Tony Sam

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Tony Sam
Tony Sam Comedy Central Stand Up.jpg
Tony Sam
Born
Chicago, Illinois
Alma mater Florida Atlantic University
Occupation(s)TV producer, stand-up comedian, author, actor
Years active2003-present

Tony Sam (also credited as A.W. Sam) [1] is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and Emmy-winning television producer from Chicago, now living in Los Angeles. In 2015, LA Weekly named him one of 10 Comedy Acts To Watch. [2]

Contents

His debut comedy album, Scaredy Cat, was released on Stand Up! Records in 2014.

Early life

Sam was born and raised in Chicago. [3] He has a degree in molecular and marine biology from Florida Atlantic University. [4] [5] He worked for several years as a scientist at various jobs, including studying cranio-facial defects in developing zebrafish embryos at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital. [3] [6] In 2006, he co-authored a paper in the prestigious medical journal, Nature Medicine . [7]

Career

Comedy and television

Sam began performing stand-up around 2003 in Chicago, [8] and studied improv and sketch at iO Theater and The Second City Training Center. [9] He became known as an alternative-comedy scenemaker, co-founding (with Brooke Van Poppelen) Chicago Underground Comedy in 2005, a weekly rotating showcase of alternative comics designed to forefront stand-up as opposed to sketch comedy and improv. [10] [11] [12] Kumail Nanjiani was one of the original cast members. [13] Chicago's NewCity called Sam one of the city's most interesting comics in 2009, and praised ChUC as a "mainstay of alternative comedy" [14] and "one of the two best places to perform in Chicago". [15]

Several critics have praised the comic range of Sam's voice; Jake Kroeger of website The Comedy Bureau wrote that it "is so unique, drastically wandering up and down in frequency, that he makes [his] characters exceptionally hilarious and absolutely unforgettable". [16]

Sam's television credits include co-executive producer for Cooking Channel's Food: Fact or Fiction? with Michael McKean and a producer for Josh Gates Tonight , Expedition Unknown , Jay Leno's Garage , Girl Meets Farm , Storage Wars: Barry Strikes Back , Brandi & Jarrod: Married to the Job , MTV's Ridiculousness [17] and the Netflix hit home-renovation show, Instant Dream Home, [17] which in 2023 was nominated and won the Daytime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Instructional and How-To Program". [18]

Sam has also written for Smosh [9] and MTV News. [19] McKean praised Sam's work on Food: Fact or Fiction? in an interview on Andy Richter's podcast, Three Questions with Andy Richter, calling Sam "a very funny writer". [20]

As an actor, Sam has appeared on truTV's Hack My Life , Conan , [17] G4's Attack of the Show! , Food: Fact or Fiction? , and Josh Gates Tonight . [21] [22]

Sam has performed frequently at the Hollywood Improv, [9] and at festivals including the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, [23] Bridgetown Comedy Festival, [24] [25] San Francisco Comedy & Burrito Festival, [26] Bumbershoot, SF Sketchfest, Chicago Sketch Fest, New York International Fringe Festival, and New York Underground Comedy Festival. [9]

Podcasts

Sam has hosted several podcasts, including Tony Sam's Word of the Day, a podcast about language begun in 2014. [27] [28] In 2017, he began co-hosting the podcast Legally Insane with Matt Ritter, a lawyer turned comedian. [29] [30]

He has also guested on many other podcasts, including Jackie Kashian's The Dork Forest, [3] Josh Adam Meyers' The 500, [31] Probably Science , [32] Dumb People Town and Sklarboro County with the Sklar Brothers, [33] and The Space Cave with David Huntsberger. [4] [5]

Albums

Sam's debut album, Scaredy Cat, was recorded May 24, 2014 at Acme Comedy Company in Minneapolis and released later that year on Stand Up! Records. [34] It received generally positive reviews and praise from several high-profile comics including Kyle Kinane, Michelle Buteau, The Sklar Brothers, Beth Stelling, Jason Nash, former SNL cast member, Brooks Wheelan, Brody Stevens and Eddie Pepitone. [35] Jake Krueger of the Los Angeles based review site, The Comedy Bureau, called the album one of the best of 2014, [36] saying it "strikes a great balance between a genuine silliness and unfiltered candor". [37] Ed Placencia of the website Comedy Reviews said "Sam gleefully adds a touch of fun and whimsy to each of his bits. ... Scaredy Cat wonderfully displays that he has decided to embrace the simple tactic of just having a good time." [38] Richard Lanoie of The Serious Comedy Site called it "smart". [39] Huffington Post reviewer Tony Bartolone called the album "refreshingly silly". [40] Chris Spector of Midwest Record wrote that "Sam does a fine job of being that normal guy that lives next door that suddenly, unexpectedly goes nuts." [41]

Four segments from the CD were turned into cartoons by animator Alex Clark. [42] [43] [44] [45]

Author

In 2021, under the name A.W. Sam, he published a book of poetry, Waste[LA]nd: Poems For L.A., about Los Angeles. [1] In 2022, Sam released his second collection of poetry, Toil. The book was praised by actors Jonah Ray and James Urbaniak. [46]

Discography

Books

YearTitlePublisher ISBN PagesNote
2020 WASTELAND: POEMS FOR LAGRAVEL YARD BOOKS 978-1737893806 79
2021 TOIL 978-1737893844 97
2022 THE PERPETUAL PLUMMET OF IMPERFECTION 978-1-7378938-5-1 101

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References

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  44. Tony Sam (comedian), Alex Clark (animator) (2020-09-30). Tony Sam: Death Jokes (cartoon). Stand Up! Records . Retrieved 2021-03-16.
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