‘Mortimer Snerd was the secondary dummy of popular ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. Created in 1938, Mortimer made his debut on Bergen’s radio series, The Chase and Sanborne Hour. The character was an amiable hick, with a slow drawl reminiscent of the Disney character Goofy, and a streak of innocence and unique logic, in contrast to the sharp-witted Charlie McCarthy. The dummy reflected this, with buck-teeth, elongated nose, and more mundane “rube in the city” costuming in contrast to the top hat and tails worn by both Charlie and Edgar. Snerd is credited as the original source of the word “Duh!”. The dummy became popular in his own right, and appeared with Bergen and McCarthy in such films as Charlie McCarthy, Detective; Here We Go Again; Stage Door Canteen; and Fun and Fancy Free (also starring Mickey Mouse and the voice of Dinah Shore). He was also the inspiration for the Looney Tunes character Beaky Buzzard. Bergen died in the late 1970s, one week after announcing his retirement and two weeks after Mortmer Snerd’s final performance on The Andy Williams Show.’ — muppet.wikia

Actor

Charlie’s Haunt 1950
Wooden Dummy 1950
Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd in Sweden 1950
Stage Door Canteen 1943
Wooden Dummy 1942
Here We Go Again 1942
Charlie McCarthy, Detective 1939
You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man 1939
Letter of Introduction 1938
A Neckin’ Party 1937

 

1939

 

Gallery

 

75 years later

ScottCaton
James first ventriloquist performance with Mortimer Snerd.

 

zubaz pants
Today I’m going to be showing you a dummy I got for my birthday.

 

 

Crazy Tech & Puppets
I do control Mortimer Snerd!

Brexten Multi
Try pressing your tongue at the top of the back of your teeth, when you say d, release your tongue. that might make the D sound more likes B

 

VentriloquistMaster
1st episode!! sorry if your question wasn’t answered 🙁

 

jcpulsifer1
Mortimer wakes up for a bowl of fruity pebbles and dies falling down the stairs…

 

howuduin888
howuduin888’s QuickCapture Video – April 24, 2009, 02:15 PM

 

Loofigan
I’m doing some “VENTRILOQUISM” with my good friend Mortimer Snerd.

 

Tommy Talker
funny! crazy! wierd?

 

Mortimer Snerd
Hope you enjoyed this video,I’ve never had a video revolve around just me and Donald so I thought it’d be a good idea to do one now and tell me if you want more like this.

 

ian L
Dude… thank you for inspiring me. I’m old and wanting to do this to support my “creativity”… lol thank you again,
You have no idea how much help you’ve made. See on you TV!

Wafflezila
Wow I just said blood with out moving my lips

umbalaba
Very instructive. Thank you. This also makes me realize how much you need to practice before it appears convincing.

Blank User
YOU REMIND ME OF RAVI FROM VICTORIOUS

Doc Savage
Thanks for taking the time to teach Ventriloquism here. Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. 68, and just ordered my Charlie McCarthy. Only question is, what do I do with no teeth. Been practicing just as you taught to substitute letters, with other letters that almost sound the same. I try to do an M, by using an N, and works on some words easier then others.

 

noel bullard
get him a new hat

Eddie Stevens
I have a standerd Mortimer Snerd too(but he’s not broken at all) I take good care of my puppets/dummies(no offence)

 

VentriloquistMaster
first episode of double dummy time!!!!

 

Hidden Screen
disturbing

Otis Le PoOtis
Yup

Void R6
cool but English?

Otis Le PoOtis
We are not going to make a english version

 

Last Tracker
SLAPPY AND MORTIMER SNERD GO TO THE OSTRICH FARM

 

