Aaron Karo

Last updated

Aaron Karo
Aaron Karo.jpg
Karo on stage in Los Angeles
Born (1979-06-18) June 18, 1979 (age 45)
Plainview, New York
Website aaronkaro.com

Aaron Karo (born June 18, 1979) is an American comedian [1] and author, best known for his Ruminations email column and series of books, his young adult novel Lexapros and Cons, and his Comedy Central special Aaron Karo: The Rest Is History. [2]

Contents

Career

In September 1997, as a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Karo sent a humorous email about college to twenty of his friends. That email spawned an "email column" called Ruminations on College Life that Karo began sending on a regular basis. Through forwarding and word-of-mouth, the column spread and readers began subscribing to receive the column directly. Karo continued to write the column after college, shortening the title to simply Ruminations.

On July 10, 2002, Karo made his stand-up comedy debut at Stand-Up New York in New York City. [3]

In August 2002, Simon & Schuster published a collection of Karo's columns, also entitled Ruminations on College Life. It is currently in its ninth printing.

In May 2005, Simon & Schuster published Karo's second book, Ruminations on Twentysomething Life, a collection of Karo's post-college columns.

In July 2005, Karo moved from New York to Los Angeles and began to write for television. He has since developed projects for 20th Century Fox, MTV, Warner Brothers, CBS Paramount, and a sitcom entitled Ruminations for The CW.

In August 2008, Karo announced the launch of Ruminations.com, a user-generated humor site that allowed fans to write their own "ruminations" and share them with the community. The site received half a million submissions before being shuttered in 2012.

On August 15, 2008, Karo performed on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS.

On December 9, 2008, Comedy Central Records released Karo's debut stand-up album Just Go Talk to Her. [4] The album reached number eight on the iTunes comedy bestseller list.

On September 15, 2009, HarperCollins published Karo's third book, I'm Having More Fun Than You. Described as a "tribute to modern bachelorhood," the book reached number one on Amazon.com’s humor bestseller list.

On November 19, 2010, Comedy Central premiered his first one-hour stand-up special Aaron Karo: The Rest Is History. An album by the same name was released the following day; it reached number one on Amazon.com's comedy bestseller list.

On April 10, 2012, Karo's fourth book and first novel, a work of young adult fiction, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Lexapros and Cons is the story of Chuck Taylor, a teenager with obsessive–compulsive disorder [5] who is obsessed with Converse and prescribed the antidepressant Lexapro.

On April 30, 2012, Karo's third stand-up album, I Need to Tell You Something, was released. His fourth album, Charm/Offensive, was released in 2015.

On September 17, 2012, the fifteenth anniversary of his first email, Karo ended his Ruminations column after expanding his mailing list from twenty friends to 100,000 worldwide subscribers.

In January 2015, Publishers Weekly reported that Karo's fifth book, a novel titled Galgorithm, would be published in summer 2015. [6] It was later re-released in paperback under the title Me You Us.

In October 2015, Variety reported that Karo was developing a sitcom for CBS called Squad Goals, executive produced by Ryan Seacrest. [7]

In March 2016, it was reported that Karo was developing an animated series for Comedy Central called Germany, starring Channing Tatum. [8]

In April 2018, Deadline reported that Karo was developing a series for Comedy Central called Living the Dream, starring DJ Dillon Francis. [9]

In December 2018, Variety reported that Karo was developing a series for TBS called Strange Times, with former Blink-182 member Tom DeLonge. [10]

Education

Graduated from Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, New York on Long Island, in June 1997. The original twenty friends that Karo sent the first Ruminations email to are purported to also be from Plainview.

Graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in May 2001. [11] Was a member of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Denis Leary</span> American comedian and actor

Denis Colin Leary is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Born in Massachusetts, Leary first came to prominence as a stand-up comedian, especially through appearances on MTV and through the stand-up specials No Cure for Cancer (1993) and Lock 'n Load (1997). Leary began taking roles in film and television starting in the 1990s, including substantial roles in the films Judgment Night (1993), Gunmen (1994), Operation Dumbo Drop (1995) and Wag the Dog (1997).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Hoppus</span> American musician (born 1972)

Mark Allan Hoppus is an American musician and record producer. He is the bassist and co-lead vocalist for the rock band Blink-182 and the only member to appear on every album.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray Romano</span> American comedian and actor (b. 1957)

Raymond Albert Romano is an American stand-up comedian, and actor. He is best known for his role as Raymond "Ray" Barone on the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, for which he won three Primetime Emmy Awards. He is also known for being the voice of Manny in Ice Age (2002), Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006), Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) and Ice Age: Collision Course (2016). He has received several other awards including nominations for two Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comedy Central</span> American cable and satellite television channel

Comedy Central is an American adult-oriented basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel carries comedy programming in the form of both original, licensed, and syndicated series, stand-up comedy specials, and feature films.

