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Hello, my name is
Chris Donahoe and I would like to take this time to tell you a little bit about
myself and let you know why I love to entertain people of all ages.
Growing up in the 60’s and 70’s in the Pittsburgh area was a great experience
for me to simply watch how different people are. Such a variety of
nationalities, religions and races gave me a wonderful chance to learn how to
interact with everyone. When I entertain, I like to reach all ages. Now in my
40’s I feel that I am able to do this better than I ever have. Being a father
of two teenage girls also gives me a great understanding of the younger
generation. I think the greatest thing my show offers have to be humor. I
watched a lot of comedy growing up, all different types. Television was I feel
at its best when I was young; simply because there were fewer channels to
choose from. As they say, “less is sometimes best” it gave you a chance to
really focus on what you liked. TV is where I first saw Ventriloquism. Paul
Winchel had a show that featured his two puppets, Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead
Smiff. From that day on I wanted a ventriloquist puppet. The Ed Sullivan Show
always had Vents on. Christmas was coming and my mother asked what I would be
asking for. That year I got an album, Edger Bergin with Charlie McArthy and
Mortimer Snerd that taught me how to do vent, I also would take out books from
my schools library on how to do vent. That Christmas I also received two vent
dolls. One was Charlie McArthy the other was Howdy Doody, I would practice with
them constantly. Sometimes I would even take them to my cousin’s house. I did
this for a couple years till I was in Jr. High and got interested in sports. My
interest started to drift more to sports and eventually I rarely picked up the
puppets up at all. Someone borrowed Charlie and I never saw him again, as for
poor Howdy Doody, well my dog ate him a little bit.
Years had passed and my interests changed once again. This time it was comedy.
Ever since I was a child I loved to make people laugh. Whether it was
impressions or the funny way I saw things that seemed normal to others until I
gave my perspective of the situation. The 80’s came around and stand-up comedy
was big. Every where I worked people would tell me “Hey, you’re really funny,
you should do stand-up”. So I did. It was fun for a while but my interests
wondered once again. This time toward a beautiful woman named Rosann. Her last
name was different at the time but I was able to convince her to change it to
Donahoe. Still being the life of the party I had no choice but to put comedy on
the back burner. I had two girls to help raise. Tina and Vicki are now in their
teens and don’t need the old man as much. I found myself with a little extra
time. As a joke my wife bought me a Howdy Doody puppet for Christmas. She
thought it would be a good joke because I told her that I did Ventriloquism as
a child. Needless to say that gift started the old comedy juices flowing again.
Two months later I had bought an $800 dollar vent figure from Mayher Studio’s.
I got a Mayher catalog from my uncle who is a magician and my mentor now.
Growing up I would always be amazed when he would perform so I asked him for
advice. Now over ten years later I’m performing shows myself. Thanks to people
like my mom, dad, my wife and my uncle and a love of laughter, I’m doing what I
feel I was put on this earth to do. That’s to ENTERTAIN!
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