Bonus: Mortimer Snerd, the band

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Ian, Hi, Ian! Thanks. I’m a borderline sack of shit right now myself. I think it’s the world. Wait, … are you saying cigs aren’t nutrients? Uh oh. Maybe today’s post will be a motivator? The world could use a few more ventriloquists, that’s for sure. Race you to inspiration! ** Misanthrope, Movies are your only friend, … until … the … ennnnnnd. That was just for you. I remember the difference between two and three finger chords from my high school guitarist days. When you ace that third finger, you’re going to feel good about yourself. Defeatism has the distinction of being both totally useless and extremely boring. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you for sharing your opinion on Kren. ** Dominik, Hi! Oh, that’s the book Peter wrote the afterward for, right, I know about that book. Now I have to get it. I’m a Peter fan. Like I said, people sure seem to be all dazzled by the infinity rooms, so you should definitely immerse yourself when you get the chance and find out if their vaunted magic works on you. Ha ha, nice love. By the by, gurochan is back if you’re interested. It’s still pretty empty, but it lives. Love looking at you like this forever and ever, G. ** Jack Skelley, J-j-j-j-jack! Turn and face the strange. Happy the Kren stuff worked a groove in you. Thomas Moore is a sweetheart and one heck of a writer. Cool you guys connected. Ooh, nightmarishly progressing. I love the catchy tune going on in those words. Wednesday is over if you want it. xo. ** Bill, I find the more Structuralist films he made after his Actionist period to be his best. Okay, tentatively interested in that ‘new’ Mariana Enriquez, thanks! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. I think Kren’s involvement in Actionism was kind of a right time/right place with the right circle of friends thing. Happy Thursday! ** Bzzt, Hi, Q. Having a projector would be really nice. I haven’t had one since a billion years ago when you had to have one if you wanted to watch anything that wasn’t on broadcast TV. I used to have this huge box of super8 gay porn movies. What pain in the ass. But now having a projector would be so … romantic? It’s so boring and pointless to say that stuff like that gets easier as you get older, but it’s boringly true, I think, for whatever good that observation does. Your McCormack squib! Everyone, Bzzt aka Quinn Roberts wrote a cool little thing about ‘Castle Faggot’ on The Drift. Scroll down to it. Although the other short things on that page look pretty interesting too, so maybe gulp down the whole page. Anyway, here. Your piece is sharp and really funny, my hat’s off. Mm, I’ve never gotten into John Rechy. I’ve tried, but I think I’m still where you used to be with him. His stuff just doesn’t ring any bells in me. Yeah, John lived just down the street from me in LA for a long time. I used to run into him on the sidewalk and in the supermarket. He’s very, very … how to put it politely …self confident. But, yeah, sure I know that feeling of suddenly, magically getting something I’d previously rejected. A really, strangely exhilarating feeling, no? Great catching up with you too. Stay gold and all of that good stuff. ** T, Hello, T! Things with me are all pretty alright, push comes to shove. What about with you? I’m thrilled that the post and, far more importantly, Kren’s work excites you. Fantastic! Couldn’t hope for more. And I agree completely with your thoughts about his work. Great! Thank you so much for sharing that, man. And I’m very happy to see you. ** Bex Peyton, Hi, Bex. Thank you so much! Okay, yeah, I hear you on the school thing. I’m way there. I quit university after one year because it was making me feel less confident about being a writer if anything. I got really lucky because this one poetry teacher I had basically told me that if I really wanted to be a writer I should quit and that it wasn’t the place for me. And I never regretted it. But if you can get the good things from the studies and keep your own beliefs, and you have, that’s just as good, I think. Suspiciously coherently, ha ha. That’s nice. Obviously, I would love to see that book or your work when the time comes that you feel like it’s something you’re into showing. Have an awesome day and night. ** NIT, Hey, S! I figured out that this is you. You like Kren? That’s cool, and that makes sense. How are you? How’s stuff? Thanks about my novel. Gulp, and all of that. ** Steve Erickson, Nice that the new tool is already coming in far more than handy. I have avoided watching ‘Nomadland’ even though it’s there and raring to be watched on one of my illegal sites precisely because what you say about it has seemed to be inevitable. A shame, but no surprise whatsoever. Thanks for letting us/me know. ** ae, Hi. Cool, very glad you liked the post/work. Ah, the LA Art Book Fair. Every year I’ve really wanted to be there for that, and every year I’ve been thwarted, and I think they’ve stopped doing it now? Drat. I’ll look up The Center For Post-Natural History. I don’t know of it. That sounds great. Okay, the fingers on my left hand are scrunched re: you two until the weekend then. Don’t worry, it feels good. Yes, I like Cindytalk very much. My friend/collaborator Peter Rehberg puts at least some of her records out on his great Editions Mego label. I know some of the Praxis stuff — I have, let’s see, some Adjust and Dan Hekate/The Wirebug and some reissues they did like Bourbonese Qualk. I’ll have to hunt. And you remind me to get the new Datacide. There’s one store here that sells it, but it’s way the fuck across Paris, and I need to get over there. Cool, have an excellent day ahead (or behind?). ** Right. Today I indulge two interests of mine simultaneously — (1) ventriloquism, and (2) nerdy aspirational youths. I hope there’s something in the combo that does something for you too. See you tomorrow.

