor Wences, the
innovative Paul Winchell, the versatile Jimmy Nelson and the invincible
Shari Lewis.
“Dummy
Days transports the reader back to a simpler time in the
entertainment business, when it was all about escapism and fun.”
--Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks
SKG
Featured in Dummy
Days:
- Profiles of the five most important ventriloquists of all
time
- Over 200 rare photographs
- Foreword by Leonard Maltin (“I am unabashedly,
unapologetically nostalgic about those days,” he admits.)
- Afterword by Jeff Dunham
- “Flip book” corners to see the vents in action!
Author Kelly Asbury has a passion for dummies and always
will, but his day job keeps him happy too. At Dreamworks SKG, Kelly was
a story artist on Chicken Run
and the Academy
Award-winning Shrek and made
his directorial debut with the Academy Award nominee Spirit:
Stallion of the Cimarron.. He is currently directing Shrek 2, the Dreamworks feature to
be released in 2004. |
click on cover to see larger version
124 pages
200+ images
ISBN 1-883318-28-9
$30.00; 9x9"; hardcover; full color
Excerpts
|
On September 12
2003, Morning Edition host
Bob Edwards
interspersed comments on ventriloquism and Dummy Days
with sound bites from
vintage TV and radio shows and comments from author Kelly Asbury. Check
it out:
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