The stars of the show may never make a sound, but your family is welcome to laugh and giggle all they like at Vent Haven Museum.
Vent Haven in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky — just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati — is the only museum in the world dedicated to ventriloquism. Tour its three buildings and you’ll find nearly 750 dummies staring back at you.
William Shakespeare Berger was a Cincinnati tile salesman when he bought his first dummy, Tommy Baloney, in New York in 1910. By 1925, he was collecting in earnest and performing as an amateur, always for free.
His collection of figures includes everything from paper-mâché heads from the 1820s to a grouchy, modern-day Walter dummy donated by ventriloquist megastar, Jeff Dunham.
Also on view are Jacko, the museum’s monkey mascot made with real rabbit fur, and replicas of Edgar Bergen’s Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd, made from the original molds.
Some dummies spit, others blow bubbles with small balloons. Some, like rakish Sailor Boy, dare to smoke.
Even the famous Marilyn Monroe is here, a 5-foot, 4-inch, papier-mâché figure created from the star’s photos in the 1950s. Marilyn, who joined the Vent Haven collection in 1956, is now called Cleo, for reasons that are lost in time.
One character, Cecil Wiggle Nose, is a real show-off. Crafted by the legendary figure makers George and Glenn McElroy of Cincinnati, Cecil can wiggle his nose and ears, wink, roll and cross his eyes, make his hair stand on end, and, rudely, stick out his tongue.