Are His Lips Moving?

Welp, this exists now. A direct-to-DVD animated movie starring inexplicably popular ventriloquist Jeff Dunham's Achmed The Dead Terrorist character.

The question on my mind of course is... why? 

The whole point of a ventriloquist's act is watching him manipulate the dummy and use his vocal and acting skills to convince you that he's having a conversation with a living, breathing character. It's a highly visual form of entertainment.

How does any of that translate into an animated feature? If you're a fan of Dunham's act, there's very little of it on display here, other than his voice. You're not even getting the allegedly "witty" banter between him and his dummy. Just the dummy. And even then you're not even seeing the dummy, but a drawing of it.

You won't even be able to watch Dunham's lips to see if they move.

You might as well make a cartoon about a guy who can juggle fifty chainsaws. Or a hundred. It doesn't mean anything if you're not seeing s live person do it.

This reminds me of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. He starred in a popular radio show with his dummy Charlie McCarthy from 1937 to 1956. Yep, radio. A highly visual act like a ventriloquist had a radio show for two decades. 

We live in a strange and confusing world...