* (restored)
—-

 

If somebody who’s never heard us says to me, ‘Oh you play in a metal band, I know exactly what you sound like,’ I can say in all confidence, ‘I’m not sure. I’m not sure that you do.’”

– Mårten Hagström, guitarist for Meshuggah

 

 

Meshuggah formed in Umeå, Sweden in 1987. In 1995, their second full length record, Destroy Erase Improve, completely reinvented the genre and is generally considered to be a masterpiece. I agree. When I first heard it in 1999, I knew I had found something really great. They have continued to produce extremely wonderful, innovative and confounding records ever since. They are one of those bands that I truly love but had never seen live, until February 5, 2009, when they played Slim’s in San Francisco. I went with my friend Niko Wenner, guitarist for Oxbow, which also happens to be my favorite band. So it was sort of perfect storm of my overly-enthusiastic fan-boydom. What follows are some blurry photos I took at the show, some of my own thought about Meshuggah, photos of the band taken by other people, clips of Meshuggah playing live, and some bits of interesting writing about the band.

 

 

“There’s as much rhythmic obsessiveness and intricacy in the relentless polyrhythms of Swedish metal maestros Meshuggah as there is in Reich or Ligeti – with the difference that Meshuggah use the supreme technical sophistication and overpowering volume of their 5-in-the-time-of-4 patterns to serve rather different expressive ends: Terminal Illusions as opposed to Different Trains”.  – Tom Service from guardian.co.uk

 

 

It’s like a post-millennial, metal portrait of the collapse of one’s mind, the words and images adding the final blow to what is an all-out assault of a composition. Monstrous, prodigious, apocalyptic, “I” is quintessential Meshuggah, and some absolutely vital 21st century metal. – Adrien Begrand – Popmatters.com

