Post Description

Talk about pulling some creative strings.

Comic ventriloquist Jeff Dunham orchestrated his newest Comedy Central special in remarkably quick time — adjusting to the confines of TV’s COVID-era production reality.

“I came up with the idea literally two months ago and we shot it three weeks ago,” Dunham, 58, says of “Jeff Dunham’s Completely Unrehearsed Last-Minute Pandemic Holiday Special,” airing Friday at 8 p.m. “It was a crazy turnaround creatively and technically. I heard of so many other comics doing specials [during COVID] in drive-ins, etc. and I said, ‘We can do this.’

“This is my 10th special, and it’s always an 18-to-24-month ordeal to build them, one joke at a time … getting the breathing the same and perfecting it so it’s a lay-up,” he says.

“I like to say I tricked Comedy Central into buying an ‘unscripted’ special.”

Dunham is being modest; Friday’s telecast, his first in a new three-year deal with the cable network, was intricately planned despite the short timeframe and is built around jokes he’s never before performed anywhere. He taped two live shows (on different nights) in Malibu, Calif., before a nightly audience of 100 people (following COVID protocols).