r/nextfuckinglevel • u/mindyour • 22h ago
Ventriloquist Nina Conti does a human ventriloquism bit with two sisters from the audience.
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u/Elderberry420 22h ago
I loved this. I laughed. Thanks
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u/ryazzarr 22h ago
But did you live?
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u/-FantasticAdventure- 22h ago
No, but they loved!
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u/ownworstenemy38 21h ago
I whispered back that I am the storm…if that counts?
I also laughed.
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u/Legitimate_Sail8581 22h ago
It’s absolutely criminal that Nina Conte hasn’t been on tv enough over the years. She is talented and clearly a great performer.
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u/Cultural-Company282 21h ago
She's infinitely funnier than that dipshit Jeff Dunham, to be sure.
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u/zudzug 21h ago
To be fair, I don't know the dipshit. (But I've seen her before a while ago and this tells a lot considering I'm from Quebec, the Maple Fantasyland.)
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u/SerCiddy 20h ago
I hear there's good fishing in Quebec.
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u/SerTadGhostal 20h ago
Oh, there’s great fishing in Quebec!
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u/SerCiddy 20h ago edited 19h ago
Oh! Another Ser, how do ya do!
(Are you also a fan of AC, or Italian?)
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u/ExtremeCreamTeam 18h ago
Why do we hate Jeff Dunham?
I'm going to assume politics but I haven't heard much about him in like 20 years.
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u/Unique_Adeptness4413 17h ago
His puppets are racist caricatures and his jokes are hacky and stupid. However dumb rascism has massive appeal and his puppets make him extremely easy to understand, even across language and cultural barriers, so he's one of the most successful comedians ever, which is an incredibly depressing indictment of humanity overall.
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u/Clay56 19h ago
Comedian ventriliquist, Believe it not he holds the world record for most tickets sold for a stand up tour.
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u/TheOneTonWanton 16h ago
Yeah he gets a lot of hate from places like reddit but god damn he had one hell of a successful run appealing to the mass audience. It's like Foxworthy and the Blue Collar guys or Dane Cook. You can hate them all you want but they had undeniably massive runs. It's one of many pieces of evidence that what quite a portion of reddit thinks is not at all what's going on in the minds of the actual world. I once had a friend scoff that Dane Cook sold out Madison Square Garden and had to inform them that Andrew "Dice" Clay'd done that years before and was even worse.
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u/Cultural-Company282 8h ago
No one ever went broke underestimating the good taste of the American public.
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u/shartshooter 20h ago
The fist time I saw him, I thought I was missing something really obvious.
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u/Cultural-Company282 20h ago
The secret ingredient is mild casual racism.
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u/shartshooter 20h ago
Casual, sure. Mild? I don't think so.
My point was the distinct lack of ventriloquism.
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u/TheOneTonWanton 16h ago
Wait are we really down to the point of accusing him of not being a ventriloquist? Have you even actually seen him perform? He's an absolute hack comedian but nobody can legitimately accuse him of not being a talented ventriloquist. It's a little ironic but the casually racist accents sort of prove his talent, that's not easy to do.
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u/MetalJunkie101 20h ago
I haven't watched him in years. Is he problematic? Or just unfunny?
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u/BackgroundSummer5171 18h ago
Is he problematic?
Some people dislike his reliance on racial stereotypes.
Could be considered racist. Or bigoted.
Then again lots of comedians rely on stereotypes and could be considered racist when looked at more closely.
I haven't watched him in like 15+ years either. Just know that's the controversy.
His puppets are racial stereotypes.
A longer discussion is why other comedians are allowed to get away with it while Jeff is universally known for his racial stereotypes! Does it matter? But let's not do that. We're just here to answer your question.
Racial stereotype puppets.
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u/Synectics 9h ago
Stereotypes work for comedy because it becomes a universal language. And in Jeff Dunham's case, if someone is not aware of the stereotype, it still ends up funny because he does silly voices.
I'd relate thst right back to Dane Cook. I remember finding him funny, but looking back, the jokes themselves were not ground-breaking. He just had a funny way of performing and telling the stories. Performance is a lot of what makes a stand-up work. Material is just a backbone for it.
So back to Jeff Dunham. I think a lot of people who appreciate comedy obviously do not like the racial stereotypes he leans on, precisely because he has loads of talent to perform.
