Doctor to return to ventriloquist beginnings

For Dr. Robert Baker, it all started with a sock puppet he made when he was 8 years old.
After a more than 30-year career as a gastroenterologist practicing in Great Neck, Baker will  step away from medicine at the end of the year and focus on performing ventriloquism.
“I did not want to be 75 years old and say ‘gee, I wonder if I could have done this,” he said. “The performer has always been very much a part of me.”
“It’s now time to take something that’s been on the back burner for 30 plus years and move it to the front burner,” Baker added.
Although he will no longer  practice medicine, he said he will give talks to doctors about how to improve the patient experience.
Baker said his interest in ventriloquism was sparked when he was 8 years old, “driving my mother crazy,” when she sat him down in front of a television program featuring ventriloquist Terry Bennett.
He was immediately infatuated, he said,  ran to an encyclopedia, looked up ventriloquism and made his first sock puppet.
Baker said that after twisting his parents’ arms, they bought him a Danny O’Day ventriloquist doll, which was made famous by ventriloquist Jimmy Nelson, who is known best for starring in commercials for Nestlé chocolate.
When he was 17, he said he had a professional ventriloquist figure personally made for him.
“That character is still with me and I open every show with him,” Baker said.
During high school, he started doing magic tricks and began performing at children’s birthday parties to work on his craft and make some money.
Baker, who is a Manhasset resident, said that when he went to college, he was faced with the challenge of appealing to an adult audience.
He said he found that college audiences appreciated magic, just in a different way than children.
“I was doing the same tricks for them as for the kids, but I changed the routine,” Baker said. “The basic magic was still the same.”
He said he was able to pay a “significant part” of his medical school fees by performing stage hypnosis and mind-reading acts at Catskill  resorts.
“Those were really rewarding. It’s just a huge amount of fun,” Baker said. “Hypnosis shows are fun because they rely on the audience members. People like seeing their friends doing funny things.”
He said when he went into practice in 1982, he put magic on hold and limited performing to holiday office parties, in private with friends and the occasional charity event.
“When I went into practice, a magician friend of mine, who was a prominent New York attorney, told me I couldn’t perform professionally anymore,” Baker said. “He said ‘what are people going to say? You’re a doctor in the community going to show up doing magic?’”
In 2008, he found his way back into performing magic and ventriloquism on stage.
Baker said he a took a course in stand-up comedy at Governor’s Comedy Club and was later invited by the executive director of Carolines on Broadway to perform ventriloquism at the venue.
He said he started doing his own shows at restaurants in Great Neck and Manhasset before the businesses eventually closed.
Baker said he has been performing at various venues, but one favorite is local firehouses.
“Firehouse audiences are great because they’re there for two purposes: to drink and to laugh,” he said. “They’re so much fun.”
Baker said there were “few feelings” that can describe what it is like for him to perform and receive a positive reaction from an audience.
“The character I’m working with delivers a line, then there’s this pause of a few milliseconds and you can almost see it going through people’s heads as they’re processing the joke, then you’re hit what can only be described as a wall of laughter,” he said. “You can feel it hit you right in the chest. It’s an amazing feeling.”
Over the years, Baker said, patients have asked him where they can see him perform, so he will  perform on Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. at the Landmark on Main Street in Port Washington “as a way of saying goodbye.”
“It gives me a chance to thank all of my patients, including people who have been with me for 34 years,” he said.
Tickets cost $35 and all proceeds from the show will be donated toward colon cancer research at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. They can be purchased at the door or at moonlightingdoc.show. Those interested must be at least 18 years old to attend.
“Do you know how much cooler that is? I get to have fun, make people laugh and do some good at the same time,” Baker said.
He said he was ambivalent about leaving medicine but was excited to move on to the next chapter of his life.
“Being a doctor is not just what I do, it’s who I am. It has occupied almost all of my adult life,” Baker said. “I’m going to miss my patients. I feel like I’m leaving my friends.”