Willie Tyler

Lester on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, from 1972 Willie Tyler and Lester are a classic straight man and wisecracker pairing, with the dummy getting the sharper lines. Their big break came on Laugh-In in 1972, and the act kept turning up on variety shows such as The Flip Wilson Show and game shows such as Match Game for years afterward. Tyler was also the first ventriloquist to appear in David Letterman's Ventriloquist Week, a later clip that shows the timing still sharp decades on.