entertainment

Malaysia Banned Achmed The Dead Terrorist, So Jeff Dunham Brought Achmed's Brother...

Meet Jacques, the dead French terrorist.

Cover image via YouTube

You've heard of Jeff Dunham, that comedian you've seen on YouTube. He's known for ventriloquism, the art of changing a voice so that it appears it's coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered "dummy".

Image via utsandiego.com

One of his most popular sketches featured Achmed, a dead terrorist, which went viral on YouTube with millions of views

Achmed is the skeletal corpse of an incompetent suicide bomber, whom Dunham uses to satirize the contemporary issue of terrorism. He is known for yelling, "Silence! I kill you!" to Dunham and people laughing in the audience. Achmed first appeared in Spark of Insanity, and has since appeared in every Dunham special since then. In Spark of Insanity the audience learns several things about Achmed. When Dunham says that Achmed must be dead because he's a skeleton, Achmed responds, "It's a flesh wound."

wikipedia.org

So when Jeff announced that Malaysia was one of the stops for his World Tour last year in May, Malaysians were undoubtedly excited






However, he was informed by the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture that Achmed should not be mentioned or brought on to the show

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The Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture, he says, forbade him from including Achmed in his act much to the disappointment of his Malaysian fans. “How am I going to get on stage and explain to these people that because of their government I can’t bring on stage the very reason that they know who I am and the reason that they’re there,” said Dunham in his phone conversation with the daily.

therakyatpost.com

Jeff wanted to respect the request of the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture but didn't want to disappoint Malaysians who of course, would have expected to see Achmed on stage. He had a brilliant idea. Jeff brought Jacques...

Image via YouTube

Dunham cleverly side-stepped the issue by introducing a new character; “Who knew that Achmed had a French cousin — Jacques, the dead French terrorist?” he says. “It was Achmed with a beret and mustache, and the audience loved it, thankfully. But I was a bit frightened there, too. I thought, ‘Will they drag me off the stage and make an example of me?’ I honestly thought that was a possibility, as you never know how strict and real these laws are.”

variety.com

Without spoiling too much, watch how Jeff Dunham sidestepped this ban with ingenuity and creativity in his Malaysian tour:

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