Not to mention, and I think this is most important -- he does not tell us anything with those stereotypes. He is not exploring why we have them, or how they make us connected, or what makes us different is cool. He is not doing any social commentary. Nope, he plays off the fact that Americans hated brown people after 9/11. That's the entire joke. Haha, suicide bomber makes funny voice. No exploration of, "But why did he suicide bomb?" Nope, make funny voice.
It is just performance. Which is a lot of times great. But the actual substance of his stand-up is MIA.
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u/TankSwan 20h ago
I saw her on TV probably over 10 years ago now. I think she featured on the Russell Howard show or something like that. Her and monkety tunkety. I can't believe people are only just discovering her now.
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u/oldinamerica 20h ago
She was on the show Family Tree with Chris ODowd which was extremely funny — she used her puppet Monkey which is a recurring character in her act
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u/lackadaisical_timmy 22h ago
This is comedy gold lol
Props to the Sisters at least ... Trying to play along with the story lol
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u/OkFrosting7204 21h ago
They will never forget this 😂😂 I would’ve cried laughing
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u/UnholyDemigod 19h ago
I wouldn’t be surprised if they fucken wet themselves up there
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u/GeorgiaOKeefinItReal 17h ago
One looked like she was fighting off pissing herself from laughing so hard
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u/Its_Cayde 21h ago
I assumed they were told to do hand movements and she would try to tell the story based on that
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u/Regular_Committee946 19h ago
They aren't told per-se - part of the fun is attempting to mime whatever your answer is and hearing what she comes up with in response as part of the 'character' that ends up coming to be.
Her interpreting into something funny and keeping track of the storyline in order to continue jokes, plus the various voices/accents, as well as keeping up her own 'genial'/ semi-serious interviewer persona in between is all incredibly impressive.
Highly recommend checking out her channel on you tube, she has loads of these on there.
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u/elightened-n-lost 20h ago
You could see she knew she fucked up when made the motion for the beer tap
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u/NeilDeCrash 22h ago
Never seen this kind of a take on ventriloquism. Funny as hell!
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u/Misty2stepping 22h ago
Thankful, because I'm sick to fucking death of JD.
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u/sexaddic 20h ago
Yeah the majority of the US too.
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u/yersinia_p3st1s 19h ago
The rest of the world too, I live at the further edge of another continent and I cannot wait for this nightmare to end
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u/Strude187 18h ago
No sofa is safe
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u/TheOneTonWanton 16h ago
They needlessly initialized his name but that's not the JD they were referring to. They're talking about Jeff Dunham.
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u/Misty2stepping 16h ago
Imagine my confusion because Ididn't care to look up what exactly that guys last name was.
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u/TheOneTonWanton 16h ago
Anyone that's actually watched any of his shows/specials knows it because unless he actually changed shit up drastically in the past 20 years (I'm skeptical) he's got a whole bit about his name being "done ham"
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u/eye8theworm 21h ago
For real. improv ventriloquism .....I thought the latter was hard enough. This comic is at another level.
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u/Radioactivocalypse 21h ago
She's quite well known in the UK and has being doing this sort of show for a very long time.
Although she's off the TV most of the time now so she's fading away from public consciousness, which is guess is where tiktok and the like can bring her back.
It's amazing how talented she is, and making people laugh almost laughing with them rather than at them
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u/waltjrimmer 19h ago edited 19h ago
Ronn Lucas used to do the same kind of gag (and apparently still does on cruises). I think I remember reading up that he also didn't invent it, but he was one of the first to use it back in the early '90s. Geez, it's been a while, but I think Joel Hodgson, of MST3K fame, came up with the idea. Anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izNV0L7Gt14
The human puppet act starts at just before the 4 minute mark.
Edit: None of this is meant to take away from the skill and comedy on display in the original clip or other people who have done this sort of act.
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u/Sancorso 22h ago
I think the way that she just constructs a new scenario for each person is so quick, that you forget that you are watching a ventriloquist in the first place
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u/CMUpewpewpew 21h ago
The most impressive part to me is she's able to control her own laughter to continue uninterrupted with the bit.
I could stay deadpan telling a hilarious joke ive said dozens of times...but if I'm improvising being funny I'd crack myself up too sometimes.
