But the mechanics of learning to 'throw your voice' are pretty simple. Anyone with a tongue, an upper palate, teeth, and a normal speaking voice can learn ventriloquism.

There's no real formula for doing it, it's either just living life and writing down a joke you think of in the middle of the day and then pieces those together later.

The kids who come backstage that have cancer or whatever, make them laugh and smile for a little while, what's the problem with that? There isn't any.

Up until college age I was using the typical little-boy dummy that sits on the knee and makes woodpecker jokes. My first original character didn't happen until later, and that was Jose the Jalapeno on a Stick.

I was a kid in the third grade ... saw a dummy in the toy store. In the '60s and '70s there were a lot of those vinyl ventriloquism dummies - just about every toy store had one. Everyone close to my age that I've talked to, especially guys for some reason, tell me that they had one too, but they said they never could do it. So many people come up to me and say that. It was just something that I thought was cool. I started doing book reports with it - I developed the skill. I easily got A's on all my reports. It was just something that a little kid grasped on to - so I stuck with it.

Family time was very difficult when my girls were little, but I never missed a birthday, I was there for every major event.

I try to make the majority of my audience laugh. That's my audience. They'll laugh at the dead terrorist.