Rumination may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wayne Brady</span> American TV host and actor (born 1972)

Wayne Alphonso Brady is an American television host, comedian, actor, and singer. He is a regular on the American version of the improvisational comedy television series Whose Line Is It Anyway? He was the host of the daytime talk show The Wayne Brady Show, was the original host of Fox's Don't Forget the Lyrics!, and has hosted Let's Make a Deal since its 2009 revival. Brady also performed in the Tony Award–winning musical Kinky Boots on Broadway as Simon—who is also drag queen Lola—from November 2015 to March 2016, and as James Stinson on the American TV series How I Met Your Mother.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stockard Channing</span> American actress (born 1944)

Stockard Channing is an American actress. She played Betty Rizzo in the film Grease (1978) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series The West Wing (1999–2006). She also originated the role of Ouisa Kittredge in the stage and film versions of Six Degrees of Separation; the 1993 film version earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She was also one of two comic foils of The Number Painter on Sesame Street.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andy Borowitz</span> American writer, comedian, satirist & actor

Andy Borowitz is an American writer, comedian, satirist, and actor. Borowitz is a New York Times-bestselling author who won the first National Press Club award for humor. He is known for creating the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the satirical column The Borowitz Report.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom DeLonge</span> American rock musician (born 1975)

Thomas Matthew DeLonge is an American musician best known as the co-founder, co-lead vocalist, and guitarist of the rock band Blink-182 across three stints: 1992 to 2005, 2009 to 2015, and again since 2022. He is also the lead vocalist and guitarist of the rock band Angels & Airwaves, which he formed in 2005 after his first departure from Blink-182. DeLonge is noted for his distinctive nasal singing voice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Gaffigan</span> American comedian, actor, writer, and producer

James Christopher Gaffigan is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. His material often addresses fatherhood, laziness, food, religion, and general observations. He is regarded as a "clean" comic, using little profanity in his routines, although he does use it from time to time. He has released several successful comedy specials, including Mr. Universe, Obsessed, Cinco, and Quality Time, all of which have received Grammy nominations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Channing Tatum</span> American actor (born 1980)

Channing Matthew Tatum is an American actor. Tatum made his film debut in the drama Coach Carter (2005), and had his breakthrough role in the 2006 dance film Step Up. He gained wider attention for his leading roles in the sports comedy She's the Man (2006), the comedy-drama Magic Mike (2012) and its sequels Magic Mike XXL (2015) and Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023), the latter two of which he also produced, and in the action-comedy 21 Jump Street (2012) and its sequel 22 Jump Street (2014).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Birbiglia</span> American comedian, actor, director, producer, and writer (born 1978)

Mike Birbiglia is an American stand-up comedian, actor, storyteller, director, producer and writer. He is a frequent contributor to This American Life and The Moth, and has released several comedy albums and television specials. His feature-length directorial debut Sleepwalk with Me (2012), based on his one-man show of the same name and in which he also starred, won awards at the Sundance and Nantucket film festivals. He also wrote, directed, and starred in the comedy-drama Don't Think Twice (2016). His 2010 book Sleepwalk with Me and Other Painfully True Stories was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the 2011 Thurber Prize for American Humor. Birbiglia has appeared in films such as Your Sister's Sister (2011), Cedar Rapids (2011), and Trainwreck (2015), played a recurring role in Orange Is the New Black, Billions and has guest starred in episodes of Girls, Inside Amy Schumer, and Broad City. He also filled in for Jimmy Kimmel on his talk show for a week, as Kimmel caught COVID-19.

