Jay Johnson

Let's get one thing straight: This is an interview with Jay Johnson. Lively wooden sidekick Bob—the so-called dummy that Johnson toted around for four seasons on the late '70s sitcom Soap—is nowhere to be found. Neither are Nethernore the darkly comic vulture, Darwin the manic monkey, Amigo the fuzzy brown boa constrictor or thankfully Long John the decapitated head. They are just a few of the puppets—apparently "dummy" is very non-PC these days—with whom the ventriloquist shares the stage in Jay Johnson: The Two and Only!. But if you want to meet that motley crew, you'll have to head to Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre, where the 90-minute show has finally arrived after a much-touted three-month off-Broadway run way back in 2004. It's time to get to know Johnson, the one and only.

You had quite a first week, didn't you? The Late Show With David Letterman and Broadway on Broadway. Had you ever been to the big September concert?
I had heard about it. The thrill couldn't be better—30 feet off Times Square looking at 50,000 people. It was a great way to start.

Was there anyone you had been wanting to meet?
I had met Martin Short a long time ago when he married Nancy Dolman, who was on Soap for a little while. I had worked with Donny Osmond; years ago, I opened for the Osmond Brothers. And Rick Lyon from Avenue Q—we're old friends. So it was reconnecting with people.

Have you seen Martin Short's show?
I haven't seen anyone's show yet! I'm hoping we aren't on the same schedule [forever].

Maybe Jiminy Glick will pull you up onstage.
I'm not sure if that would be an encouragement or discouragement. [laughs]

At least you got to share the stage with David Letterman. I love that he did "Ventriloquist Week."
It was terrific. I think we were all a little suspicious that Dave was going to turn it into a stupid human trick, and he really didn't. He made jokes about it, but he was very respectful and hired some of the best in the business.

It seems like that would be a tight-knit group. Are you all friends?
Oh, absolutely. One of the great things, too, is that normally we would be in competition for the same job—you wouldn't have more than one at a time on a variety show. Here, all of us got to do our Letterman shot.

But you were on the same night as Grey's Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey. I think you had the best show.
It was! I can guarantee my wife was watching that night. [laughs]

I'm sure she was watching only for you.
[Laughs] Oh yes.

Did you talk with him?
We crossed paths in the makeup room. I said, "I enjoy your show," and he said "I enjoy your work too." I didn't know he knew my work! But he said he had a vaudeville act when he was much younger. He had tried to do magic and ventriloquism; someone had given him a puppet. He said, "I couldn't do it. It wasn't for me."

What a nice thing to hear.
I don't know why we should always be amazed that somebody who has gotten that much attention is a nice person, but he really was.

Then, an hour after schmoozing with Dr. McDreamy, you're onstage at the Helen Hayes for your first preview. What was it like greeting that first audience?
This is the coolest thing: I've got a picture of [ventriloquist] Paul Winchell and [puppet] Jerry Mahoney in their costumes when they were doing their Hartz Mountain show. With it is a ticket, and the address on the ticket is 240 West 44th Street, New York, New York—which is the Helen Hayes Theatre. He was doing his show in the '60s in that very theater. So those laughs are Paul's as well as mine. They're still within those walls. Every night I think about that.

Speaking of history, I have to say, I had no idea ventriloquism had such a long—and, frankly, spooky—history.
I'm glad that the audience is finding that interesting as well. I've always been fascinated by that. The way it is today is one thing. But it was, at one time, alchemy.

And people thought it was demon possession.
It is amazing, that something so simple could have been so serious.

When did you know you were going to make a career out of this?
I think I always had that feeling, since I was 5 years old. I joke in the show about being dyslexic, which I am. School was more difficult for me. Tests were something I couldn't deal with. I certainly was not going to stand out with my academics. This was one of those things that didn't involve the skills I didn't have. From the moment I started, I would get encouragement. I didn't know how I would make a living, but it's worked out that I could.

