Chris Strait

Last updated

Christopher Alan Strait (born January 14, 1976) is an American comedian and writer. He is best known for being a regular contributor to TRU-TV's World's Dumbest series.

Contents

Personal

Strait was born in Inglewood, California, and grew up in the Ladera Heights section of Los Angeles near Baldwin Hills. He is the older of two sons, and also has a half-sister (from father's side). Strait is of predominately English and German descent, although he claims to be a "European mutt".

He graduated from Culver City High School in 1994, and subsequently earned a bachelor's degree in history from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1999. Strait then received his master's degree in psychology from Antioch University in 2001. He had intended to be a psychotherapist, but was told by supervisors that his problem-solving style was "too aggressive".

He began his comedy career while still in graduate school, in the summer of 2000. His Masters Thesis was on the subject of humor. Early influences included Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart, and The Smothers Brothers. Later his admiration shifted to the likes of George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, and Louis CK. In addition to his comedy career, Strait has also been employed in real estate, finance, behavioral therapy, and journalism.

Strait was previously married from 2004 to 2017. He has a daughter (born 2007), and a son (born 2011). He and his second wife had a son in 2018. They married legally in December 2019, but their official wedding was delayed to June 2021, due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. [1]

Career

Strait has headlined over 50 comedy clubs in the U.S. and Canada, and has also performed for the U.S. military in the US, as well as in Cuba, Japan, Bahrain and Germany. "I've been to all 50 states, as well as 6 continents, and 46 countries. I've done casinos, cruises, corporates, private parties, bars, comedy clubs, colleges, and military bases. Pretty much all the categories of places one can do stand-up." After many years hiatus from international shows, Strait performed in South Africa at Goliath and Joe Parker's clubs in Gauteng in 2017. He has also worked as a private auctioneer and motivational speaker. From 2018 to 2020, and 2021 onward, Strait has been primarily performing on cruise ships... but shifted to do over 100 virtual shows for private companies during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2023–24, he headlined clubs in Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, and Brazil. [1] [2]

In addition to his contributions on TRU-TV, Strait has also done commentary on E!, ESPN, and Fuel TV. He has performed stand-up comedy several times on Fox's "Laughs", as well as single performances on NickMom, Playboy TV, and Starz. He also wrote/produced/starred in a series of video sketches for YouTube.

Strait has also lent his voice to video games, industrials, and film trailers. He was a writer for 'National Lampoon's Sports Minute', and appeared in the National Lampoon Film, "Lost Reality 2".

His first commercially available CD, "Hitting The Wall", was shot in Indianapolis in Oct of 2011, and released on Next Round Entertainment's label, on December 13, 2011. His first commercially available DVD, "Urban Suburbanite" was released on Amazon in September 2015. The special had been shot nearly 3 years earlier, at the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, CA but production issues delayed its release. It was rereleased on Tubi in 2022. Strait released three more stand-up comedy CDs in 2019: "Incorrect Correctness" and "Personal Growth" for BSeenMedia. His Dry Bar Comedy Special "Laugh Till You Run Out of Air" was released in January 2020. It was also picked up by Tubi in 2023. [3]

Strait has also written and self-released several e-books. Two books on boxing, "Strait on Boxing", and "Boxing Lists For the Die-Hard Fan", as well as a food review book, entitled "Eating Los Angeles". He has also released three books of poetry, "Free Thinker", "Tongues Lenguas", and "High-Cool" under the pen name, Alan Kimble, in 2016, 2019, and 2020, respectively. The last one was a dedicated book of haiku, written during the 2020 Covid-19 quarantine. [4] In September, 2016, he released a travel essay book, entitled "40 Years, 50 States". He also released several books in 2019, "Borderless", a travel journal; "Psychology of Humor" and "Empty Bucket", the latter being his personal memoirs, told via bucket-list format.