Out of Practice is an American sitcom television series that was produced by Paramount Television and originally broadcast on sister company CBS from September 19, 2005, to March 29, 2006. With producers Joe Keenan and Christopher Lloyd at the helm, the show was about a family of five doctors who had little in common and usually did not get along. CBS officially cancelled it on May 17, 2006, at its upfront presentation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aziz Ansari</span> American actor and comedian

Aziz Ismail Ansari is an American actor, filmmaker and stand-up comedian. He is known for his role as Tom Haverford on the NBC series Parks and Recreation (2009–2015) and as creator and star of the Netflix series Master of None (2015–2021) for which he won several acting and writing awards, including two Emmys and a Golden Globe, which was the first award received by an Asian American actor for acting on television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al Madrigal</span> American actor and comedian

Alessandro Liborio Madrigal is an American comedian, writer, actor and producer. He is a co-founder of the All Things Comedy podcast network, alongside Bill Burr. He rose to fame on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as a regular correspondent for five seasons. Outside of the standup world, he is known for his co-starring roles in the film Night School, Showtime's dark comedy I'm Dying Up Here, NBC's About A Boy, as well as CBS sitcoms Broke, Gary Unmarried and Welcome to The Captain. He has also performed on Conan and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. He is currently developing multiple projects for TV within his current deal at CBS Studios.

This is a list of non-comics media appearances of Gambit.

<i>21 Jump Street</i> (film) 2012 film by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

21 Jump Street is a 2012 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller in their live action directorial debuts and written by Jonah Hill and Michael Bacall. The film stars Hill and Channing Tatum in the lead roles. It is an adaptation of the 1987–1991 television series of the same name by Stephen J. Cannell and Patrick Hasburgh. In the film, Schmidt and Jenko are police officers who are forced to relive high school when they are assigned on an undercover mission to pose as high school students in order to prevent the outbreak of a new synthetic drug and arrest its supplier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe DeRosa (comedian)</span> American comedian

Joe DeRosa is an American stand-up comedian, actor, restaurateur and podcaster.

Jillian Leigh Bell is an American actress, comedian, and screenwriter. She was a writer for the 35th season of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live between 2009 and 2010. Since her departure from SNL, she has had starring roles in the films Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019) and I'm Totally Fine (2022). She has also appeared on television, starring as Jillian Belk on Workaholics, voicing Violet Hart on Bless the Harts, and in a recurring role as Dixie on the final season of Eastbound & Down. Her other film credits include 22 Jump Street (2014), Fist Fight (2017), Godmothered (2020), and Candy Cane Lane (2023). As of June 2024, she is engaged to illustrator/musician Luke McGarry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nish Kumar</span> British stand-up comedian and presenter

Nishant Kumar is a British stand-up comedian, television presenter, political commentator, and podcast host. He became known as the host of satirical comedy The Mash Report, now known as Late Night Mash. He has also presented BBC Radio 4 Extra's topical comedy show Newsjack, the Comedy Central series Joel & Nish vs The World, the BBC Radio 4 programme The News Quiz and Hello America on Quibi. Since May 2023, he has been the co-host of the political podcast Pod Save the UK.

References

  1. Weiss, Alex (April 10, 2012). "Comedian Aaron Karo to Perform at Martini Ranch this Week". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved October 2, 2014.
  2. Pearson, Catherine (November 28, 2022). "Why Is It So Hard for Men to Make Close Friends?". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved June 28, 2023.
  3. Weinstein, Farrah (August 1, 2002). "The Ruminator". New York Post. Retrieved February 9, 2015.
  4. Hammer, Tim (December 9, 2008). "CD Review: Aaron Karo – 'Just Go Talk to Her'". LAist. Archived from the original on February 25, 2009. Retrieved November 5, 2014.
  5. Bolle, Sonja (June 21, 2012). "Summer books for young readers". Newsday. Retrieved November 5, 2014.
  6. "Rights Report". Publishers Weekly. January 6, 2015. Retrieved February 9, 2015.
  7. Wagmeister, Elizabeth (October 15, 2015). "Ryan Seacrest Producing 20-Something Comedy 'Squad Goals' for CBS". Variety. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
  8. Kurp, Josh (March 31, 2016). "Channing Tatum's Comedy Central Series Sounds Wonderfully Bonkers". Uproxx. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
  9. Petski, Denise (April 23, 2018). "Comedy Central Developing 'Living The Dream' From Aaron Karo & Dillon Francis". Deadline. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
  10. Baltin, Steve (December 10, 2018). "Tom DeLonge Paranormal Series 'Strange Times' in Development at TBS". Variety. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
  11. Petrilla, Molly (July 1, 2012). "What's YA?". Pennsylvania Gazette. Retrieved February 9, 2015.