Last year ventriloquist Jeff Dunham’s Christmas special set ratings records for Comedy Central. Last night he did it again with the debut of The Jeff Dunham Show which averaged 5.3 million viewers and the most-watched series premiere in Comedy Central’s history.
The show also posted records for a Comedy Central series premiere in adults 18-49 (a 2.6 rating rating, but I’m checking to see whether that’s just a coverage rating, if so, it could drop down to ~2.2 when compared with the overall TV audience).
Another 2.6 million average audience watched the encore of the show to bring the night’s total to 7.9 million.
Your kidding.
The show is great, and I know its gonna get even better since people are used to his standup. Its a 30 minute special every week!
No way. That can’t be accurate. That’s just…mindblowing. Somewhere, Jeff Gaspin weeps.
That’s pretty good, and shows that CC marketed it very well. I know I would have tuned in if I did not already view a screening of it. I don’t believe that the next episode will drop off much from this one. The series could have big potential.
Very funny and the promo for next week looks even better. Looks like this show will only get better as the season goes on!!
Seriously? I don’t get it. He must have some kind of following.
Dunham is only doing in TV what he’s been doing on the stand up circuit for years. He gets sneered at by the comedy “community” for being hokey or whatever. But ask any stand-up comic who’s performed on a bill with him. The guy KILLS it, consistently. No one wants to follow him on stage. His fans are incredibly devoted and very diverse.
I like Dunham’s stand-up a lot. He’s honestly the funniest comedian of our time. People may call his puppets “hokey” but he’s so talented at it, the just come alive. He also has some really great material. I haven’t watched his show, but I’ve seen clips and it looks brilliant.
@JDog: I completely agree.
Comedy ’snobs’ obviously will not enjoy his act; but his act has worked. Network fans are going to hate this series because quite simply a show like this will take away fans from other shows; however, this show is scripted and has writers. I’d think the scripted enthusiasts would be ecstatic about the success of this.
But of course it goes into the divisioning of Network vs. Basic Cable. That a Basic Cable channel can pull numbers like this and even if it drops moderately has to be infuriating to the networks. Cable has the abiility that perhaps networks are still to shy to do, and that is let the show and producers do its thing. NBC is notorious for getting his hands into the mix, and Comedy Central I think has shown that a hands off approach provides a much better viewing experience.
Ya know, I was gonna say, “You’re kidding”.
This wasn’t horrible…kinda childish, and nothing to keep me tuned in, but not horrible. For me, that’d be Parks & Recreation. I downloaded it to see what it was.
And yeah, he DOES have a following. Hasn’t this guy been on The Opry several, several times?
God help us all.
Dam good first episode premiere ratings. Good for Him!
As a comedy snob, I sincerely wish for this man’s painful death and the destruction of all recordings of his performances.
@craigward noob.
And again–thats for comedy snobs.
But I’d much rather a scripted series an unscripted series… Perhaps for the writer community it would be better off at 10 is questionable…but then again–perhaps it wouldn’t of gotten as much ratings.
But a 10-11 series I would very much favor. An hour long lead in for the daily show i could see very good for Jon and Colbert.
The comedy snobs both probably shy away from Daily Show and Colbert both.
No duh he got the biggest ratings…
his you tube video is like in the top 5 ever!!!!
The only disappointment I had with the show, it was too short.
This really doesn’t shock me too much, and the Christmas special numbers didn’t really either. I remember the DVD of his special right before that sold REALLY well (Like, 1 million copies or something, which is insane for a stand-up special), and (I know this is always a sad example, bear with me) seemingly all of my friends have quoted the Acchmed the Dead Terrorist act at some point htat I’ve known them in the last two years. The man has appeal, and Comedy Central would have been dumb to not give him a series.
That’s dumb. Those puppets scare me. I guess these viewers are mostly young boys who don’t have good parents.
You all are missing the point. He is got very good numbers, and IS running a scripted series. It seems as if you all are worry about the future of network television which you should be. When Cable can pull this and when netowrks counted on three quarters of that audience to be part of their numbers.
Nettworks now have to adapt. They cannot rely on the over-the-air numbers they used to get. 15 years ago, most people I was related to only received over the air programming. Now everyone gets that with basic cable. Unless Cable raises their prices, the networks will continue to trend down.
I’m not sure how long it will last. I’m a huge fan of Jeff’s and have been for a long time, but I find it hard to believe the act can be retooled to this format and be very funny at all, or just passably funny and fresh week after week. CC promoted the heck out of it so solid numbers aren’t surprising, but if they retain 60% after two more eps air it certainly would be.
I do not get this…at all. It’s just plain weird & I don’t see what the hoopla is about the puppets! I’ll try it again though.
As a fan of Jeff’s I have to say I’m glad his show got the ratings it did. However, the show, was…. not what I expected. I expected something more.
If I had to compare the show with something, Its be seeing a really attractive lady, then finding out she used to be a man.
In other words, it was horrible.
