South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • 109

Otto's nobody without George LA' 4L IHMHH IIiniVlmnan. LL1- HARBOR TOWS 1 Hour Cruises 11 am 1 pm 3 pm SEE MILLIONAIRE'S ROW, EXOTIC YACHTS, NAVAL SHIPS, PORT EVERGLADES MORE! STROLL AROUND OR ENJOY AIR CONDITIONED SEATING FULL SERVICE FOOD BEVERAGE BAR ENTERTAINING INFORMATIVE 1 HR. NARRATIVE "I don't have a series of puppets," he says. "I'm still trying to make the one guy famous." Otto George are booked at 8:30 and 10:30 tonight; 7, 9 and 1 1 p.m. Saturday; 8 p.m.

Sunday at Undo Funny's, 9160 State Road 84, Davie. Tickets are 1 plus a two-beverage minimum. Call 954-474-5653. Show roundup Ron Powers, best known in recent years as Gallagher II, is now working as a hypnotist. He'll perform Nov.

10 at Boca Raton's New York Comedy Club, 8221 Glades Road, 561-470-6887. Judy Tenuta, the "Aphrodite of the Accordion," will perform Nov. 22-24 at West Palm Beach's Improv at CityPlace, 550 S. Rosemary 561-833-1812. George Carlin has added a 9:45 p.m.

show to his Dec. 1 1 stop at West Palm Beach's Kra-vis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd. The 7:30 p.m. show is sold out. Tickets are 1 Call 561-832-7469 or 800-572-8471.

The Improv at the Streets of Mayfalr in Coconut Grove has closed temporarily. The club is being moved from the third floor of the Mayfair complex to the ground floor, The target date for reopening is Children 6.95Tnc 12) Departs At Las Olas Blvd. S.E. 5th Ave. Ti behind Hyde Park Market New River 5 Minutes from Oceanfront Reservations Not Needed Info.

(954) 768-9920 It's a story ventriloquist Otto Petersen says he can't get rid of, and it's one he didn't attach much importance to when it happened. Petersen, better known as Otto in the unadulterated puppet act Otto George, was working as a street performer in Central Park about 20 years ago when one passer-by didn't like what the comic and his dummy had to say about him. "I was probably picking on him a little too hard," Otto says by phone from Edgewater, N.J., where he has a skyline view of Manhattan. "He came out with a knife and stuck it in the puppet's stomach and walked away. It was not memorable at the time.

He looked like he was kidding around. He probably thought he was help-ingtheact." More than likely the Central Park attacker really meant to kill George, or at least disable him. Such is the effect George has on people in an unsparing club act that's at once vulgar and belligerent. "He's very dirty, very angry," Otto says of George. "I guess I have lot of rage and I get it out through that." As voiced by Otto, with lips moving no less, there's nothing in the Otto George registry of jokes and insults that can be fully repeated here.

Not the one about the first time George saw a girl naked, or the one about having sex with a black woman, or the one about having "a solid bowel movement." The crudeness of George's language is underscored by the coarseness of Otto's delivery. "It's not that I can't do it without moving my lips, but I want the words to be understood," Otto says. "A lot of guys who don't move their lips uays nam or omne www.carriebcruises.com JEFF RUSNAK COMEDY SCENE sound muffled. I do a lot of screaming and talking really fast. The tradeoff is between technical perfection or doing the act at a speed I think is good.

"At a nightclub people don't look at me," Otto adds, "because basically they look at George. That's the real job of ventriloquist, to take attention off yourself and put it on the dummy. That's why a lot of ventriloquists dress in black." Does Otto dress in black? "No. I don't do anything you're supposed to do. I wear whatev-er'sclean." Otto, 40, began doing ventriloquism at age 7.

He dropped out of high school and became a street performer when he was 13 and began working in clubs when he was "21 or 22." He's now a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show and, more recently, he's concentrated on making films, including American Dummy, which features Lewis Black, Jim Breuer and porn queen Nina Hartley. Whatever the venue, there is no Otto without George. Otto has gone through eight George dummies, his newest one being hand-carved by Tim Sellberg, who Otto describes as the Stradivarius of puppet-makers. Otto tried working with another dummy once, but he quickly came back to George. 1 Freelance writer Jeff Rusnak's comedy column appears the first Friday of each month.

Please send information to Comedy Scene, Entertainment, Sun-Sentinel, 200 Las Olas Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 or e-mail lrusnak59aol.com. THIS SHTUBDfilll nil TICKETS FCR SEPT. 24 mm RFKnKRRFIl From detailed listings of local events to stories on important community issues, Sun-Scntincl COMMUNITY NEWS has your neighborhood covered. To subscribe, call l-877-READ-SUN. -r.

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