Were your parents supportive when you said, "Mom, Dad, I want to be a ventriloquist"?
Very supportive. They were educators. My dad was a teacher, then a superintendent, and my mom was a librarian. They recognized early on that I had some learning problems. There was actually no word for dyslexia until the mid-'60s, so I was called a lot of things. I think the first book they ever read was a book on Houdini. They were great. My father did something that was really wonderful. He kept saying, "This is a great job that'll get you through college. You could do a couple shows a month and then get down to your studies." What he was saying was, "Go to college." So I have a degree in marketing from North Texas State.

I read that your first paying gig was at age 11 at the Texas Co-Op Gin Company. Um…
That's gin as in cotton gin, not gin like you drink! [laughs] At 11 I was not working in a bar!

Thank goodness.
[My hometown], Abernathy, Texas, was a farming community and they grew cotton. So all the farmers pitched in and bought a gin. They had a banquet one night and asked me to perform for all the ladies that came down. I didn't know I was getting paid! The man who hired me came up and shook my hand and I felt something. I thought he had left his paper napkin in my hand. But he had left a $10 bill. I worked it out—it was $1 per minute I performed. I wish I made that now! [laughs]

I love the story you tell in the show about performing at Six Flags—918 shows in 13 1/2 weeks. Is that even legal?!
All the theme park theaters did 10 shows a day back then; one cast would do five and another cast would do five. Early on, somebody quit, and since it was a sort of vaudeville show my act fit right in. The producer said, "Do you want to make some more money?" and I said, "Absolutely." He said, "It's going to be a lot of work, but we'll double your salary." I said, "Perfect." So, 918 shows.

It probably provided the money for you to buy Squeaky, your first real hand-carved, made-just-for-you wooden puppet.
That was the summer that I got Squeaky, yes.

Theme parks have been pretty good to you, considering that's also where you met your wife, Sandi Asbury. How did you guys get together?
It's a very romantic story. The way they would use me is—they had a lot of production numbers and the dancers needed to change clothes, so I was always doing my act while the cast was getting ready for the next number. And one particular summer at AstroWorld there was this dancer named Sandi Asbury. Now, I would not let the dancers go on until my applause had started to wane, so I would grab onto her and say, "No, not yet, not yet," and just hold her there. I joked that I got used to holding onto that dancer, so we got married. I'm really proud of her. She's probably done more TV and movie spots than I would ever do. She's one of those dancers who can do anything.

Has she always been supportive of your career?
Oh yes, and in the best possible way. She understood that what I did was an art form, not a gimmick and not a gag—just as her dancing was an art form. It took practice and dedication. I would find it very difficult to date girls who would anthropomorphize my characters like I do. If they sent Squeaky or Bob a birthday card or a Christmas card, that freaked me out.

That's creepy.
That's my illusion. Sandra knew that. It wasn't even an issue with her. It was an instrument and she enjoying watching us perform, but it wasn't like she expected me to bring him to the breakfast table.

People must think you take your puppets everywhere. Do fans stop you and say, "Hey, where's Bob?"
Well, I know I'm participating in the insanity of the whole art form. If someone says, "Where's Bob?" I can't say, "He's backstage locked up in his protective case." I say, "He's at the bar drinking with the prop man," and I say that knowing full well that I sound insane. The actual mechanism travels with me—the control stick and the head. They go in a special case that fits on board any airplane. But to airport security…I usually have to do a little song and dance and hope somebody's old enough to remember Soap.

I have this vision of the line being held up while you do your act for a bunch of humorless TSA people at JFK.
I remember once—this is long before 9/11—I was trying to go through customs in Santo Domingo to catch a ship to perform. They actually frisked Bob. They put their hands on his side looking for weapons. I wish I'd had a photographer.

I bet Bob felt a little violated.
We both did.

What do your two sons think of your chosen career? Do they think it's cool?
They love the show. They're grown now; my older son just graduated from college and the second one is in his second year. They are so sweet about it. It means I've missed some birthdays, but when I was home, I was with them a lot. I didn't have to go to an office. They are really, I think, proud that I went for my dream and my dream was to do a stage show against all odds. They'll be here opening night.

Did they like you to perform for them?
My younger son always liked me to perform for his school. He said, "I like to show you off, Dad." He said to one of his friends, "Don't ever play Marco Polo in the pool with your dad if he's a ventriloquist!" [laughs] He always thought I had pulled a fast one on him.

