Dennis Blair (born February 21, 1955) [1] is an American stand-up comedian.
He is known for writing and appearing in the 1983 movie Easy Money , alongside his mentor, Rodney Dangerfield. He wrote for Dangerfield for four years including sketches for his network specials and jokes for his act. He provided the voice of Lem and Clem in the animated film Rover Dangerfield .
He also wrote a Broadway show for Jackie Mason.
In 1998 he and Dug McGuirck produced "I Sleep Naked in the Rain", an album of songs from a then unproduced one man show with music. [2]
Blair has served as the opening act for about 150 celebrity headliners, including comedians Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, Jackie Mason, and Alan King. He toured for 20 years with George Carlin. His days as an opening act to the stars prompted him to write a book about those experiences, titled Me First.
Blair has appeared on over 50 television shows, including The Tonight Show.
He was a co-writer of the program for the 2005 [3] and the 2006 Writers Guild Awards. [4]
Blair won the Charlie Award for best comedian in New York, and an Emmy Award for Confessions of a Standup
He is also a songwriter, having contributed the song "Ordinary Man" to the Easy Money soundtrack. Dennis and his songwriting partner John Durkin won the top-40 prize in "The American Song Festival." The duo won first place in the country music category of the Indie Music Channel's Radio Music Award for their song, "She Stayed".[ citation needed ]
Blair produced the album Rappin Rodney, which was nominated for a Grammy. He also co-wrote the album's title song.
Blair lives in Las Vegas, playing music and performing comedy in clubs, casinos, theatres and cruise ships. His latest country songs are on iTunes and are played in many countries around the world.
Adam Richard Sandler is an American actor and comedian. Primarily a comedic leading actor in film and television, his accolades include nominations for three Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2023, Sandler was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. A cultural icon of Generation X, Sandler became a staple of American comedy, television, and film in the waning years of the 20th century.
Father Guido Sarducci is a fictional character created by American comedian Don Novello. Sarducci is a chain-smoking priest with tinted glasses, who works in the United States as gossip columnist and rock critic for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
John Herbert Gleason, known as Jackie Gleason, was an American actor, comedian, writer, and composer also known as "The Great One". He developed a style and characters from growing up in Brooklyn, New York, and was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy, exemplified by his city bus driver character Ralph Kramden in the television series The Honeymooners. He also developed The Jackie Gleason Show, which maintained high ratings from the mid-1950s through 1970. The series originated in New York City, but filming moved to Miami Beach, Florida, in 1964 after Gleason took up permanent residence there.
Jack Roy, better known by the pseudonym Rodney Dangerfield, was an American stand-up comedian, actor, screenwriter, and producer. He was known for his self-deprecating one-liner humor, his catchphrase "I don't get no respect!" and his monologues on that theme.
Harold Allen Ramis was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. His best-known film acting roles were as Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989), and as Russell Ziskey in Stripes (1981); he also co-wrote those films. As a director, his films include the comedies Caddyshack (1980), National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), Groundhog Day (1993), Analyze This (1999) and Analyze That (2002). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series SCTV, on which he also performed, as well as a co-writer of Groundhog Day and National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The final film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in was Year One (2009).
Jackie Mason was an American stand-up comedian and actor.
John Coger "Jackie" Martling, Jr. is an American stand-up comedian, writer, radio personality, author, actor, and musician also known as Jackie the Joke Man. He is best known as a former writer and in-studio comedian for The Howard Stern Show from 1983 to 2001.
Samuel Burl Kinison was an American stand-up comedian and actor. A former Pentecostal preacher, he performed stand-up routines that were characterized by intense sudden tirades, punctuated with his distinctive scream, similar to charismatic preachers. Initially performing for free, Kinison became a regular fixture at The Comedy Store where he met and eventually befriended such comics as Robin Williams and Jim Carrey. Kinison's comedy was crass observational humor, especially towards women and dating, and his popularity grew quickly, earning him appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live. At the peak of his career in early 1992, he was killed in a car crash, aged 38.
