I try not to watch a lot (well, any) reality competition shows. I don’t condemn them, just that I prefer plotted entertainment and I already watch too many of those series. But a couple of years ago, I happened to stumble across You’ve Got Talent when they were showing this puppeteer. I like puppets a lot.
Turned out Terry Fator was a ventriloquist, and when they teamed him up with the Muppets for his famous person spot, I was hooked. His act combines music, impersonation (the puppets sing in the style of others, such as Roy Orbison (which is really weird coming out of a turtle), Etta James, or the Bee Gees), and of course, comedy.
It works because he’s a decent singer and a really good ventriloquist. I didn’t see him moving his lips (although if you look closely, you can see his throat move, for the breathing). He gives the puppets personalities and plays up to them.
His jokes are comfortable, friendly humor, in an old-school variety style, with a good dollop of nudge nudge wink wink sexual allusion, since this is Vegas, after all. (For example, several of the male puppets are obsessed with getting women to throw their underwear on stage.) The songs are short, which is good, since if they were too long, you’d realize you were doing nothing but watching a guy holding a puppet. The frequent camera angle changes jazz things up, too.
I admit, I giggled when Winston the Impersonating Turtle starts claiming he does impersonations. Fator asks “who’re you going to impersonate?”, which the turtle echoes back, impersonating Fator in his OWN voice. Well, that makes perfect sense. Fator also sings by himself, without the puppets. Plus, he seems like such a nice, normal guy for an entertainer. He cracks himself up while voicing the yodeling country singer Walter T. Airedale (pretend or not, I dunno), which leads the puppet to ask “How come I can’t talk when you’re laughing?” Later on, he messes up some voices and then runs with it.
The references are familiar, as with the puppet Elvis impersonator, or Julius singing “Let’s Get It On”, or a less-funny segment with a “cougar” puppet making sex jokes. (It made me miss Madame and Wayland Flowers.) Since the show was filmed in early 2009, there’s a Michael Jackson sequence where Fator dons wig, red leather jacket, and white glove. (There’s a card in the DVD package explaining the timing and Fator’s appreciation for Jackson.)
In one interesting sequence, Fator pulls a guy from the audience and puts a remote-controlled mask on him that allows Fator to use the guy as a living ventriloquist dummy. Unfortunately, that devolves into “guy in a dress” jokes. I was also disappointed not to see the Fifth Beatle in this show.
This disc contains one performance (runs about an hour and 10 minutes, including a short filmed introduction with the puppets enjoying Vegas before the show), plus two commentaries. The first, which has interesting information about how the show came together, is by Fator, writer Rick Kerns, and director Mark Goffman, while the second is by the puppets, which quickly became boring.
Fator currently performs in the new Terry Fator Theatre in the Las Vegas Mirage Hotel (in a five-year, $100 million deal). The first chapter of his autobiography, Who’s the Dummy Now?, is included in booklet form with this DVD.
(A complimentary copy for this review was provided by the studio.)
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