H. Jon Benjamin

Jon Henry Benjamin (born May 23, 1966, in Worcester, Massachusetts), known professionally as H. Jon Benjamin, is an American actor, voice actor, and comedian. He is best known for his voice-over roles as Jason and Coach McGuirk on Home Movies, as well as various roles on the sketch comedy series Important Things with Demetri Martin.

Career overview

Benjamin's comedy career began when he was around twenty-four in Boston where he was first in a comedy duo with Sam Seder, then a member of Cross Comedy, a comedy team led by David Cross. For around the first seven years of his career, Benjamin almost exclusively worked in groups rather than independently. Afterwards, his independent work remained more experimental, rejecting traditional styles of stand-up comedy in favour of playing with the medium.

Benjamin's live projects include the Midnight Pajama Jam, a show performed in New York City with Jon Glaser, and Tinkle a show combining stand-up comedy and live music co-hosted by Todd Barry and David Cross. A Midnight Pajama Jam DVD is currently in production. He and Cross also appear together on Invite Them Up.

He was the guest on Space Ghost Coast to Coast in its eighty-first episode "King Dead" on December 17, 1999 where Zorak and Moltar kidnapped him. He has appeared in the television show Cheap Seats, on ESPN Classic, as "Gene Stapleton" and "Rabbi Marc Shalowitz". He co-starred in Todd Barry's short film Borrowing Saffron, and portrayed a hallucinatory talking can of vegetables with a shameful habit of autofellatio in the film Wet Hot American Summer. He also made short cameos in Not Another Teen Movie as the football trainer and on the FX Network dramedy Rescue Me as the pimp "F-bomb" in season two. He is currently a writer and actor in the sketch MTV show Human Giant. He can also be seen in Turbocharge- the Unauthorized Story of the Cars, a comedy biopic about 80's rock band The Cars, playing the role of Cars' manager Elliot Roberts in his usual deadpan comedic delivery [1].

Benjamin has done a lot of voice work in animated TV shows. His credits include starring roles in several Soup2Nuts cartoon shows, such as Science Court, Home Movies, O'Grady, Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, and Assy McGee. He also co-created the show Freak Show with his friend David Cross. Benjamin is also starring as the Devil (and multiple other roles) in Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil, which began airing on Adult Swim on September 9, 2007. Benjamin also plays a recurring character on the PBS Kids series WordGirl and is the announcer for The Sam Seder Show and the now defunct The Majority Report, both on Air America Radio. He also does the voice of "Shelly", Sam Seder's accountant, on Maron v Seder.

Benjamin has made guest appearances in several animated shows. He was in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episodes Bus of the Undead and The Last One as Mothmonsterman, in Broodwich as Mr. Sticks, in "Bible Fruit" as Mortimer Mango, and played the role of live action Master Shake in Last Last One Forever and Ever. He also made a cameo appearance as a government agent in the film "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters" alongside frequent collaborator Jon Glaser. He recently guest-starred in Family Guy as Carl, a convenience store clerk. Other notable recent appearances include The Venture Bros., in the episodes "Escape to the House of Mummies Part II" and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills", in which he played Dr. Orpheus's master (who appears in the form of Cerberus and Catherine the Great's horse, respectively). He also appeared in the Stella short "Bar" which can be found as an easter egg on the Season 1 DVD. As of 2009, Benjamin stars on the Comedy Central sketch/variety show Important Things with Demetri Martin and has nearly as much screen time as Martin himself. He will play the voice of Sterling Archer, a secret agent in the new FX series Archer beginning in the fall of 2009

Benjamin was featured in a Super Bowl XLIII Bud Light commercial with Conan O'Brien^[1] and was responsible for the McCain Girls^[2] videos on YouTube.^[3]

Selected filmography

References

1. ^ "Super Bowl 43 ad: Budweiser Bud Light - Conan O'brien 'Vroom Vroom Party Starter'" (Video). YouTube.com. http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=INauC_lrHCo&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3DINauC_lrHCo. Retrieved 2009-02-15. 
2. ^ "McCaingirls's Channel". YouTube.com. 2008-03-14. http://youtube.com/user/mccaingirls. Retrieved 2009-02-15. 
3. ^ "Just because". SamSederShow.com. http://samsedershow.com/node/2889. Retrieved 2009-02-15. 

External links

• H. Jon Benjamin at the Internet Movie Database
• H. Jon Benjamin at TV.com
• Jon Benjamin: Almost a rabbi That Other Paper
• Interview with Suicidegirls.com
• Interview with Kittenpants.org
• Ten Questions with H. Jon Benjamin
• Audio Interview with The Sound of Young America public radio show
• Interview from March 2007 from SXSW Festival