Vent Haven Museum

Vent Haven, an interesting little bit of entertainment history two exits south of the river. Vent Haven was formed by William Shakespeare Berger who was a huge fan and left his entire estate to preserve his collection of dummies.
I have to admit, I had never heard of the place until Kevin Dugan started talking about it. Having no idea what to expect we went in knowing one thing, it probably wasn't going to be boring, and it wasn't. With over 800 dummies it was easy to see the evolution ventriloquism. A few of the very first dummies going back to the 1820s were very lifelike, a little unnerving. This is something robot makers had to relearn recently. People don't like their tools to be too human like. Another lesson learned, modeling the dummies after real people, its been done but the jokes wear thin fast.
Jenn walked us through the history and made sense of the overwhelming amount of information we were trying to take it.

Not the earliest, but one of the first dummies made circa 1820's. You can see why they evolved into caricatures instead of imitations of people quickly. This guy is made of paper mâché and has glass eyes.
Mary Lou and three other dummies survived a sinking ship that killed everyone on board. Maybe the dummies weren't so dumb after all? She was also my favorite.





[where: 45202] Fort Mitchell, Kentucky cincinnati ohio dummies ventriliquist ventriliquism ventriloquial figures memorabilia William Shakespeare Berger

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