July 7, 1978, Gusto Cover Story: Ventriloquism

Discovering two local stars in a little-known corner of the entertainment galaxy. 

July 7, 1978

Ventriloquism

        Kenny Byrd’s got a frog in his throat. Freddy the Frog. He’s also got a bird and a dog and a witch down there, ready to jabber at a moment’s notice, but none of them are quite as boisterous and irrepressible as Freddy.

        “Who is he?” Freddy whispers aside to Kenny Byrd after Byrd brings him from his sack. Byrd explains that this is an interview for the newspaper. Freddy responds with a few wisecracks and the conversation quickly becomes three-way – two humans and a hand puppet.

        If that seems a little flaky, then blame it on the frog. Try to leave Freddy out of things and he’ll butt right in. As for talking to him, it would be weirder not to. When Freddy talks, Freddy’s lips are the ones that move, not Kenny Byrd’s.

        The magic of ventriloquism rests on the peculiarity of the sense of hearing. Unlike the eyes, the ears aren’t very good at picking out where their stimulus is coming from. In fact, much of the time the eyes tell the ears what’s making the noise. And the eyes, of course, can be tricked.

        Discovery of this little phenomenon, like many other forms of foolery, dates back to the ancients. Pre-Christian pries employed voice-throwing, along with mirrors and smoke and sleight-of-hand, to sway their followers. It’s been suggested that the Greek Oracle at Delphi was simply a ventriloquist with a good franchise location.

        The art shifted from private amusement to the public stage around 1770, when a performer named Baron von Mengen caused a sensation in Europe. The Baron is given credit for being the first to employ dummies.

        The 20th century has had a full complement of star ventriloquists, beginning with The Great Lester, who pulled in thousands of dollars a week on the vaudeville circuit. Lester served as mentor to a host of other ventriloquists, among them Edgar Bergen.

        Bergen brought ventriloquism to radio and TV. His dummies – debonair Charlie McCarthy and hayseed Mortimer Snerd – became more popular than many flesh-and-blood movie stars.

        Nobody in recent years has achieved quite the level of prominence that Bergen reached. Paul Winchell and his Jerry Mahoney character followed in Bergen’s footsteps. Jimmy Nelson and his dog puppet Farfel have found fame and fortune doing TV commercials for hot chocolate.

        Not all ventriloquists have to go to TV to make a living. The dean of voice-throwing in Western New York, Johnny Main from Niagara Falls, has made a full-time career out of personal appearances for more than two decades.

        “My first interest was in marionettes with strings,” he recalls, “then I graduated to ventriloquism when I was 12. In high school, I used to sit in study hall and make like transistor radio till the teachers got wise.

        “I was on a show on WJJL around 1955. It was a teen-time program on Saturday afternoons. I began doing little skits with the dummy, then I went on to announce the show and do commercials. I met Ramblin’ Lou at the station there and started doing country shows with him. I’ve been working with Ramblin’ Lou now for 22 years.”

        When Buffalo nightspots like the Stage Door, the Glen Casino and McVan’s had floor shows, Johnny Main was there. He’s been a shipboard entertainer in the Caribbean and has played military bases in six countries. His scrapbook even contains an ad for his performance at a now-defunct Toronto burlesque house.

        “Compared to back in the ‘50s,” he says, “there are few places today where ventriloquists can go out and work.”

        Main describes his performance as “comedy and specialty talk.” He can do distant voices, imitating a man on the telephone. Among his best tricks is an old one introduced by The Great Lester – throwing his voice while taking a drink of water.

        “I believe ventriloquism should be treated as an art,” he says. “When people ask me to show them how it’s done, I tell them I can’t show them something that takes so much time and practice. It’s like playing the piano.”

        Like with the piano, practice is the key to the art. John Mendoza’s “Ventriloquism Made Easy” advises practicing proper breathing and pronunciation, then working on the sounds in front of mirror by whispering. And, of course, the lips should not move.

        These days Main does mostly churches, schools and civic organizations, plus appearances with Ramblin’ Lou. He’ll be with Lou at the Erie and Genesee county fairs this summer with a collection of dummies that include his main doll, Archie, and a salty old maid character named Beulah.

        If these resemble Edgar Bergen’s dummies, it’s no coincidence. The figures were created by the late Frank Marshall of Chicago, the man who made Charlie McCarthy. A proper ventriloquist’s dummy costs upwards of $1,000 these days. In recent years, Main has made some of his own figures with rubber molds and plastic wood.

        Main also sits on the board of directors of Vent Haven, the world’s largest ventriloquism museum, in Fort Mitchell, Ky., near Cincinnati. Here America’s ventriloquists will meet July 20 for their annual convention.

        It was at this gathering last year that Kenny Byrd, 27, then a program director for the YMCA in Lockport, decided to turn professional after 10 years of polishing his talent.

        “I never met another ventriloquist till last summer,” Byrd says. “I taught myself. I didn’t even have a book on it until two years ago. All the years I’d been tampering with it, I didn’t know whether I was doing things right or wrong.

        “From social work and counseling, I found personalities,” he says, “that you can put into characters to give them reality. When I went to that convention, I thought people would be doing what I was doing. Instead, a lot of them were doing the same act. It was a mind-blower. People had things down so pat.

        “Not till I walk on stage do I know what’s going to happen. I see an audience, get an idea and try things. At the convention in front of 200 ventriloquists, I didn’t know what was going to come out of my mouth.”

        Whatever it was, it was good. Byrd came off stage and found folks asking for his autograph. In a seminar the following day, the lecturer cited Byrd’s characterizations as the wave of the future in ventriloquism.

        Byrd got a hint of what ventriloquism could do when he was a bass player in a jazz group, Atmosphere, with his brother Ray. He began performing free between the group’s set and before too long he was earning a bigger fee than the band did.

        Since turning pro, he’s done schools, churches, civic organizations and now finds that word-of-mouth is bringing him new engagements. Like opening the concert in Shea’s Buffalo Monday night. Or his upcoming afternoon performances at Artpark in Lewiston from Wednesday to July 16.

        “Entertainment doesn’t mean laughter all the time,” Byrd says as he explains his approach. “Sometimes it’s emotions. One thing that helps give a character reality is to give the character things the audience can feel. Whenever I pull out Doug the Dog, the people go: ‘Aw-w-w-w.’ The first time I used him, people did that. That’s how I determine how the character will be developed. People wonder why people talk to the puppets. It’s because they’re talking to a personality.”

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IN THE PHOTOS: Kenny Byrd with his bird and Johnny Main with friends. Photos by News photographer Ron Colleran.

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FOOTNOTE: Johnny Main, born John Mianakian, was voted World's Best Ventriloquist in 1981 by his fellow ventriloquists and appeared on ABC-TV's "Good Morning America." Noted for making his own dummies, he was a mentor to Jeff Dunham. 

“He bought two houses, three cars, and had a ton of cash in the bank,” all from his work as a ventriloquist, his son told the Niagara Falls Gazette in 2021, “He paid cash for everything, didn’t use credit and had no debt.” 

He died in 2003 at the age of 65 in his home in Niagara Falls, holding one of his dummies, according to the story in the Gazette. Most of his creations -- he made 21 of them -- are in that ventriloquism museum in Kentucky.

Kenny Byrd is one of my favorite people and he's still out there performing. There's video of him on YouTube.