I’m surprised that people don’t like his comedy. I have never bought a comedy DVD or watched any comedian on a regular basis until I saw Jeff Dunham, now I have all his DVD’s and watch him every time he’s on comedy central or one of the late night shows. He is absolutely freakin hilarious. He and Ron White are the only really funny comedians out there right now.
OVER-RATED! A bunch of dummies watching a bunch of dummies. How often do you see that in TV?
The funniest part of Dunham’s carrier is how he was a moderately famous Canadian comic for almost 20 decades before breaking out into the US – at which point he BLEW THE DOORS DOWN!
I remember watching his act back when I was a little kid in Canada. Now all these years later here he is, doing the EXACT same bits, raping in the American market. It’s just humorous for me to read people talk about how great he is as though he’s some new act to just hit the scene and blow everyone away. His jokes are ancient, tired, retreads of material he’s been using for longer than any comic I can think of. As a kid I liked his stuff. Now I can’t stand it. And to hear so many older people go on about how great it is only further entrenches for opinion that his act is tired and unoriginal (old people like tired and unoriginal wink wink).
The only new-ish edition to Dunham’s schtick is the absolute comedy abomination know as Achmed The Terrorist. Did any of you see Dunham on Conan the other night with Achmed? It was excruciating. Even the audience seemed bored (or confused) with their very weak level of laughter.
If there’s one thing that this site has shown me conclusively it’s that T.V. is ruled by older people (not OLD people but ‘older’ people). Older demographics make up such a huge level of total viewers that if you can grab onto that demo you win. Law & Order: SVU, NCIS, Jeff Dunham, Letterman, NightLine, House, etc. If it appeals to and older demo as well as at least some younger viewers it wins. If it requires a certain level of investment eg. sci-fi, serialized shows, etc, you can bet it won’t do that well – and even if it does do well it’s only “well” compared to the “not well” of other shows like it.
^Woops: 20 decades = 2 decades.
Ummm….Jeff Dunham isn’t Canadian. He HAS been doing roughly the same material for years (I first saw him in Jr. High on VH1) but he was born in America and has always done 95% of his shows in America (meaning he was probably just as popular if not more in the United States during the time you though he was only popular in Canada)
As for the show, as I said above I’ve loved his stand up comedy since Jr. High (I’ve seen him live 16 times) but that show was awful. I can’t believe there are people out there who liked it.
People that like comedy from the ’80s will like this. Because his humor is 20 years old. His how will play great in rest homes and trailer parks.
Tom
If Dunham isn’t Canadian why did he say he was on Conan the other night? Maybe I’m missing something…
Either way I think we can all recognize that Dunham was not really that popular for over 15 years, then introduced a bunch of even more stereo-typical, more racist puppets and BLAM!… your aunt Mildrid is sending you e-mails of “…his super funny stand up”.
As more people purchase cable, I think the lines between network TV and cable are becoming blurred. I’m not making my watching decisions based on entertainment value and not whether a show is on network TV. I tuned in Jeff’s show right after Vampire Diaries and loved it.
@Johnny – On the Conan thing if I had to guess I’d guess maybe he didn’t say that and you misunderstood. It isn’t hard to use Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Dunham) to find he was born in Texas (A fact that is actually sourced twice on the entry).
As for this…
“Either way I think we can all recognize that Dunham was not really that popular for over 15 years, then introduced a bunch of even more stereo-typical, more racist puppets and BLAM”
You’re wrong there too. I assume you are referring to Achmed who is the most recent puppet. But Dunham introduced him 8 years ago (at the time going by “Dead Osama”). You can read more about that here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6416138/Jeff-Dunham-political-incorrectness-for-dummies.html
So really you have no idea what you’re talking about (and had you simply spent a minute or so on Google you’d know that)
Tom
I have no idea what I’m talking about? How can one not know what the feel about someone? Where Dunham was born or when he introduced certain puppets changes nothing and you know it. The fact is he’s been around for over 20 years (first T.V. specific appearance being 1990 apparently), he wasn’t THIS popular until the last few, and he hasn’t been funny for many more years than that. He became the hit he is today once he garnered the middle aged crowd – which are exactly the people that keep sending out that God forsaken Achmed The Terrorist YouTube clip. Pointing out that Achmed’s name used to be “Dead Osama” only proves to further enhance my previous posts point. Also, from what I’ve read over the net a lot of other comics largely despise his act.
It’s kinda’ like The Blue Collar Comedy Tour: Absolutely garbage that insults the intelligence, but I’ll be damned if there aren’t a ton of dumb-ass, red-neck Americans that eat it up.
Can you name a single long-running series that had a great first episode? Almost none of them. Go back and watch the first episode of almost any sitcom you love and it’s excruciating. Hell, even the Office and Family Guy were cancelled for a period of time. Every great series needs a few episodes to figure out what works. I imagine this show is no exception.
@Johnny – So basically all your facts were wrong but Middle Age Americans are still stupid rednecks and that’s why Dunham is popular(which I guess is the point you were originally getting to)? Fair enough.
Though one thing to consider. I know my fair share of red necks and most of them know how to use Google. So they’ve got a leg up on you there.
I heartily agree with everyone praising Jeff Dunham and his work. We really see eye to eye.