See Young Terry Fator with Super Long Hair (& Bangs!) in This '90s Yodeling Video
The America's Got Talent Season 2 winner and talented ventriloquist has been wowing crowds for decades.
Long before Terry Fator won Season 2 of America's Got Talent and had his own shows on the Las Vegas strip, the funny and talented ventriloquist was wowing crowds at county fairs with his impressive yodeling skills.
Terry Fator had super long hair in the “early days” of his ventriloquism career
In February 2025, Fator posted a video of himself on Instagram performing on stage with his puppet Walter more than three decades ago. “A vintage clip from my early days!” he captioned the post. “Yodeling with Walter back in the 90’s at fair shows with Texas The Band. Every stage, every crowd, every note has led to where I am today. Feeling grateful for it all!”
In the clip, Fator’s hair was longer than you’ve ever seen it before, styled with bangs and laying past his shoulders. He was also wearing a shiny red button-down shirt and a black cowboy hat as he yodeled and worked the crowd, specifically with a woman named Roberta who appeared to be sitting with her grandchildren.
“Roberta honey, is that fast enough for you?” Fator’s puppet Walter said to the sweet woman in the crowd. “Well it ain't fast enough for me!” He then told the band behind him to play “faster, faster!”
As the music kicked up a notch, Walter called out to Roberta once again. “Somebody better hold onto Roberta,” the puppet quipped. “She’s about to get out of control here in a second!”
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The crowd in the video broke out in laughter and Fator’s followers on Instagram got a real kick out of his throwback video as well. “Wow! I love everything about this!!! I vote for bringing that hairstyle back too!” one fan commented, while another said, “True genius!!!”
While Fator really skyrocketed to fame after winning the second season of AGT in 2007, he’d be perfecting his craft for years. In an interview with Forbes in 2019, Fator shared that he became interested in ventriloquism when he was just 10 years old while he was researching for a book report.
“I went into the school library and there was a book by the legendary Paul Winchell called Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit. I read it and was hooked,” he said. “I bought a very inexpensive puppet and began to practice every day for hours. Soon I was performing in front of church groups and at talent shows, and I haven’t stopped since. Plus, as we all know, ventriloquists are considered as hip and cool as rappers, and women flock to men with puppets.”
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All jokes aside, as a successful entertainer who was a headliner at The Mirage in Las Vegas for 10 years and continues to perform today, Fator also had some sage advice for aspiring performers.
“Never stop working. Always work. When you stop working the dream dies,” Fator told Forbes. “And if you love what you’re doing, if you love to perform, it doesn't matter if you’re in front of an elementary school group of 20 kids, or 20 million people on America’s Got Talent.”
