By MIKE DUNHAM, mdunham@adn.com

When Jeff Dunham performed at Anchorage's Egan Center in 1993, tickets cost less than $20 and 900 curious comedy fans showed up to see the young ventriloquist. Friday night more than 6000 people filled Sullivan Arena to near capacity for his latest visit to the state. Top tickets ran $43.

Walter, the curmudgeonly dummy in Dunham's stable, noted another difference. "Anyone who saw our show 15 years ago, I look now exactly like I looked then," he said, pointing his perpetual frown at the puppeteer and adding, "You -- do not."

A degree of self-deprecation has always long been part of the show for Dunham, who often must suffer in simulated silence while his creations belittle him and make him the butt of their jokes. It also figured in the warm-up act, "Guitar Guy" Brian Haner. In the course of his 20 minute routine, he talked and sang about being upstaged by his successful rock star son, falling in love with an inflatable doll, installing a PVC pipe in his trailer for his wife to use as a stripper pole.

He also paid tribute, of a sort, to Alaska's Governor, to the roaring approval of this audience. "She'll make you straight if you gay," he sang. "Oh Sarah... I want you to be my disciplinarian, because I've been a bad Libertarian."

And he set the mood for some of the risque humor to follow, with songs like "Salty Nuts." "This song's about three things," he insisted. "Eating peanuts, a baseball game, and your dirty mind." He put on quite a show with his virtuosic electric guitar playing, too, channeling Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner" while holding the instrument behind his head.

A short intermission followed. It seemed like Dunham was giving people extra time to navigate the clogged lines of traffic trying to get to the Sullivan. Just before 9 p.m., the show intro rolled onto the jumbo screen, with Achmed the Dead Terrorist announcing, "Good evening, infidels!"

Dunham's pacing and material -- bumping the borders of sexual, scatological or racial sensitivities -- kept the crowd laughing steadily for the next two hours. They loved his exchanges with grumpy Walter: "Where are we?" "Anchorage, ever been there?" "No one has. Did you lose a bet?" "It's a fine city." "Great, if you're a polar bear." "It's not even cold today." "It will be."

The manic Peanut has likewise retained his bizarre charm over the years. In one bit where he averred that Dunham and Haner were in a relationship, he mused, "Which of you is the girl? The one with the guitar... or the one with the dolls?" A randy dialect joke in which he repeatedly pronounced the phrase "No fork. You like Taste of China? Like fish" in a mangled Chinese accent got the ventriloquist so self-amused that he broke into laughter despite himself.

But he didn't break the illusion, although acknowledging the gimmick is part of the joke. Peanut made a high squeaking noise and asked Dunham, "Can you do that?" "No I can't," Dunham replied. "That would kill me." A long glance from Peanut to the audience conveyed the message, "We know who's really making the noise" while Dunham stood with a perplexed expression on his face. At such times Peanut would sarcastically toss out Pinocchio's line, "I'm a real boy!"

Part of Dunham's success is his adroitness at responding to garbled lines and such missteps through the speedy comeback cracks of his puppets. On Friday he performed in an open-collar shirt, which made the movements of his throat muscles visible; his previous outfit of coat and tie covered that tell-tale sign. But his lips stayed in place and the animated nature of his dummies - who seem to spring to life the instant he produces them - drew attention to them like iron filings to a magnet. There's a depth to his best characters that transforms them into virtual personalities on a par with many living performers.

How else can one explain Achmed? He's only bones, googling eyes and wicked eyebrows after a mismanaged suicide bombing. His signature laugh line is, "I kill you!" Yet, when they weren't hooting at his cultural cluelessness, the audience seemed to feel a little sympathy for his sad stories of his boyhood with a legless dog, an arranged marriage, a high school with no girls; "I had to take Omar to the prom. But he could dance!"

When his arm fell off and Dunham had to help him reattach it, he seemed to have lost all hope. "I hate my life," he sniffled plaintively. "I want my snuggly." He sang a song with the reprise, "I'm so depressed. I got the Blew Myself Up Blues."

Achmed filled the longest part of the program. It was also the one time I heard anyone push back at the barrage of calculated political incorrectness. When Dunham explained to the Dead Terrorist that American Indians didn't use bombs, a Native veteran in the row behind me muttered, "I did."

As popular as Achmed was (Jose Jalepeno made a short appearance, too), the hands down favorite had to be Bubba J, brought out for an encore. Bubba has been retired from the act for the past few years, but Dunham said Alaska fans had requested him, so he complied although it meant he had to refer to a cheat sheet to remember the jokes. Not that it was necessary.

"What's your favorite beer?" he asked the redneck character. "An open one," responded the crowd. "Where did you meet your wife?" "At the family reunion," six thousand voices replied.

"It's sad when the audience known your act better than you do," quipped Bubba. "This is like some kind of weird (expletive) church service. Communion will be Budweiser and corn dogs."

"This is the one of the strangest shows we've done in a long time," Dunham agreed.

Strange, but good. By the time he closed the festivities, by shooting T-shirts into the arena with a bazooka that managed to reach the top seats at the far end of the place, it was nearly 11 p.m.

Credit: Daily News Arts & Entertainment editor Mike Dunham is no relation to Jeff, but some say he might make a good understudy for Walter.