Crab Ventriloquist

Held over for the fifth straight week as guest performer at the Cave Coral School of Stage and Screen Arts is Shelly Blue, that great ventriloquizing blue crab from the Chesapeake Bay!

Here we see Shelly captivating a class of young white grunt fish. (If he weren’t, you’d certainly know it! Grunt fish — especially the young — are not afraid to show a poor performer their displeasure by their rather loud and incessant grunting.)

Shelly, born Jed Weldon Bluestein in a brood of 472 other fertilized eggs near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, migrated northward to the Maryland shore before fully developing his voice-throwing skills. Early in his career, he found he could not only throw his voice to his larger claw (like most other ventriloquist crabs), but also to his smaller claw. This enhanced talent has made him a strong draw wherever he performs; he always manages to hook the big crowds.

At the end of his run at Cave Coral, Shelly will be returning once more to his ‘home stage’ at Kutsher’s Hotel and Country Club in the Borscht Belt of New York’s Catskills Mountains.