Pollstar magazine has just named comedian/ventrioloquist Jeff Dunham as the top grossing touring comedian of 2009 in its recent Top Tours ranking. His ticket sales added up to a whopping $34.6 million, more than doubling the numbers that gave him the same top ranking in 2008. Dunham also laid it down internationally, with a massively successful tour through Europe and Australia.

Dunham’s 2008 Comedy Central special A Very Special Christmas brought in more viewers than any other Comedy Central special in history. His series, The Jeff Dunham Show set a Comedy Central record with its premiere, and his three dvds have sold over 5 million copies. The on-a-roll comic is currently planning a fourth special and his first book, All By My Selves: Walter, Peanut, Achmed, and Me.

Despite epically huge ratings and wave after wave of positive press and publicity, Comedy Central announced that it would not be renewing The Jeff Dunham Show, much to the chagrin of the show’s die-hard fans and Dunham’s rabid followers. This announcement presents something of an interesting juxtaposition, as Dunham – in addition to gaining widespread support and fandom – has also garnered, along with tons of positive reviews, a fair amount of negativity and criticism, especially for his perceived bigotry and cruel, racially charged humor.

But controversy aside, the network still vowed to continue maintaining a working relationship with Dunham, in a capacity that will include a live tour, a stand-up special, DVD releases, and other Dunham-themed products. This all fulfills the larger part of a contract inked between Dunham and the comedy television juggernaut earlier this year.

The holidays are fast approaching, Punchline Magazine readers. And if you’re looking for some comedy-related gifts to give to your family and loved ones, might we suggest this: Dunham Cellars Wines. That’s right, folks. The world’s most famous ventriloquist now has his own wine, inspired by his puppet creations. According to the vineyard’s official site, this is how the story goes:

Comedian Jeff Dunham discovered Dunham Cellars wines at his local Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Los Angeles. Of course, he was drawn to the name, but then after trying one bottle he decided to try them all, and a love affair was born. Jeff contacted Dunham Cellars in late 2008 with his plan to create a special label using his stage characters on his favorite Dunham Cellars wines. What you see here is the collaboration between Jeff Dunham and Dunham Cellars of Walla Walla, Washington.

Currently there are three wines you can choose from. There’s the Achmed Syrah ($35/bottle), which boasts huckleberry, black cherry, sweet tobacco (whatever that is) and pomegranate; there’s the Walter Trutina ($26/bottle), which contains allspice, berries and sweet tobacco; finally, there’s the Peanut Riesling ($26/bottle), which contains hints of peach, honeysuckle and baking spices. You can order the wines here.

No one should be surprised by this news. The Jeff Dunham Show last night broke Comedy Central ratings records by sucking in 7.9 million viewers between its series premiere at 9 pm and replays afterwards.

The show, a mix of Dunham’s ventriloquist stand-up act and field sketches (think Chappelle and Mencia show formats), drew 5.3 million total viewers in its first showing last night. As a result – again, no surprise here – Comedy Central had its highest rated night of television in 2009.

Why is all of this not surprising? Dunham is incredibly popular; he made Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list this year (clocking in at #89). He also had the highest grossing stand-up tour last year, has broken YouTube view records by garnering nearly 98 million views of his Achmed the Dead Terrorist routine and last year, Dunham had the highest rated Comedy Central special in history when 6.6 million people sat down to watch his Very Special Christmas Special.

Love him or hate him — it seems comedy fans belong to one of those camps — we’re going to be seeing a whole lot more of comedian Jeff Dunham, as his eponymous show debuts tomorrow at 9 pm EST on Comedy Central. The Jeff Dunham Show will find the incredibly popular ventriloquist performing in front of a live studio audience as well as bringing his puppet friends on location to shoot field pieces and interact with the public. The peeps at Comedy Central say this about tomorrow’s episode:

The debut episode features Walter and Dunham visiting a licensed psychologist to save their relationship only to learn that he specializes in gay couples, Bubba J drinking beer and shooting guns at a real rifle range and Achmed the Dead Terrorist promoting his own comedy DVD, “I Kill You I Kill Me.” Also in the debut episode, Peanut wants a “hot friggin’ famous” Hollywood girlfriend and asks Jeff’s publicist to fix him up with guest star Brooke Hogan. However, their date goes awry when Peanut gets all choked up over some guacamole and chips.

Dunham fans will rejoice in knowing that all of the comedian’s creations — Walter, Achmed the Dead Terrorist, Bubba J, Melvin, Jose Jalapeno on a Stick and Peanut — will be represented in coming episodes. In preparation for tomorrow, check out an extended preview of the show below. And after the jump, check out our video interview with Jeff in a classic episode of A Tight Five, Punchline Magazine’s web series.

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If you’ve spent any quality time here on Punchline Magazine, you’ll know that we pride ourselves on giving you the latest interviews with the biggest names and up and comers in stand-up comedy. But every once in awhile, we also like to introduce you to some of the behind-the-scenes players of the industry, the folks who are integral in helping those stand-up comedians reach a wider audience.

To that end, allow us to present you Judi Brown-Marmel, formerly an average gal from suburban Colorado and now one of the most influential names in the business.

