Philadelphia Weekly

At her trailer home in Trevose, Wilma Swartz opens up a giant chest of personas, and starts digging.

"I feel like I've spent half my life doing this," she says as she rummages. In the chest, cartoon eyes bulge and wink, furry arms and legs fly every which way.

"Where is she?" she says under her breath.

"I'm down here ... " says a muffled voice.

Finally Swartz finds her.

The dummy jumps to life: Squirrelly Shirley--a rodential sexpot with red-painted cheeks, long wavy blond tresses and a big, subtly mischievous grin.

"Isn't she fabulous?" says Swartz, combing out her hair. "She was a male, but I turned her into a female. She's like Miss Piggy, but in squirrel vision."

Fabulous or not, Squirrelly Shirley didn't end up making the trip with Swartz to the 31st International Ventriloquist Convention in Fort Mitchell, Ky., earlier this month. Swartz could fit only some of her friends into the VW bug she drove 650 miles to the convention. She took only her very best friends, her superstars--dummies like the 6-foot-tall ostrich named Sandy Twinkletoes.

Swartz has been to the convention before. But this year was different. Everything had to be perfect.

This year she was on a mission: to publicly thank celebrity ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, star of his own multiplatinum-selling Comedy Central special, for calling Swartz's mother on her deathbed last year. The phone conversation, it turned out, was actually conducted by Dunham's star dummy, the permanently scowling curmudgeon Walter.

"It was her dying wish," says Swartz. "She said she wanted to speak to her favorite ventriloquist. I was only her second favorite."

In many ways the convention is a family affair. Many vents have known each other for decades. Some have grown up professionally in the community that's sprouted around Fort Mitchell's Vent Haven, the world's foremost museum and archive of ventriloquism. These vents communicate daily over an Internet email group.

The recent family reunion included more than 400 Hawaiian-shirt-wearing vents and at least that many alter egos--cutesy animals, wisecracking NASCAR dudes, winos, dimwits, fast women, smart alecks, lecherous cockroaches and lots of grumpy old men.

For four days vents performed and attended sessions on all aspects of their art. But they mostly did what they do best--gab.

Like many families, the world's ventriloquists are as divided as they are united. A significant percentage of vents, including Swartz, use their art to evangelize. At the convention, the religious/secular divide was palpable. Any off-color joke was met with scattered laughs and many more stony faces.

When a British performer cursed onstage, a vent in the audience--a guy from down South--whispered to his wife, "It's okay if they curse, but if we even hint about our Lord and savior, they get all up in arms."

Dunham wasn't exempt. His rambling, sheepish apology for cursing in his Comedy Central routine had the distinct feel of a wayward son returning home to the Bible Belt and apologizing to his disapproving uncles and aunts. Dunham then announced that his forthcoming DVD would be family-friendly.

"I decided to do this because it was the right thing to do," said Dunham. "And also because our market research concluded that clean acts are, hands down, more successful than dirty ones."