It might not be everyone’s favorite form of live comedy, but apparently ventriloquists are making a comeback. The Daily Herald in suburban Chicago just ran a story about the recent surge in demand for puppet-wielding funny people.

Ventriloquism fell out of favor during the 1970s as variety shows became less popular. But thanks to the continued success of guys like Jeff Dunham, whose Comedy Central special was one of the highest-rated on the network, other shows started looking for chances to show off ventriloquists. Last year, David Letterman had a week-long ventriloquist special, including acts like Otto and George, who x-rated to the end, had to figure out a way to clean it up for the network.

“Ventriloquism is such a simple form of comedy, but it always works,” Eric Stangel, a head writer on Letterman’s show told the Herald “You know you’re going to have a big guy with a smaller guy saying things he shouldn’t say, but it’s still funny. It was not the kind of thing you see on other shows.”

Here’s a question. Does it matter how much the human’s mouth moves in a ventriloquist act? It seems even the ultra popular ventriloquists’ mouths move quite a bit (see clip above). Isn’t that like the main talent of a ventriloquist? Doesn’t that diminish the value of ventriloquism?