If you will take the time to watch several videos of Vents, you will see that there are two basic types of Ventriloquists. One type (and maybe the most common) is the basic “jokester”. That is a Vent/puppet who just use a series of jokes back to back with one of them being the straight man and the other the wise guy.
The other type of Vent is the “storyteller”. This is the type where the ongoing dialogue is a form of an interview where the two work together to tell an interesting story of life experiences. To truly be a great act, it is great if you can work to combine the two into one act.
You want to have enough humor to be really enjoyable, but you also need enough life experiences to involve your audience in the life of either the puppet or the Vent or both.
Take some time to watch some of the greats of our time. Recently think of Darci with Edna Doorknocker. Darci at an early age has mastered the art of “interviewing” Edna about certain topics. Edna on the other side is good at answering questions, but doing so in a way that is both humorous AND maybe embarrassing.
Example: Go back and watch Darci and Edna on AGT when the two of them approached Simon Cowell and embarrassed the stuffing out of him. Great combination and look what it did for Darci’s career.
Work on this strategy with your character. The more you can involve your audience in the “life” of your puppet, the more real the puppet becomes and the more people will want to see both you and your puppet again as you continue to involve them in the life of your puppet and his/her continuing experiences.
We will talk again next week.
Steve and JET