Did you ever use your puppets to entertain them, or try bits out on them?
If it was appropriate. If it was rehearsal or if they walked in or if I was doing a show at their school I would certainly get their opinion. I had heard a lot of stories about Candice Bergen, [her dad, ventriloquist] Edward Bergen, and [his puppet] Charlie McCarthy, and how as a child she didn't understand the relationship. People would come to the house and say, "Isn't that a cute little girl dummy you've got there?"

How terrible!
So my kids knew, This is what dad does, and in the suitcase that's a little doll that we don't play with. They had a really healthy respect for it. It wasn't like they thought that Bob and Squeaky were their brothers.

That could have sent them into years of therapy.
Once, I was rehearsing with Darwin in the house, and my older son—he was maybe 3 at the time—walked in. He looked at the monkey and he looked at me, and Darwin said, "Hey Brandon, how are you?" Brandon looked at Darwin and said, "I'm okay, how are you?" And they had a little conversation. Then Darwin said, "How about giving me a hug?" Brandon said, "Okay." And he walked right up to Darwin, pushed him aside, and hugged me.

How amazing that he made that distinction, even at such an early age.
It would have been funny if he had hugged the monkey, but you know, "Gee, dad, if you wanted a hug all you had to do was ask!"

Neither one is into ventriloquism, right?
They both love comedy and they love to perform. Brandon actually became a child actor for a while; he did two or three Kellogg's commercials that paid for college. By the time he was old enough to drive himself for auditions he was burned out. He said, "Dad, you drive two hours across town in L.A. traffic, walk in and say, 'Yum! This is good!' and walk out."

Not very rewarding.
So he became a musician and a writer. And my younger son says he wants to write children's books someday.

Do they have a favorite character? Or do your audiences have one?
Everybody kind of loves Darwin because he's just so free and without structure.

I think I liked Nethernore, the vulture, the best.
I'm having a lot of fun with him. He's always been a very dark character because of the material I wrote for him. A lot of corporate work I do [for lawyers and businessmen]—it's a little dark for their taste. They don't want to talk about corpses.

Broadway audiences, meanwhile, love a good corpse joke. When you say "How do you know when someone is dying?" and Nethernore replies, "They've played Roxie in Chicago!"—oh my gosh. The house just about fell apart!
[Laughs] There's some talk about how long that joke stays in, and I say it stays in as long as it gets a laugh. My sister-in-law, Donna Marie Asbury, is in Chicago. She's played Velma and Roxie and even Mama Morton, and I'm so proud of her. But the joke may stay. I'm sorry, Bebe, but it may stay.

I doubt anyone is going to think you're talking about Bebe Neuwirth. On the other hand, Melanie Griffith, Ashlee Simpson…
The good part of it is, I can always say, "It wasn't my joke—it was Nethernore's!"

Yes, blame it on the puppet! That's very useful.
Useful and dangerous. [laughs] Very dangerous.

Speaking of dangerous, you'd better keep Bob away from the lovely ladies of Avenue Q. A guy could get into real trouble there!
When we were off-Broadway, Bob sent Lucy the Slut a note saying, "Listen, babe, I'm here in New York, and I know you're probably tired of all those 'Broadway puppets.' You might want a real puppet." So Lucy—of course, it was Stephanie D'Abruzzo—wrote back and said, "Bob, I don't know, what kind of a man are you?" and sent a picture of her showing her breasts.

I guess that's why they call her Lucy the Slut.
Bob wrote back and said, "Are you sure those are real?" And she said, "Absolutely." So Bob sent a picture—it got a little naughty—where he's holding a Louisville slugger and said, "I don't play baseball and this isn't a bat."

This is a family website, you know.
Suddenly I get a letter from Kate Monster saying, "What am I, chopped liver?" I don't know if this all scared off Bob, but they did come on a little strong.

Well, if all the sexed-up puppet talk has taught us anything, it might be that this is a great time for you and Bob to be on Broadway.
Ventriloquism is expressing itself again. And it's had such a spooky history; people have been afraid of it for so long. I want to say, Let's make it entertainment. Let's see it for what it is and enjoy it.

See Jay Johnson in Jay Johnson: The Two and Only! at the Helen Hayes Theatre.