by J.C. Johnson / Comedy Profiles Editor T a l k i n g C o m e d y . c o m

If you grew up in the 50s and 60s then you remember Saturday Mornings glued in front of the family's B&W TV set watching kiddie shows. Many of your warmest memories may not be of the shows themselves but of the commercial breaks nestled between them ... namely of Farfel the talking dog, his pal Danny O'Day and of course gifted ventriloquist Jimmy Nelson. And what babyboomer can forget that famous jingle ... “N-E-S-T-L-E-S … Nestles makes the very best … chaaawwwwwclate.”

Jimmy Nelson remembers his first meeting with executives from Nestles ... “I was auditioning for the job and the hand that works Farfel was very sweaty ... because I was nervous. They handed me this jingle and said how would you do it. Off the top of my head I had Danny sing the ‘N-E-S-T-L-E-S, Nestles makes the very best’ … and I figured let's give Farfel ‘Chocolate.’” But at the end of the word Chocolate, just as Jimmy Nelson was about to release Farfels mouth the sweat on Nelson's finger caused it slip from the controls and Farfels mouths slammed shut with a loud SNAP! … something you're not supposed to do as a ventriloquist. So when executives at Nestles told Nelson thank you, we'll call you … Jimmy Nelson thought he'd lost the job. “When my fingers slipped off of the control and that mouth snapped shut real loud I really thought I had blown the job. I thought it was … don't call us, we'll call you … so I left. About a week later they called me and said you can do it and keep the snap IN — because they LOVED it. I did it that way for ten years.” And that snap, which was a nervous little blunder, went on to become a Farfel trademark. “… a nice, happy mistake,” adds Nelson with a warm chuckle.

Nelson and the gang are one of the longest consecutively running spokespersons in TV advertising history… because those Nestles commercials would run from 1955 to 1965. And Jimmy, Farfel and Danny O'Day have come back now and again, since '65, to do additional commercials for Nestles products. Jimmy Nelson still makes personal appearances and with everything he's done in his long, varied and accomplished career everyone remembers his Saturday morning Nestles commercials. “I can't perform without doing it. If I don't do the jingle they ask for it. So I have to do it at each show even after all these years,” admits Nelson. Farfel became very famous from those Nestles commercials and Nelson's most popular dummy with his fans. But Nelson knew he had a winner with Farfel as soon as he was 'born' back in 1950… five years before the Nestle commercials even aired. In fact he knew he had a winner with Farfel even before a dummy was ever built.

“I was working a nightclub in Wichita, Kansas doing three shows a night and by the time you got to your 2 AM show there were only about a half a dozen tables in the audience. So you fooled around a lot and did a lot of ad libbing.” That night, relates Nelson, he picked up a stuffed dog that had been left on the piano by one of the patrons and started making him talk using the voice that Americans would come to know and love as Farfel's. “… And this voice came out of me and they laughed and laughed. I said if I can get laughs out of straight lines I better use this guy.” So as soon as he returned to Chicago he called Frank Marshall (the figure maker who had made Danny O'Day) and asked him to make a ventriloquist dog figure. And Farfel … the dog whose name was borrowed off the menus of the many places Nelson played in the Catskills back in those days … was born.

So now you know how Farfel was born … but, what about Nelson's other famous sidekicks Danny O'Day and Humphrey Higsbye? Well … the first professional Danny O'Day figure was built in 1945 by renowned ventriloquism figure maker Frank Marshall. But before there was a Danny O'Day there was just plain Danny. A department store ventriloquist doll, called 'Dummy Dan,' that a ten year old Jimmy received from his aunt one Christmas day. “My aunt won this dummy in a BINGO game and she didn't know what to do with it so she gave it to me for Christmas. And that got me started,” recalls Nelson. By the following Christmas his father, realizing that this was becoming more than just a toy to his young son, converted the pull string operation into a stick control in order to give his son the chance to learn the skills needed to operate a professional dummy.

Dummy Dan … whom Nelson had already started calling Danny … would accompany him to his fourth grade classroom whenever shy young Jimmy had to get up in front of the class and give a talk. “I think a lot of ventriloquists gravitate towards it initially because of shyness … and I certainly did. I had trouble in the class doing any kind of recitation until I got this little dummy. That's actually how I started … getting up in front of my class and doing my oral recitations through the dummy. I found out that as long as I had my dummy with me I was fine.” Nelson's fourth grade teacher, McSweany, was very tolerant and encouraged Nelson. When Nelson went onto fifth grade McSweany even went so far as to encourage his new teacher, Mrs. Shandly, to do the same. Young Jimmy continued to gain confidence and his skill as a ventriloquist was growing. “After awhile I found out I could make the kids laugh too, if I put a few jokes in,” recalls Nelson. “So, yes, you could say I was very introverted … but when you've got that little companion with you, if you goof up … it's his fault not yours.”

With plenty of practice in front of a mirror and with Nelson gaining confidence performing in front of his classmates, it wasn't long before he began performing for other audiences as well. “Back in those days, in Chicago, as long as you were willing to work for nothing there were a lot of places you could work ... church groups and schools and American Legions Clubs and places like that,” recalls Nelson of his boyhood days performing with his converted department store Dummy Dan(ny). The first paying work would come in the form of amateur contests, which Nelson would often win. “Neighborhood theaters would have amateur night in between the movie double feature,” relates Nelson. “They would bring on five or six acts .... you'd do your act and the MC would come out and put his hand above your head and the one who got the most applause would get five dollars.”

