Jeff Dunham and Bento Box Make Direct-to-Video Film ‘Achmed Saves America’

Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, whose primary talent is spewing hate speech without moving his lips, has brought his shtick to animation with an hour-length animated special called Achmed Saves America. The film is based on his puppet Achmed the Dead Terrorist whose catchphrase is “Silence, I keel you!” It is currently available on DVD (we won’t link to it), and will air on TV this Friday, March 28th, on the cable channel CMT. The project was directed by animation veteran Frank Marino at Bento Box (Bob’s Burgers, Brickleberry).

The main appeal of Dunham’s comedy is that his puppets yell outdated, witless stereotypes that his racist followers wished they could say aloud themselves. In Dunham’s disgusting universe, Jews will fight to the death over a penny, Mexicans are wetbacks who should learn English, anyone gay is to be feared, and black people can only be pimps or drug-dealers. He profits handsomely by pandering to regressive assholes, the ‘country crowd’ he calls them, and he makes America a less tolerant, uglier place to live. Now he does it through animation, too.