Created by Jonathan Geffner
“Can a dummy find justice in a human world?”
VAN TRILLO & SAM SUEDE aren’t your typical 1940s private eyes.
For one thing, Van Trillo is a ventriloquist.
For another, his partner Sam Suede, is a real dummy.
No, really.
An actual dummy. Wood and suede and big googly eyes and Van’s hand stuck up his — oh, sorry, don’t want to give away too many of the gags…
Anyway, the theory is that when Trillo uses Sam to interrogate suspects, they’ll be so unnerved that they’ll spill the beans.
Well, it’s a theory, anyway.
But it’s the hook on which a handful of goofy but ambitious films by real-life Noo Yawk ventriloquist Jonathan Geffner hang.
Geffner, wearing his PR fedora, says, “is a better ventriloquist than Edgar Bergen.”
Which begs the question… just how good a ventriloquist do you have to be, to be better than a guy who did his act on the radio?
But the films, Oxford Park, a 2006 short, and the more recent Trillo & Suede web series on YouTube promise plenty of good old-fashioned goofy fun, full of pun-filled anarchy, irreverence, subversive wit and surprising heart. And an occasional joke so groan-worthy you may need hospitalization.
I’d say they’re like the Muppets on crack, but I suspect the Muppets may already be on crack.
Geffner, along with a colourful slew of puppet pals, has been entertaining audiences of all ages and sizes throughout the USA for years, both live and on television. He and his buddies have also appeared in several award-winning anti-drug PSAs that are currently being shown in thousands of schools across the country.
FILMS
- OXFORD PARK
(2006, Farnham)
15 minutes
Screenplay by Jonathan Geffner
Starring Jonathan Geffner as TRILLO
Also starring Fiz Marcus, Rufus Graham, Catherine Bellamy, Julian Roberts - WHILE THE VILLAGE SLEEPS
(2013, Farnham; in production?)
Screenplay by Jonathan Geffner
Directed by Ian Lewis
Producer: Jonathan Geffner and Ian Lewis
Starring Jonathan Geffner as TRILLO
WEB SERIES
- TRILLO & SUEDE
(2019-20, Geffner Productions)
Created by Jonathan Geffner
Written by Jonathan Geffner
Starring Jonathan Geffner as TRILLO- SERIES ONE
- “The Hong Kong Canary” (December 31, 2019) | Watch it now!
- “Hasidic Noir” (January 7, 2020) | Watch it now!
- “The Dead Psychologist” (January 14, 2020) | Watch it now!
- “Chloe’s Epiphany” (January 21, 2020) | Watch it now!
- “The Pusher” (January 28, 2020) | Watch it now!
- “The Cosplayer” (February 4, 2020) | Watch it now!
- “Poison Tea” (February 11, 2020) | Watch it now!
- “The Stalker” (February 19, 2020) | Watch it now!
- “Lisa Mona” (February 26, 2020) | Watch it now!
- “The Shrimp Vendetta” (March 3, 2020) | Watch it now!
- SERIES TWO
- “The Case of the Gefilte Fish (November 31, 2020) | Watch it now!
- “The Psychic” (November 7, 2020) | Watch it now!
- NON-SERIES
- “The Toilet Paper Caper” (March 29, 2020) | Watch it now!
Trillo & Suede must solve the gripping, suspenseful mystery of the missing toilet paper during the Coronavirus Lockdown.
NOVELS
- While the Village Sleeps (2013) | Kindle it!
RELATED LINKS
- Trillo and Suede
The official web site.
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