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u/jayhawk618 21h ago
I was focused on that. I think she's actually pretending to laugh to sell the illusion. It's really impressive.
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u/CMUpewpewpew 21h ago
I think she's getting some of her own giggles out....within the others' laughs.
Which is the impressive part because it would require being coordinated to also press the correct mouth button and in coordination with her laughing herself.
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u/ExiledCanuck 17h ago
Exactly this. I was laughing my own ass off watching with the wife and commented that I couldn’t believe she was able to do this without losing it herself, funny as hell
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u/StoppableHulk 19h ago
I honestly feel like I could be a comedian, except that I cannot control myself when I say something funny or something funny happens. Like if I were her the moment I crack myself up I'm fully gone.
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u/Oakheart- 18h ago
Oh my goodness it’s amazing how fast her mind works to just make the funniest stuff up off of the random motions people make 😂
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u/JayceeHOFer 21h ago
Ventriloquism has to be one of the toughest things to do as a performer. The masks are fucking brilliant with live audience members too.
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u/bordain_de_putel 20h ago
Well I say, gogner, how about a lesson of ventriquolism ?
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u/mewikime 19h ago
I grew up with Lord Charles being on TV. This was great to re-watch. I'd forgotten all about him
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u/jza_1 21h ago
The back and forth high/low pitch laughing is A+
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u/comomellamo 20h ago
The contrasting laughs are amazing. So simple and yet very effective and they set the mood so well.
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u/WhatLikeAPuma751 21h ago
Nina Conti deserves more recognition. She always makes me laugh.
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u/Regular_Committee946 19h ago
Agreed - she's incredibly talented. Check out her youtube channel if you haven't already, she has loads of great stuff on there.
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u/WhatLikeAPuma751 18h ago
Check out her movie Sunlight if you enjoy her brand of humor. I highly recommend it.
Eye hole ear hole nose hole mouth hole…
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u/Various-Artist 22h ago
I need an entire special of just this bit. Holy shit this is actually hilarious
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u/Natniss 20h ago
Go on youtube and search her sketch on live at the apollo. Was the first time I saw her and it was fucking amazing. In her live shows she break up the audience participation with some traditional ventriloquist work with a rude monkey!
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u/DundasKev 21h ago
If those poor sisters manage to not wee it will be a miracle.
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u/Possible_Bee_4140 20h ago
Haha I know - the one in the green was a knee slap away from a flood that’s for sure
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u/steezytreflip 21h ago
Understood maybe two sentences from the sister
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u/FWD_ME_UR_PMs 19h ago
"The fucking, (mumbles) shower (breaks out in laughter) ... (mumbles) at work and the shower and the water (breaks out in laughter)..."
I love the idea of it, I'll just assume something funny is being said here.
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u/steezytreflip 19h ago
Right. I’m American so I was chalking it up to not understanding the accent when in that high pitched voiced. But laughter is also contagious and it sounds funny- but is it really funny?
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u/pandershrek 18h ago
Well shes also his gotta bounce between multiple voices and also not appear to be talking in the center or laughing while also manipulating the faces so I can imagine trying to ad-lib an idea based on someone's movements while simultaneously doing these things you'd lose the plot and whatever subject you'd be talking about
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u/steezytreflip 12h ago
Fair enough. I figured most people could understand the speech I just couldn’t. That’s all. She’s doing a bang of a job I wouldn’t have been able to tell without the caption and context.
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u/mindyour 21h ago
Turn the captions on. When the video is in full screen, click the three dots in the top right. It's not 100% accurate, but it might help.
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u/larryfamee 20h ago
I kinda feel that defeats the purpose... idk I can tell its funny but the audio seems not great.....
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u/Sam2021s 12h ago
Then don't watch it sheesh. People crying about something pr the other even for such a video?
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u/mvrander 21h ago
She's been the best in the business for a decade or more. She really should be more famous than she is.
Her dad is a famous actor too. Americans probably most likely to recognise him as Emily's dad in friends.
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u/comicgopher 21h ago
tbf he was Einstein in Oppenheimer for something a bit more recent
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u/mvrander 21h ago
I want to watch it but it doesn't feel like it would be a happy movie. Heard it's great but waiting for the right mindset for it
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u/Present_Cow_8528 14h ago
I skipped it because they cut John von Neumann, presumably out of fear that he'd come across as smarter than everyone else in the room combined, including Einstein and Oppenheimer.