Caddyshack II is a 1988 American sports comedy film and a sequel to the 1980 film Caddyshack. Directed by Allan Arkush and written by Harold Ramis and PJ Torokvei, it stars Jackie Mason, Robert Stack, Dyan Cannon, Dina Merrill, Jonathan Silverman, Brian McNamara, Marsha Warfield, Paul Bartel, and Randy Quaid with special appearances by Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. It tells the story of a wealthy and widowed real estate developer who goes up against Bushwood County Club's snobbish president in a golfing tournament.
Mason Douglas Williams is an American classical guitarist, composer, singer, writer, comedian, and poet, best known for his 1968 instrumental "Classical Gas" and for his work as a comedy writer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and Saturday Night Live.
Rodney Scott Carrington is an American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist and songwriter. He has released six major-label studio albums and a greatest hits package, on Mercury Records and Capitol Records. His comedy act typically combines stand-up comedy and original songs. Most of his songs are performed in a neotraditional country style, with Carrington handling lead vocals and guitar. Carrington has also starred in the ABC sitcom Rodney and in the 2008 film Beer for My Horses.
John Fox was an American comedian.
Insult comedy is a comedy genre in which the act consists mainly of offensive insults, usually directed at the audience or other performers. Typical targets for insult include people in the show's audience, the town hosting the performance, or the subject of a roast. An insult comedian often maintains a competitive and interactive relationship with their audience. The style has been described as "festive abuse". The style can be distinguished from an act based on satire, or political humor. Insult comedy is often used to deflect or silence hecklers even when the rest of the show is not focused on it.
Easy Money is a 1983 American comedy film starring Rodney Dangerfield, Joe Pesci, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Candice Azzara, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. It was directed by James Signorelli and written by Dangerfield, Michael Endler, P. J. O'Rourke and Dennis Blair. The original music score was composed by Laurence Rosenthal. Billy Joel performed the theme song "Easy Money" from his album An Innocent Man.
Sam Bobrick was an American author, playwright, television writer, and lyricist.
Rodney Barnes is an American screenwriter and producer. Barnes has written and produced The Boondocks, My Wife and Kids, Everybody Hates Chris, Those Who Can't, Marvel's Runaways, American Gods, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, and is currently an executive producer/writer on HBO's Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.
Rappin' Rodney is a comedy album by American comedian Rodney Dangerfield issued by RCA Records in 1983. The title track is a rap-influenced novelty song co-written by J.B. Moore and Robert Ford Jr.; the same songwriters who worked with Kurtis Blow on "The Breaks". Dennis Blair co-wrote the song. The accompanying music video, which includes cameos from Pat Benatar and Don Novello, was played heavily on MTV at the time of release.
Deon Anthony Cole is an American actor, stand-up comedian, and screenwriter. He is best known for his role in the sitcom Black-ish (2014–2022), which earned him nominations for two NAACP Image Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. On June 25, 2020, he became the second panelist to win the Doris Award on the ABC version of To Tell the Truth. He stars in Average Joe.
Jeffrey L. Gurian is an American dentist and comedian.
"Clown in the Dumps" is the twenty-sixth season premiere of the American animated television series The Simpsons and the 553rd episode of the series overall. It first aired in the United States on the Fox network on September 28, 2014, with the Family Guy crossover episode "The Simpsons Guy" airing afterwards. This episode was dedicated to the memory of Louis Castellaneta, the father of The Simpsons lead voice actor Dan Castellaneta. It was written by Joel H. Cohen and directed by Steven Dean Moore, with Don Hertzfeldt guest directing the opening title sequence. Jeff Ross, Sarah Silverman, and David Hyde Pierce guest starred as themselves, with Jackie Mason and Kelsey Grammer reprising their respective roles as Rabbi Krustofski and Sideshow Bob, while Maurice LaMarche voiced several minor characters.