Small Business Focus: Denny Baker & Co.

There are just some things that are better left unsaid. That is unless said by a puppet.

Just ask comedian, ventriloquist, and corporate trainer Denny Baker of Denny Baker & Co. He specializes in taking the “better left unsaid” -- the uninteresting and sometimes downright boring -- and making it fun and unforgettable.

Baker, along with a cadre of puppet companions, has built a highly successful business by turning meetings, banquets, and training sessions into interactive, memorable experiences.

Baker has been practicing ventriloquism since he was ten years old. His introduction to the art came through a grade school field trip to the Vent Haven Museum in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. He didn’t say much about the trip at first.

But “The World’s Only Museum Dedicated to Ventriloquism” made an impression on the boy. Several months later he expressed an interest in learning the skill. His mother signed him up for a 30-week correspondence course.

Baker was a quick study and ventriloquism gave him a way to get out of his shell. He started performing for birthday parties and community events while still just a kid. His mother helped with rehearsing and memorizing the course scripts and then with new scripts as the 2 worked together to create original material. And if new material required new characters, she made puppets from store-bought toys.

By the time he was in high school, ventriloquism performances had become Baker’s one and only part-time job.

“I went to Elder High School,” he recalls. “I played football and was in Glee Club but I’d still do parties and events on the weekends. Sometimes I’d have 3 or 4 (events) on a Sunday.”

After high school Baker continued honing his performance, developing his own special approach to entertaining and interacting with his audience. Throughout these early years and after, Baker’s mother, Kathy, a senior services facility marketing director*, continued to support his efforts, writing material and providing a sounding board as the two discussed and rehearsed individualized programs for his clients.

Ventriloquism is a unique art form. Some think it’s been around since the time of the Greeks. Practitioners truly skilled at “speaking from the belly” -- making words sound as if coming from a source other than the speaker -- were viewed with a certain amount of respect and, maybe, superstition. The secrets of the skill and the routines and tricks sometimes associated with it seemed available only to a certain few.

Not so today. Today, a truly interested person can learn how to be a ventriloquist. Teachers, books, videos, and courses are available to the curious. Here in the U.S., there are regional workshops and conferences. There’s even an annual International Ventriloquist Convention, hosted by the Vent Haven Museum, in Kentucky.

Perhaps this broad availability is one reason why Baker’s personalized approach has served him well. Each performance, each program, is truly customized for the client. His work has garnered praise from numerous local and international corporations where he is a frequent guest emcee for corporate events. Most recently, Baker began offering programs in safety training, a topic that holds particular significance since his full-time job is that of a firefighter.

Firefighting is Baker’s real passion in life and the only other job he’s ever held. He started training right out of high school and is currently a firefighter paramedic for the City of Cincinnati, a city he has served for the last 21 years. Prior to Cincinnati, he served 3 years in the Delhi Township department and 6 months for the city of Middletown.

When asked why he chose to be a firefighter Baker credits much of his lifelong love for the work to his upbringing.

“Firefighting is the family business,” he states candidly and proudly. “My Dad and 3 uncles are firefighters. So is my brother and my cousin.”

But there’s more. “I love the work,” he admits. “It’s interesting and intriguing. Even the medical work. Being able to save people is definitely a perk but it’s also physical work...mitigating and defeating a physical danger.”

He also likes the “not knowing” what’s going to happen from one day to the next. As he says, “Six calls one day, maybe 16 the next...every day is different.”

Being both firefighter and ventriloquist is an interesting life combination. Baker isn’t sure exactly what it was about ventriloquism that caught his attention. It did help him open up as a young man. But he never felt the need to be a ham or to be in front of an audience.

So maybe it’s something else.

Maybe Baker has, indirectly, learned to address not his need but ours. Maybe it’s the audience that asks the performer to step up and say something. Something that helps. By saying -- teaching -- with puppets the things that are sometimes unsaid, or uninteresting, or even boring, Baker makes it easier for his audience to learn and to get through a tough day, a tough job, or a difficult situation. He helps them figure it out, whatever “it” is.

And, at the end of the day, maybe he helps his listeners to laugh at themselves -- and to look at the moment -- in a different way.

*Baker’s mother, Kathy, is Marketing Director at Bayley Place, in Cincinnati, Ohio.