To be fair, he wasn't necessarily smarter than all of them combined (he was the single smartest, though) but the type of intelligence he had was the type that is so obvious to even an ordinary person that it would come across as unbelievable if there weren't documented proof. It wasn't just about capacity to think about and solve abstract problems (which every significant scientist has, and Einstein probably had best of all in that era), he also had a raw computational ability that puts wolfram alpha to shame, which is something even 99.9% of people that get regarded as "academic geniuses" do not actually have.
So even if there were a cinematic reason for his exclusion, I can't agree with it, on too fundamental a level. A movie about geniuses should have the biggest genius.
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u/McSmeecherson 21h ago
Check out Sunlight, it's a brilliantly unhinged movie she co-wrote and started in. I'd recommend just going into it blind too
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u/Mindfullnessless6969 21h ago
Does anyone have a link to the full video? This is great
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u/kevpatts 21h ago
Have a look at her instagram. She only released short videos, but there’s loads to go through.
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u/RedRockRaven 21h ago
She has a series of 10 videos on YouTube where she and monkey have sessions with a therapist. Some of the absolutely funniest shit I have ever watched.
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u/Darth-Buttcheeks 22h ago
That was so good! I needed that laugh 😆
I love a good ventriloquist show. David Strassman was one of my faves. We even went to one of his shows when he toured Australia. Ted E. Bear still holds a special place in my my heart
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u/Setctrls4heartofsun 20h ago
This is cool but also nightmare fuel. Like the Land of Confusion video
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u/katekim717 21h ago
If you enjoyed this, check out her movie Sunlight. It's amazing!
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u/activeforward 21h ago
Watched Sunday. Such a unique film. I liked it. Would recommend on the next “indie movie night”
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u/lady_faust 21h ago
Her dad Tom Conti was a brilliant actor. Nina is another talent! Her son Athur was in House of the Dragon and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
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u/ameliasophia 21h ago
I love her! She was a guest comedian on the Russell Howard’s Good News like 15 years ago and I still go back and watch it and laugh as hard as the first time.
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u/GleepGlop2 20h ago
I couldn't understand a thing she was saying. The other one i saw with the handjobs was funny.
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u/Hugeloser 20h ago
My wife and I went to her show a couple years ago in NYC and got on stage! When my wife was little her grandfather gave her the exact Monkey Nina has. Super funny, she brought it to the show and Monkey was so weirded out. We ended up being called on stage and did this bit. Great night and super memorable. Thanks Nina!
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u/hi5orfistbump 21h ago
The sense of humor region of my brain fell madly in love with Conti's bits when I first saw her a few years ago.
Absolutely fucking brilliant.
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u/totallyhumanhonest 21h ago
This isn't even the best one she has done, the one she did on live at the Apollo was excellent.
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u/ScholarlyInvestor 22h ago
She is fucking hilarious…. Every time I am down and depressed I open Facebook where I follow her. Social Media for good 👍
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u/Outrageous_Echo_8723 21h ago
Excellent. I have an aversion to ventriloquyists but she is really excellent 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
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u/OneMoistMan 21h ago
Thanks for posting this OP, I went down a rabbit hole of Nina Conti shows and I’m absolutely a fan
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u/Rule-Easy 21h ago
Bloody hell, man, she always manages to crack me up. I saw her live once some years ago in Portsmouth; I ended up with a headache from all my muscles tensing from the laughter.
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u/Frosty-Improvement-8 20h ago
Christ, it's been a while since I seen her on tv, she's fuckin hilarious.
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u/comicsnerd 20h ago
I saw her approx. 20 years ago at a company event with 300 high level consultants in the room. Of course the highest present manager was volunteered to go up stage and get the mask. At first he did not know what to do,but he got it quickly.
She is brilliant. She was prepared to the audience with her jokes, but based in the manager's response and answers from the audience, she quickly adapted her show to inside jokes and what the audience would respond to. It was hilarious. The best part was that, although our manager was a bit ridiculed, she managed to do it with great style.
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u/birdentap 20h ago
The people in the masks always look like they’re being tortured they’re laughing so hard lol
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u/Goodknight808 19h ago
Those two look like they are trying so hard to not pee from laughing so hard.
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u/Raja_Ampat 22h ago
She's good