Brown-Marmel currently runs the management division of Levity Entertainment Group, a multi-armed comedy-centric outfit responsible for fostering and maintaining the careers, among others, of Pablo Francisco, Jeff Dunham, Mitch Fatel and Jim Breuer. Brown-Marmel has executive produced projects for Dunham, Robert Schimmel, Steve Byrne, Doug Stanhope, and many more. She’s also currently heading up production on The Jeff Dunham Show, which premieres on Comedy Central in October.

Punchline Magazine recently chatted with Brown-Marmel in Montreal, where she was overseeing production of Scottish comedian Danny Bhoy’s new hour stand-up special and then bumped into her in New York just days ago, where she was buzzing around Gotham Comedy Club, producing Comedy Central’s latest Live at Gotham tapings, which will air later this year.

It’s rare that a girl grows up obsessed with stand-up comedy. How did that happen for you?
I grew up in Colorado in a very middle class family, as far away from the entertainment industry as you could possibly get. But I grew up in a house where we watched a lot of television, a lot of All in the Family. And I think that I knew at a very early age that this was something that brought the whole family together. I loved stand-up comedy and any type of live performance or theater and live music that my parents would take me to— the excitement in the audience, the whole thing.

I watched the movie The Idolmaker when I was 15 or 16 years old; it was about this guy who took these male singers and made them matinee idols. And I remember watching that and saying, ‘that’s what I want to do.’ The only difference is at the end of the movie you find that he didn’t really want to be their manager, he really wanted that life for himself. I never had any aspirations of doing stand-up. I never wanted to be in the spotlight whatsoever. To me a job well done, is knowing that you had a big part preparing someone to have great sets, great specials, great TV shows and a successful career. So, I remember seeing this movie and thinking whatever that guy does [Ray Sharkey’s character], I want to do what that guy does.

So how did you make that happen?
My roommate’s boyfriend was part owner in the comedy club in Colorado Springs. We start going there all the time and sit at the bar talk, to comics. And at this point I’m like 18, 19 years old and I was like, ‘I can see stand-up comedy for free every night. Are you kidding me?’ This was like the Holy Grail. I became the ticket girl and the coat check girl at the club. Then I’d go in the back of the showroom and watch the show until people left. And I just thought this was the greatest job you can ever have.

Then I slowly but surely moved up: to daytime manager and then years later I’m booking the club. Roseanne was coming into the club and working out, Sinbad, Emo Phillips, Tim Allen, Sam Kinison. I was like the epicenter of comedy. Then my job became everything. I took comics to do press; I’d have to knock on the door of the condo: ‘C’mon, I know you’re hung over, get in my car.’ It gave me this really great sense of every aspect of a comic’s life and everything that goes into the live side of making a good show.

Ok, so in your current position at Levity, at what point in a comedian’s career do you, personally, start working with them?
For me, it’s typically when they’re getting ready for a special or they’re getting ready for network development.

When you say “getting ready,” does that mean the comic already has a deal in place with a network or that they’re simply thinking about approaching a network?
Probably that they’re thinking about it or someone in my company has pointed out to me that there’s a piece of business to do with this comic. Then I’ll meet with that person and see them live and start testing the material. I’ll say, ‘Show me the hour and 15 minutes.’ Or, if it’s for network television development, ‘show me what your point of view is.’ At that point, it’s really me being hands on with them and combing through it and asking, ‘What are we trying to say’ and we try to cut the fat away.

We want to make sure that it’s really at the highlest level quality that it could be and is this what the comedian really wants out there. With a one-hour special, we really take it very seriously that this is going to be something that’s out there for a very, very long time as an archive; it’s something you want to be proud of and it’s something that you want to hold up to the test of time.

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The inner workings of the national stand-up comedy scene changed a bit today as the formation of Levity Entertainment Group went into effect. Levity Productions, Levity Management, Triage Entertainment and Medium, a branded entertainment production company, are now under the Levity Entertainment Group umbrella.

To date Levity Productions has produced more than 40 comedy specials for Comedy Central, Showtime and TBS. Levity Management manages the careers of Jeff Dunham — they’ll be producing his upcoming Comedy Central series — Jim Breuer, Christopher Titus, among others.

The formation of Levity Entertainment Group also fosters the official launch of e-Comic Branding, a publicity firm who has been, for the last few years, promoting the likes of David Spade, Jamie Kennedy and George Lopez, among many others.

For maybe the first time ever, a puppet has reached Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Well, a puppet master, to be precise. As America’s top-ranking force in the world of ventriloquist-based comedy, Jeff Dunham’s considerable influence as an entertainer is beginning to hold sway with the folks in the business world, earning the venerable comedian a slot on Forbes Power 100 list as number 84 list and a featured an article in Time.

Additionally, Dunham will be premiering a new Comedy Central series (The Jeff Dunham Show) in October and kicking off a Comedy Central-sponsored tour this coming fall. Dunham’s autobiography, All By My Selves will also see publication in November.

Check out Punchline Magazine’s video interview with Dunham from a few months back below.