Jimmy Nelson

Early Life

Nelson got his start at age ten, when an aunt won a toy dummy called Dummy Dan in a bingo game and handed it down to her nephew. His father soon rebuilt the dummy's simple string-and-loop mouth mechanism into a proper lever system, the kind used in professional figures. Nelson brought Dan to school, and a fourth-grade teacher let him perform in front of the class, which became his cure for a fear of public speaking.

From there he worked church groups, school assemblies, and American Legion posts, eventually earning five dollars a night in movie-theater talent contests as a teenager. By 1945 he was ready for a professional-grade figure, and he approached Chicago's Frank Marshall, the carver who had already built Paul Winchell's Jerry Mahoney. Marshall only agreed to build for performers whose stage work he had personally seen, and after watching Nelson perform, he sold him a custom figure carved, as was his practice, to resemble the ventriloquist himself.

Danny O'Day and the Early Career

Nelson named his new figure Danny O'Day, choosing the name deliberately: it avoided the hard consonants that trip up ventriloquists, unlike names such as McCarthy or Mahoney. With Danny he hired a manager and toured professionally. By 1947 the original figure was worn from constant use, so Marshall carved a second one, but because Marshall's figures were hand-tailored to each performer's personality, the replacement didn't look enough like Danny to take his place. Nelson kept the original in service and gave the new figure his own identity instead, dressing him with heavy eyebrows, glasses, and a beret and naming him Humphrey Higsbye.

Nelson's television career began in earnest in 1950, when he appeared with Danny on The Ed Sullivan Show and joined Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theatre as a regular, performing with Danny in matching gas-station attendant uniforms. He went on to host early-1950s programs including Bank on the Stars and Come Closer, and in 1960–61 hosted a local New York children's program, Studio 99-1/2, built around a fictional television station staffed entirely by puppets he voiced himself. The show spun off two children's records on Cricket Records, and Nelson had already released a Pinocchio LP featuring his four main figures in 1959.

Farfel and the Nestlé Campaign

The character that made Nelson famous arrived almost by accident. Working a late set at a Wichita, Kansas nightclub, he picked up a stuffed dog a customer had left behind and improvised a low, droning voice for it. He had Marshall build the character into a proper figure and named him Farfel, borrowing the name from a Jewish noodle dish he had seen on Borscht Belt resort menus.

In 1955, Nestlé hired Nelson to sell its chocolate products, auditioning him by having him perform their new jingle on the spot. Nelson sang the opening lines in Danny's voice, then had Farfel drawl out the final word, "chocolate," in two syllables. Nerves got the better of him and his finger slipped off the control, causing Farfel's jaw to snap audibly shut. Nelson assumed he had ruined the audition, but Nestlé executives loved the effect and asked him to keep it. The mouth-snap became his signature, and the campaign ran for ten years. Danny O'Day handled the companion line for Nestlé's Quik, promising it made milk taste "like a million." Farfel resurfaced in 1992, now a hand puppet joined by an identical-looking puppet family, to advertise a Nestlé holiday product, closing the ad the same way he always had.

Later Years

Nelson and his wife Betty settled in Cape Coral, Florida, in 1968, and he remained active there for decades, performing with Danny and Farfel at schools and retirement homes and working as a spokesperson and later marketing executive for First Federal Savings and Loan of Fort Myers. In 2009 he appeared in the documentary I'm No Dummy, and in 2011 he was given the honorary title "The Dean of American Ventriloquists." That same year he worked with figure maker Tim Selberg on a new figure built as a tribute to Danny O'Day. Nelson died on September 24, 2019, at age 90, from complications of a stroke he had suffered earlier that year.

Figures

• Dummy Dan—
• Danny O'DayFrank Marshall · 1945
• Humphrey HigsbyeFrank Marshall · 1947
• Farfel the DogFrank Marshall
• Ftatateeta1958

Timeline

• 1945 — Commissioned Danny O'Day, his first professional figure, from Chicago carver Frank Marshall.
• 1947 — Had Marshall build a second figure, which became a distinct character, Humphrey Higsbye, rather than replace Danny.
• 1950 — Made his first appearance with Danny O'Day on The Ed Sullivan Show and joined Texaco Star Theatre as a regular.
• 1955 — Hired by Nestlé for a chocolate advertising campaign featuring Danny O'Day and Farfel the Dog.
• 1958 — Introduced the cat character Ftatateeta.
• 1959 — Released the LP Pinocchio on Cricket Records, featuring his four main figures.
• 1960 — Began hosting the local New York children's program Studio 99-1/2.
• 1992 — Farfel returned to television as a hand puppet for a Nestlé holiday campaign.
• 2009 — Appeared in the ventriloquism documentary I'm No Dummy.
• 2011 — Given the honorary title "The Dean of American Ventriloquists" and collaborated with Tim Selberg on a new figure honoring Danny O'Day.

On video

12 performances cataloged in our archive. needs research: curate + embed the best 5–8; the rest 301 here