Dunham would repeatedly listen to Nelson's recorded instructions. On another visit to the toy store, he acquired an instructional record called Jimmy Nelson’s Instant Ventriloquism (Nelson was a ventriloquist who'd appeared on TV in the 1950s, most memorably in ads for Nestlé's Quik). Soon after Christmas, he visited a bookmobile run by the Dallas Public Library to get materials about ventriloquism. The dummy had come with some how-to instructions about ventriloquism, but that wasn't enough for Dunham. Next, he needed to learn how to keep his mouth shut and talk as Snerd, all while opening and closing Snerd's mouth - to maintain the illusion that Snerd was the one speaking - by manipulating a string in the back of the doll's neck. Getting the Mortimer Snerd dummy was only a first step on Dunham's road to becoming a ventriloquist. Even as a child, Dunham was determined to master ventriloquism
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