- Tell me about the date.
- So let me tell you about the date.
This was when I was in college.
It was my senior year
going to Baylor University
in Waco, Texas--
- [Kelly] Oh, Baylor Bear.
- I was a senior--
- Bear.
- living by myself in an apartment,
and people kinda knew my apartment.
I'd been doing the ventriloquism forever.
In fact my license plate
actually said dummy on my car.
So people knew.
So my apartment--
- I see why you got all the ladies.
- I admit that what I do
for a living is not normal,
and I get it.
I don't know how I got the wife I have.
Audrey and I have been
married for seven years now,
and she's beautiful,
and it works,
- [Kelly] Super hot.
- and it's fantastic.
But whether--
- See that probably
I shouldn't have said.
But I did.
- That's okay.
But never in the history of the planet
has any woman ever said,
"Ventriloquist. That's hot."
- Hey, no, you don't know that.
- [Jeff] I do know that.
- I don't know.
- I do know.
- Well, I've never heard of it.
They never say that to me.
Let me get to the story.
So I'd been dating this girl,
and my apartment was covered with dummies.
They were my collection of dummies.
I'm not getting rid of my damn dummies
'cause they didn't bring me joy.
- You might have to say
goodbye to one dummy.
Share the dummy.
- [Kelly] They all spark joy.
- I like my clutter of dolls.
So anyway, the dummies are
lined up in the main room,
the first room you walk
in in the apartment.
They're all lined up and
sitting on the walls.
It's kinda creepy when you walk in.
- I mean, it kinda sounds
like a Dateline special,
but that's fine.
- Okay, but it was my thing,
and I built 'em, and I collected 'em.
They were antiques.
It was just weird.
And people actually said to me,
"Yeah, you gotta go to
Jeff Dunham's apartment.
"That's a thing."
- Anyway, so this girl,
- Oh, I love it.
- I'd only taken her
out three or four times,
so it was kinda, we were getting close.
So I brought her over to the apartment,
and we're sitting on the couch,
and I had secretly,
this is the thing that's gonna come out,
and the tape is there.
I had secretly put a VHS recorder,
this was in the '80s, in the corner,
and I hid the camera amongst the dummies,
and it was shooting the couch.
- This did just become--
- Why?
- a Dateline special.
- So here I am.
James Taylor's playing--
- [Beth] Good taste in music.
- on my stereo.
- [Kelly] Okay, Casanova.
- Of course, yeah.
- And we're getting kinda romantic,
and the tape is going,
and I did this for one reason only.
I wanted to see her reaction
when the dummy that was in the corner
that I had secretly radio-controlled
moved when I wasn't looking and she was.
So all those in the female audience going,
"Oh, you're horrible."
- No, you sound like my husband.
He likes to scare people.
- But it's the greatest tape ever
because here it is.
I'm sitting here with her like this,
and I'm looking over the other way,
and I had the radio control
under a pillow over here.
So I moved it,
and the dummy moved his head and his eyes
just like this, and she's like,
she had a great Texas accent.
She's like, "Oh my God."
I'm like, "What?"
"That dummy over there.
"That dummy just moved its head."
And I'm like, "No, it didn't."
She goes, "It did.
"I just saw him move."
I'm like, "Yeah, everybody says that.
"It's fine."
So I let another
five minutes pass,
- [Kelly] Oh my gosh.
- and it moves its eyes
and its head again.
She goes, "Ho!"
- I'd have been out the door.
- That's what she did.
She was out the door.
She's gone, and I'm like, "Oh yeah!"
The greatest tape ever.
- It's like the greatest tape ever.
That's wrong.
