It’s 2:00 PM and the sun is bleaching Savannah’s cobblestones. A candy-apple-red and state-green trolleybus rattles past the Colonial Park Cemetery. Inside, two ‘morons’ in matching blue-and-green printed overalls and headbands lean into their microphones, their grins wide enough to bridge the Savannah River, start to talk to a mix of bewildered tourists and grinning locals.
This isn’t just a historic tour – it’s Savannah For Morons: an unscripted, feather-chasing, Julia Roberts-impersonating tour through the city’s past in which one thing is guaranteed – you’ll be doubling down laughing at the end. (Beware, it PG-13+)
We sat down with John Danniii, one of the infamous Moron Twins who lead this trolley tour to and from the Comedy Town to have a heart-to-heart and see what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a thunderous applause to every single silly joke one makes.
Danniii Moron – it’s *D-A-N-N-I-I-I* MORON. M-O-R-O-N as he patiently spells it out and adjusts his hat. “It’s great, man, it is,” he says of life as a professional “moron.” His tone suggested that he didn’t just like it – he absolutely loved it. “A great opportunity to enjoy our city, to share kind of a fun look… poke fun at our history a bit but also share the beauty and majestic stuff that makes Savannah Savannah,” he says, with a wave of energy that felt contagious at that moment.
Perhaps, this isn’t just comedy for him. “It’s a lot of fun, high energy – silly kinda aesthetic,” he grins. On being asked if they’ve ever had any surprising, unexpected reactions from their guests on their performance, Dannie shook his head in denial.
“Guests don’t really know what to expect. We set the standard: it’s going to be silly, it’s going to be obnoxious, it’s going to be a little rowdy, expect the unexpected a little bit, to definitely expect the high energy and yesss, cheekiness – no pun intended.” So the guests inside typically react like they understand what’s expected of this Moron tour.
“The biggest reactions we get are from folks outside the trolley,” says Dannie, “when we pretend to be Julia Roberts running through Bull Street or down Bull Street,” in Something to Talk About. Pedestrians freeze. “There’s always astonishment at that,” he laughs. And even their guests find it funny to watch those reactions from the locals outside the bus. “Our guests are in on the joke so they know, they kind of know what’s happening.”
But the crown jewel? The Forrest Gump feather chase. At Independent Presbyterian Church (where the film’s opening scene was shot), Dannii waves a feather tethered to a stick, sprints around Johnson Square. “Where’s that bench?!” he yelps, while tourists snap photos and the locals shake their heads. It feels absurdly silly – but hell, it’s Savannah.
So how does one earn the title “moron“? “We ship you off to a military black site,” Dannie says. “Six months of training: 60% physical, 20% mental and the rest of it emotional. And again, I’m a moron and I don’t know what those percentages are. But that’s kind of what happens.”
The truth is that they are a part of a large improv organization called Front Porch Improv. “The two founders who built this ‘organization’ really worked their tails off and built it up to something where they were able to begin to hire other local artists to come in and..and perform,” he explains. “If you really want to be a moron, get to know the folks at Front Porch, take some of those improv classes and find your way to an audition.”
Ghost tours and scripted history lectures are the new norm so Savannah For Morons feels like a breath of humid, unfiltered air. The tour ends where it began – Martin Luther King Jr Blvd: with sweaty foreheads, sore cheeks from smiling and a crowd of newly minted “morons” getting down from the trolleybus