It soon became very apparent that even though Nelson was only in his mid teens, his talents were fast outgrowing the deparment store toy dummy. So Nelson went to the finest ventriloquist figure maker in his home town of Chicago ... Frank Marshall. Marshall was renowned for his ventriloquism figure making having already made such famous dummies as Edgar Bergen's Charlie McCarthy and Max Terhune's Elmer to name a few. “He wouldn't make figures for everybody,” explains Nelson. “He had to see your act before he would build a character for you.” So Marshall came down to one of Jimmy Nelson's amateur night performances and was impressed enough with the young teenager to start work on a professional Danny figure. Jimmy Nelson has handled many professional figures over the years but as skilled as other figure makers may be Nelson regards Frank Marshall's figures to be, the Stradivarius of ventriloquism figures. Nelson still works with the original Danny O'Day sending him in for regular maintenance … periodic new paint jobs, restringing of the inner workings, an occasional new wig… “He looks pretty good for his age … doesn't he?” says Nelson, of his 60 year old 'partner' with a chuckle.

Equipped with a brand new Danny — made by America's most respected figure maker, Frank Marshall — all Nelson needed was a manager and a last name for Danny. Then the act would be ready to take on the road. "When I realized I was going to go professional I figured he'd better have a last name and not just have us be 'Jimmy and Danny.' The O'Day came … and I frankly admit it … because it was easy to say without moving the lips. It didn’t have B or a P. Charlie McCarthy, you had to say an M … Jerry Mahoney, you had to say an M. So… I decided to make it easy on myself."

Two years later although still in his teens Nelson was now getting steady paying work and asked Frank Marshall if he could carve a duplicate Danny O'Day. But because Marshall's figures were all painstakingly hand carved, although Marshall tried, he couldn't carve two exactly alike. “So that's how Humphrey Higsbye was born …” admits Nelson, who wasn't planning on adding a new character to his act at the time. “He didn't look enough like Danny. So I put eyebrows on him and glasses and put him in a different kind of a costume and gave him a different character.”

Jimmy Nelson began getting work on local Chicago TV shows. In those days everything was filmed live and while doing one of his first television shows he learned the art of thinking on his feet. “In those days,” recalls Nelson. “They had banks and banks of hot lights. And Danny had just been painted … and the paint started to run between the cracks of his mouth. And the mouth stuck in an open position while he was singing a song. So I held the note as long as I could and finally was able to slap the mouth shut … I said goodnight ladies and gentleman…” and hurried off the stage. Such were the challenges of early live television … still Nelson misses some of the charm of live TV. “You lose a lot … you don't have the fun of seeing mistakes that were made. Things would always go wrong … the props would not work properly, the people would forget their lines … but it was comedy and if you laughed the audience would laugh along with you. They loved to see that kind of stuff.”

By 1950 Jimmy Nelson, along with his sidekicks, would be hosting a local variety show on an independent Chicago TV station … it was here that Nelson assumes the people over at the Ed Sullivan Show saw his act and booked him for his first appearance on national television. On that show in September of 1950 Nelson performed with Danny O'Day his now classic smoking routine. The audience loved it and Ed Sullivan called Nelson “the greatest I've ever seen in his field.” In the days that followed some of the biggest nightclubs — which Nelson's manager had been trying, unsuccessfully, to obtain bookings from — were now calling him.

Ed Sullivan would have Jimmy Nelson on many more times in the years that followed. Nelson and the gang (which now included Farfel the talking dog) would become regulars on Milton Berle's Texaco Star Theater. And their long run as spokespeople (or should we say spokesfigures) for the Nestles company wasn't too far off in the future. While children nationwide were able to enjoy seeing Jimmy, Farfel and Danny O'Day several times each Saturday morning while they extolled the wonders of Nestles Quik … Tri-state area children were able to enjoy even larger doses of the fun loving gang. In 1960 Channel 13 in Newark, N.J. added Studio 99 1/2 to their Saturday morning line-up. “It was five days a week, Monday through Friday. The live show was an ambitious undertaking that not only stared Jimmy Nelson, with his core ventriloquist figures Danny O'Day, Farfel and Humphrey Higsbye … but included several hand puppets manipulated and voiced by Nelson as well. “I was doing thirteen voices on that show. I had a three tier stage that I worked behind. The figures Danny and Farfel would sit on one stage and the hand puppets would come up on a higher stage. I 'd bring them up one at a time and work them and I'd always have either Danny or Farfel in the other hand. It took a little dexterity to do it but I enjoyed it.”

And these days Jimmy Nelson and Danny O'Day can still be found doing their classic smoking routine … except instead of performing for audiences in the Catskills or Las Vegas or at the top nightclubs across America their performing it for a much younger audience. And instead of lighting up and smoking Nelson is being educated on the dangers of cigarettes by his smart aleck sidekick Danny O'Day. And while Danny's educating Jimmy Nelson he's educating elementary school children across the state of Florida. “They relate to Danny O'Day on their own level. And the kids get the message in a fun way rather than someone getting up and preaching to them. And they love it when Danny puts me down . Oh, they think that's just the funniest thing that ever happened … putting an adult down.” And the next generation is creating their own fond memories of Jimmy Nelson and Danny O'Day.

N-E-L-S-O-N
Nelson makes the very best … 
Me-e-e-m-m-m-mries!

If you would like to find out where Jimmy Nelson will be playing
or are interested in booking him for your event, email Jimmy Nelson
For information on Jimmy Nelson's Anti Smoking performances for schools or the video GulfLung.org

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