Strait is also a US presidential historian. He released two books in 2022: "Presidentially Speaking", a comedic take on all 45 US Presidents, and "Strait Democracy", which is a proposed new constitution. In 2024, he released “Fast Food: Slow Digestion” a humorous review of fast food chains. [5]

Boxing

Strait has worked as a live commentator and ring announcer for professional boxing shows, most notably on CBSSports.com, VYRE, UFC Fightpass, and FITETV.com. He has been a freelance boxing writer, blogger, and vlogger since 2000. He has written for cyberboxingzone.com, boxingcentral.com, boxingtalk.com, ropeadoperadio.com, and Boxing Digest magazine. He was the head boxing writer for convictedartist.com and Punch Drunk Sports, and has also hosted several of his own boxing podcasts. [6]

Strait also competed as a boxer, fighting in over 100 underground matches. He also won an official USA Boxing-sanctioned Los Angeles area tournament in the Super Heavyweight (over 201 lbs) division in 2001. Extremely nearsighted, he was unable to obtain a professional license. He returned sporadically over the years, fighting to a draw in Hawthorne, CA in 2010, and losing a match in Brooklyn, CT in 2023.

Related Research Articles

<i>National Lampoon</i> (magazine) American humor magazine

National Lampoon was an American humor magazine that ran from 1970 to 1998. The magazine started out as a spinoff from The Harvard Lampoon.

<i>Animal House</i> 1978 comedy film by John Landis

National Lampoon's Animal House is a 1978 American comedy film directed by John Landis and written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller. It stars John Belushi, Tim Matheson, John Vernon, Verna Bloom, Thomas Hulce and Donald Sutherland. The film is about a trouble-making fraternity whose members challenge the authority of the dean of the fictional Faber College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chevy Chase</span> American comedian, writer and actor (born 1943)

Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, actor, and writer. He became the breakout cast member in the first season of Saturday Night Live (1975–1976), where his recurring Weekend Update segment became a staple of the show. As both a performer and a writer on the series, he earned two Primetime Emmy Awards out of four nominations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Pryor</span> American comedian and actor (1940–2005)

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most important stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Flaherty</span> American actor (1941–2024)

Joseph Flaherty was an American actor, writer, and comedian. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy SCTV from 1976 to 1984, his role as Harold Weir on Freaks and Geeks (1999), and as the heckler in Happy Gilmore (1996).

<i>Everybody Hates Chris</i> American period television sitcom (2005–2009)

Everybody Hates Chris is an American semi-autobiographical sitcom created by Chris Rock and Ali LeRoi and originally broadcast on UPN and The CW from 2005 to 2009. The series is based loosely on Rock's personal experiences as a teenager living in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City from 1982 to 1987. However, Rock's real-life adolescence took place from 1978 to 1984, having been born in 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. J. Novak</span> American actor (born 1979)

Benjamin Joseph Manaly Novak is an American actor and comedian. He has received five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preston Lacy</span> American stunt performer best known for starring in Jackass (born 1969)

Preston Lacy is an American stunt performer, actor, comedian and one of the stars of the reality stunt show Jackass.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Carr</span> English comedian and TV personality (born 1976)

Alan Graham Carr is an English comedian, broadcaster and writer. His breakthrough was in 2001, winning the City Life Best Newcomer of the Year and the BBC New Comedy Awards. In the ensuing years, Carr's career burgeoned on the Manchester comedy circuit before he became known for co-hosting The Friday Night Project (2006–2009) with Justin Lee Collins. This led to the release of a short-lived entertainment show Alan Carr's Celebrity Ding Dong (2008), and he went on to star in the comedy chat show Alan Carr: Chatty Man (2009–2016) which aired on Channel 4. Since 2017, Carr often stands in as a team captain on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. In 2019, he became a judge on RuPaul's Drag Race UK. In 2021, he began hosting BBC One's Interior Design Masters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Glaser</span> American actor

Jon Glaser is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is best known for his work as a writer and sketch performer for many years on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, creating and starring in the Adult Swim series Delocated and Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter as well as the truTV series Jon Glaser Loves Gear.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hari Kondabolu</span> American comedian

Hari Karthikeya Kondabolu is an American stand-up comedian and writer. His comedy covers subjects such as race, inequity, and Indian stereotypes. He was a writer for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell and the creator of the 2017 documentary film The Problem with Apu.

