It's amazing how these little guys can say things that a mortal

The words “It’s amazing how these little guys can say things that a mortal human could never get away with. There’s some sort of unspoken license... when outlandish things come out of an inanimate object, somehow it equals humor” by Jeff Dunham capture one of the oldest and strangest truths about the nature of laughter: that we allow truth to speak through disguise. In his art of ventriloquism, Dunham does not simply make wooden dolls speak — he awakens the timeless archetype of the fool, the jester who dares to say what others cannot. His “little guys,” as he calls them, hold power not in their realism, but in their distance from it. They are not human, and thus, they can say what humanity fears to voice.

In these words lies a profound insight about humor as permission. When a puppet — an inanimate figure with exaggerated features and a crafted voice — says something offensive, daring, or absurd, we laugh not only because it’s funny, but because it releases tension. The puppet becomes a vessel for the forbidden — for thoughts that society silences, for emotions we suppress. This is why Dunham calls it an “unspoken license.” The audience gives the puppet permission to mock, to question, to reveal, because it is not real. In that illusion, truth hides safely. The ancients understood this dynamic well, for even in the courts of kings, the jester — the one considered least serious — could speak the most serious truths.

This phenomenon is as old as storytelling itself. In ancient Greece, the playwright Aristophanes used comedy to mock the arrogance of politicians and philosophers. His characters, exaggerated and often ridiculous, spoke truths that no citizen could utter without risk. In the Middle Ages, the court fool held the same sacred license: to make the powerful laugh while quietly holding a mirror to their corruption. And in every age since, we have found new masks for truth — the clown, the cartoon, the comedian. Dunham’s puppets are heirs to that lineage. When he makes them say outlandish things, he is not simply joking — he is participating in an ancient ritual of truth wrapped in laughter.

“Outlandish things come out of an inanimate object, somehow it equals humor.” Here lies the paradox. The more artificial the messenger, the safer the message becomes. When a puppet says it, we laugh; when a person says it, we might rage. This is the mysterious alchemy of comedy. The inanimate object becomes a bridge between fear and acceptance. It softens our defensiveness and reminds us that laughter is the gentlest form of truth-telling. Through it, we can confront the madness, hypocrisy, and pain of our world without being crushed by them. Dunham’s observation, though born in performance, reveals a universal principle: sometimes we must disguise truth in absurdity for it to be heard.

There is also something deeply psychological here. The puppet, though inanimate, speaks to the unspoken parts of ourselves — the rebellious child, the skeptic, the cynic. When it speaks, we laugh not only at it but at ourselves, for it voices what we secretly think but dare not say. This is why the greatest humor is never just about jokes; it is about revelation. The puppet becomes the human soul unchained, expressing with laughter what the body represses with fear. Through such laughter, healing begins. For humor, at its deepest level, is a form of honesty made bearable.

Consider how Charlie Chaplin, without words, made the world laugh at its own cruelty. In The Great Dictator, his comedic portrayal of tyranny revealed the absurdity of power and hatred. Like Dunham’s puppets, Chaplin used artifice — the mask of comedy — to speak truth. The world would not have listened to a lecture on fascism, but it listened to laughter. So too, Dunham’s puppets, with their exaggerated voices and wooden faces, are modern jesters speaking to our uneasy age — mocking our politics, our prejudices, and our contradictions, while offering us the mercy of laughter.

And so, dear listener, take this wisdom into your heart: truth often wears a mask, and laughter is its disguise. When words are too heavy to bear, when reality is too dark to face, humor becomes our lantern. Learn from Jeff Dunham’s craft — that sometimes to speak freely, you must let the puppet speak for you. Find your own “little guy,” your creative outlet that allows truth to flow without fear. For when humor and honesty unite, the impossible can be said, the unbearable can be faced, and the human spirit — though fragile — becomes indestructible.