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. I’m going to imagine that my neighbor wasn’t banging angrily on the wall but rather accidentally bumping into the wall in his Play Therapy induced gyrations. I love coffee, but if it’s something you should avoid, do. It’s my only drug now (unless cigarettes count), so I’m all in. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I was going to ask you what in the world you meant by that, but, after the ensuing little mess, I’m going to leave it alone. ** Bzzt, Hey Quinn! Ah, remind me/us when your piece on Brontez goes up, please, or I’ll surely find it if you forget. They do say that illogical self-directed stuff like that — you’re the exact opposite of a burden and failure, sir, guaranteed — is explainable as childhood detritus, and, as kind of too expectable as that solution seems, there does seem to be some truth there. But, yeah, that kind of go-to self-doubt is hard to negotiate. Been there myself, obviously. It does seem to get easier to give yourself credit when you get a little older, for whatever good that observation does. Great about your story still-in-progress and the pitch. Stuff like that is your way free, probably. Saw all that East Coast snow on the news. Ah, so pretty. We’re still with a 6 pm curfew right now and basically no enter/exit France rules, but if we don’t get quarantined again maybe as soon as later this week, I’ll be shocked. Things are okay, but people are stressed and fed up with the pandemic. I think the big reason France hasn’t locked us down already is that there is guaranteed to be huge civil disobedience in the streets if they do. Take care over there. ** Dominik, Hi, D! Happy the post made what you think might be good suggestions. No, I don’t know that Ian Brady book, or that it existed. i didn’t know he wrote, if you mean the Ian Brady. Huh. Good move re: my love. And of course your love rules and I’m begging for it. Love that sucks the entire pandemic into a small building far, far away somewhere whereupon Yayoi Kusama sculpts it into an Infinity Room and donates the proceeds generated by the huge crowds going to see it to the Dominick Perfect Life gofundme page, G. ** brontez purnell, Hi, Brontez! So cool of you to come in here. It’s redundant to say I love your book, but I’ll say it anyway, or I guess I mean ‘did’ say. I’ll write to you at FB when I’m outta here. Much respect! ** Bex Peyton, Hi, Bex! Very happy you came back! My pleasure about the post, of course. Yes, I’ve read ‘The Devils’. I loved it. I think New Juche is amazing and kind of can’t do wrong. What did you think? Awesome, it’s great to connect with you too. What are your classes? What do you do, or what do you most like to do? Happy Tuesday! ** wolf, Wolfmeister! Well, yeah, I agree that assuming I can possibly know what other humans feel is a gross generalisation, and I hate generalisations and when lazily make them like the plague. Interesting, I guess, that I felt privileged enough to go there. Interesting to me, I mean. It sucks that if we didn’t generalise sometimes our brains would likely explode from overactivity. Well, you know, they say language is why we can think we understand each other. How it can clarify and how it can make things mysterious or confusing. I can sort of believe that, being a language nerd. I don’t know. I’m just tripping. Super happy that I was able to accidentally beef up your book pile. What would a blog, mine in particular, be without a roaming wolf, you in particular. xo. ** Alexandrine Ogundimu, Hi! It’s so nice to meet you, or I guess ‘meet you’. Thank you so much for coming in here. I really loved your book and everything I’ve read by you so far, really, and I’m excited to read a lot more. I hope you’re doing well through the whole covid hell. Much respect to you! ** jackson howard, Hi, Jackson. David’s Black, as Sypha said, but … yeah. Thank you for coming in here. And, since I think you are the person who sent me Brontez’s book, thank you very, very much for that. It was huge boon, obviously. Take care, all the best. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Can you identify the point or reason why/when you transitioned from a trangression-interested Sotos, etc. reader into more of an avoider of disturbing things? Just curious. Realise it could be an impossible question. I still don’t have ‘Hate’. Michael owes me a copy. I love ‘Sentimental Education’, as you know. ** Misanthrope, Ah, so Rigby’s a bit of a slave type. That makes a strange kind of sense. Ha ha. I would trade my weekend for yours lickety-split. Power chords! Maybe today’s post will be of help. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. Thanks! The bookclub thing is really nice, so I recommend it. It’s nice with ours also because three of the participants are both really old friends/comrades of mine from back when we were aspiring young writers together as well as being great writers. So there’s lots to talk about even when thoughts on the assignment lags. Yeah, maybe the classes needing to occupy you is a good thing ultimately. Such weird days. Being focused can feel exciting, to me at least. The huge snowfall is dreamy from way over here where snow has pretty much broken up with Paris. My Tuesday: I need to work on that assigned thing. So I”m going to force myself to. Otherwise … ? How were your 24 all in all? ** liquoredgoat, hi, Douglas! Great to see you, buddy! The books you want to read are really worth reading, which I didn’t really need to say even, I guess. How are you? Are you working on anything that excites you? xo. ** chris dankland, Hey, Chris! I … guess I’ll let your post be a surprise? Why not. Good you’ve gotten the vaccine, or the first half. I’m counting the unknown minutes until I qualify over here. France is being stingier than where you are. Oh, dude, if I had had to do Zoom classes when I was in school, I would have done what I already did — skim everything and fake it — but to a much worse degree, and, yeah, surely blow off the classes as often as possible. It kind of amazes me when I hear of students actually doing the Zoom classes devotedly. Congrats on weed’s new local legitimacy! I didn’t realise you aren’t really involved in xray now. It does seem to be going great guns. It feels really alive and key. Big up to Jennifer. As I said up above somewhere, we’re on tenterhooks over here. Right now stores are open but no cafes, restaurants, bars, museums, theatres. 6 pm curfew, which is a huge drag. Threat of a third quarantine hanging over everything and maybe restarting as soon as late this week. It’s okay, but people here, who have been so diligent and good about the restrictions for the last year, are really fed up and stressed. But, for now, we’re alright. Same to you vis-a-vis your morning, pal! ** ae, Hi, a! The thanks are entirely mine. I’m using WordPress now, and a supposedly cool host, and they swear the blog is my property and they won’t fuck with it, but we will see. I’m okay. Trying to make myself work on something I need to work on. But good. Huh, I don’t know DistinctivelyDionysian. I’ll go look at the site. It sounds fascinating. I hope they survive. I’ll see if I can score as back issue or something. When do you think you’ll hear back from the press about the collaborative poetry + illustration zine? Fingers stranglingly crossed if you need them. If I ever get to your neck, I’m going to invite myself over for dinner somehow. Jeez, yum. I only ever went to that one Sikh restaurant, mind you, but, wow, it was amazing. The Golden Temple of Consciousness, it was called. And it lived up to that name even. Thank you for the link.That’s fascinating, isn’t it? Excited for the package, thank you so, so much! How was your day? Are you under the famous pile of snow? ** Right. I decided to restore this old post by Blendin aka the artist Brendan Lott. It’s old enough that Blendin may well have moved his enthusiasm onto a different Metal band by now, but no matter. He made his case, and it stands. Enjoy. See you tomorrow.