Chris Rush was an American comedian, writer, actor, radio personality and author. He is best known for his stand-up routines and albums, along with having been a writer and editor on the satirical publication National Lampoon magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Trainor</span> American stand-up comedian and writer (born 1981)

Mike Trainor is an American stand-up comedian and writer. Currently, Trainor is a writer, producer, and on-air performer for The Howard Stern Show, and has several recurring characters on the show including Jeff the Drunk's "Lump", Bobo's "Toupee", the Hulk, and others. He also provided commentary on the TruTV series truTV Presents: World's Dumbest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Tenderloins</span> Comedy troupe

The Tenderloins are an American comedy troupe composed of James "Murr" Murray, Brian "Q" Quinn, and Sal Vulcano. The group stars in the television series Impractical Jokers, which premiered on December 15, 2011. The program airs on truTV and TBS in the U.S. and on Comedy Central in the UK, Ireland, and India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Sepinwall</span> American television critic and writer (born 1973)

Alan Sepinwall is an American television reviewer and writer. He spent 14 years as a columnist with The Star-Ledger in Newark until leaving the newspaper in 2010 to work for the entertainment news website HitFix. He then wrote for Uproxx, where he worked for two years. Since 2018, he has been the chief TV critic for Rolling Stone.

<i>Impractical Jokers</i> American hidden camera reality show with improvisational elements

Impractical Jokers is an American hidden camera comedy and reality show with improvisational elements. Produced by NorthSouth Productions, Impractical Jokers premiered on truTV on December 15, 2011, starring the members of The Tenderloins: James "Murr" Murray, Brian "Q" Quinn, Sal Vulcano, and formerly Joe Gatto. In March 2024, it was announced that the series will relocate to TBS, who originally simulcast the tenth season, due to a programing network overhaul at truTV. Despite this, truTV will continue to air reruns.

<i>The Chris Gethard Show</i> American TV series or program

The Chris Gethard Show is a phone-in comedy and variety talk show created and hosted by Chris Gethard. Initially a live show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York, the show debuted on public-access channel Manhattan Neighborhood Network on June 22, 2011. In 2015, it moved to the cable channel Fusion, where it ran for two seasons before moving to truTV in 2017.

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

Rory J. Scovel is an American comedian, actor, and writer. He released his first stand-up comedy album Dilation in 2011. He has since released the stand-up specials The Charleston Special (2015), Rory Scovel Tries Stand-Up for the First Time (2017), Live Without Fear (2021), and Religion, Sex, and a Few Things in Between (2024).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adam Conover</span> American comedian, writer, voice actor, and television host (born 1982/1983)

Adam Conover is an American actor, writer and comedian. He created and hosted the half-hour truTV show Adam Ruins Everything, based on the CollegeHumor series of the same name. He was also the host of the American version of The Crystal Maze on Nickelodeon. In 2022, Conover's limited series The G Word with Adam Conover debuted on Netflix. Conover currently serves on the board of the Writers Guild of America West.

Ali Siddiq is an American stand-up comedian, writer, public speaker and radio personality based in Houston, Texas. He released his debut comedy album in 2010 and his debut television special in 2016. Siddiq was the winner of Comedy Central's Up Next stand-up comedy competition in 2013 and was a finalist on NBC's competition show Bring the Funny in 2019. He was the co-host of R&B afternoon radio show Uncle Funky Larry Jones & Ali Siddiq on KMJQ in Greater Houston from January 2021 to January 2024.

References

  1. 1 2 "Comedian Chris Strait performs standup - The Daily Iowan". 2011-09-27. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 2022-01-25.
  2. ↑ "Chris Strait | Laff Spot | Laff Spot | THEATRE & COMEDY | Artshound.com". 2011-07-22. Archived from the original on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 2022-01-25.
  3. ↑ Chris Strait, Personal Growth , retrieved 2022-01-25
  4. ↑ Kimble, Alan. Free Thinker: By Alan Kimble.
  5. ↑ "Chris Strait". www.amazon.com. Retrieved 2022-01-25.
  6. ↑ Punch Line Boxing podcast.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.