This is your semi-annual reminder that Jeff Dunham is a massively successful, obscenely wealthy and still-popular world record-breaking comedian. In 2022, the politically charged ventriloquist introduced a new character that shows us exactly how Dunham has managed to remain your Bible Belt uncle’s favorite funnyman for 15 consecutive years with a “kids these days”-type caricature of a beanie-wearing, smartphone-obsessed zoomer named “Url” (get it? Like the internet?). Url is an amalgam of every awful Boomer Humor webcomic wherein kids just can’t get off those gosh darn devices and read a book/ride a bike/dial a rotary phone.
Url’s small-screen debut was in Dunham’s most recent special, Me the People. The show featured a familiar face, Dunham’s longtime puppet partner Walter, as he played the part of President Joe Biden on a set staged to resemble the Oval Office. We the People continued Dunham’s long history of aiming his act directly at the political sensibilities of his mostly conservative, mostly white and mostly middle-aged and above base. As such, Url is the perfect pandering puppet for an audience who still can’t connect their phones to the Bluetooth headphones their daughters bought for them in 2017 but find it furiously funny how youngsters like Url send cellular text messages instead of having good old-fashioned conversations.
Credit where credit is due, though — Url and Dunham had a solid bit about how water used to be free and porn used to cost money, but now the opposite is true. “Fair trade,” they agreed.