David Strassman
A ventriloquist whose animatronic puppets regularly hold him psychologically hostage.
1 special · 1999
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David Strassman treats his puppets less like props and more like hostile coworkers. He spends his sets playing the exhausted straight man to chunks of wood and fur that actively despise him. The defining move of a Strassman show is physical distance. Because his dummies are equipped with animatronics, he can set Chuck Wood on a stool, walk across the stage, and get into a screaming match with a piece of pine that is moving its own mouth. It breaks the visual tether of traditional ventriloquism, letting the puppet hold the room hostage while the human creator rubs his temples in frustration.
Specials
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Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala 1999 with Rove McManus, Jeff Green & 20 more
A massive showcase of late-nineties comedians doing four minutes each.
Network Ten
On stage
Though born in California, he found massive stardom in Australia and New Zealand during the late nineties, eventually hosting his own television show there. He dragged a vaudeville staple into a grungier era by injecting it with adult hostility and mechanical upgrades. He continues to pack theaters in the Southern Hemisphere, functioning as a cultural touchstone for a generation that grew up watching him argue with a bear on late-night television.
The material relies on heavy contrast. Chuck is the abrasive cynic who spits expletives at the front row, while Ted E. Bare plays the deeply neurotic victim. Strassman scripts routines with overlapping dialogue and interrupted sentences, mapping out three distinct nervous breakdowns at once. The robotics allow for stretches where he says nothing at all, letting the room sit in silence while his characters bicker with each other. He masks the triggers and programmed movements behind total exasperation, sweating through an argument he wrote himself.