He became one of the benefactors of the Convent of Saint Teresa of Avila (1515–1582) in Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, at which he attended Mass every Sunday when there.

[citation needed] Performing under the stage name "Señor Wences", Moreno was known for his speed, skill, and grace as a ventriloquist.

The inspiration for Johnny came from his school days when the teacher punished him for imitating classmates and answering "present" when they were absent.

His punishment was to clean the inkwells and he smeared some of the ink on his hand, then clenched his fist to create the face.

Señor Wences was forced suddenly to invent the character when his regular, full-sized dummy was destroyed [2] during a 1936 train accident en route to Chicago.

A large part of the entertainer's comedy lay in the well-timed, high-speed exchange of dialogue between him and his creations, because of the difference in their voice pitches.

[6] He also performed on Broadway, in Las Vegas casino theaters, in feature films, and made an appearance on The Dusty Springfield Show in 1966.

Señor Wences would point out all of the features of the automobile to which Johnny would reply, "Ees Standard", "Stan-dard!

Tony Belmont, at the time the president of Alan Freed Productions, was his agent and manager throughout the 1980s, and he secured Señor Wences a spot performing at Ruth Eckerd Hall, among many others.

His last television appearance was on The Very Best of the Ed Sullivan Show #2, a retrospective in which the nonagenarian talked about "Suliban" and performed a brief spot of ventriloquism.

[7][8] One of the Señor Wences trademark bits of shtick (referenced several times below) involved his dialogue with a deep voice emanating from inside a box.

In 1959, the phrase was adapted for use in the closing credits for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon show Quick Draw McGraw where sidekick Baba Looey, trapped inside a chest, falls off a stagecoach driven by Quick-Draw whose shout "Hey Baba Looey" is met by the response "S'awright".

[6] Despite his retirement by age 100, the famous Señor Wences puppets, Johnny and Pedro, "continued working".

Another famous ventriloquist who was present at Señor Wences' birthday party, and who met him there for the first time, was Paul Winchell.