Harry Julius Shearer is an American actor, comedian, musician, radio host, writer, and producer. Born in Los Angeles, California, Shearer began his career as a child actor. From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group. Following the breakup of the group, Shearer co-wrote the film Real Life (1979) with Albert Brooks and worked as a writer on Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night.
Matthew Abram Groening is an American cartoonist, writer, producer, and animator. He is best known as the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell (1977–2012) and the television series The Simpsons (1989–present), Futurama, and Disenchantment (2018–2023). The Simpsons is the longest-running U.S. primetime television series in history and the longest-running U.S. animated series and sitcom.
Melvin James Brooks is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, songwriter, and playwright. With a career spanning over seven decades, Brooks is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. A recipient of numerous accolades, he is one of 19 entertainers to win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award. He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2010, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2013, a British Film Institute Fellowship in 2015, a National Medal of Arts in 2016, a BAFTA Fellowship in 2017, and the Honorary Academy Award in 2024.
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.
James Lawrence Brooks is an American director, producer, screenwriter and co-founder of Gracie Films. He co-created the sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, and The Simpsons and directed the films Terms of Endearment (1983), Broadcast News (1987), and As Good as It Gets (1997). He received numerous accolades including three Academy Awards, 21 Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award.
Real Life is a 1979 American comedy film starring Albert Brooks, who also co-authored the screenplay. It is a spoof of the 1973 reality television program An American Family and portrays a documentary filmmaker named Albert Brooks who attempts to live with and film a dysfunctional family for one full year.
Theodore Isidore Gottlieb, mostly known as Brother Theodore, was a German-born American actor and comedian known for rambling, stream-of-consciousness monologues which he called "stand-up tragedy". His style is similar to Diseuse or Kabarett, which was popular in Western Germany during the 1920s and 30s's. He was described as "Boris Karloff, surrealist Salvador Dalí, Nijinsky and Red Skelton…simultaneously".
Stewart Robert Einstein was an American actor, comedy writer, and producer. He created and performed the satirical stuntman character Super Dave Osborne, and was also known for his roles as Marty Funkhouser in Curb Your Enthusiasm and Larry Middleman on Arrested Development.
Louis Alfred Székely, known professionally as Louis C.K., is an American stand-up comedian, actor and filmmaker. C.K. has won three Peabody Awards, three Grammy Awards, six Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award as well as numerous awards for The Chris Rock Show, Louie, and his stand-up specials Live at the Beacon Theater (2011) and Oh My God (2013). In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked C.K.'s stand-up special Shameless number three on their "Divine Comedy: 25 Best Stand-Up Specials and Movies of All Time" list and ranked him fourth on its 2017 list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
Defending Your Life is a 1991 American romantic comedy-fantasy film about a man who finds himself on trial in the afterlife, where proceedings examine his lifelong fears, to determine whether he'll be reincarnated on Earth. Written, directed, and starring Albert Brooks, the film also stars Meryl Streep, Rip Torn, Lee Grant, and Buck Henry. Despite comedic overtones, the film also contains elements of drama and allegory.
Norman Gene Macdonald was a Canadian stand-up comedian, actor, and writer whose style was characterized by deadpan delivery and the use of folksy, old-fashioned turns of phrase. He appeared in many films and was a regular guest on late-night talk shows, where he became known for his chaotic, yet understated style of comedy. Many critics and fellow comedians considered him to be the ultimate talk show guest, while prominent late-night figure David Letterman regarded him as "the best" of stand-up comedians.
Harry Einstein, known professionally as Harry Parke and other pseudonyms, most commonly Parkyakarkus, was an American comedian, writer, and character actor. A specialist in Greek dialect comedy, he became famous as the Greek chef Nick Parkyakarkus on the Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson radio programs, and later on a program of his own. He appeared in eleven films from 1936 to 1945. He was also the father of comedians and actors Albert Brooks and Bob Einstein.
Tiffany Shlain is an American filmmaker, artist, and author. Described by the public radio program On Being as "an internet pioneer", Shlain is the co-founder of the Webby Awards and the founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
When Jews Were Funny is a 2013 Canadian documentary comedy film, directed by Alan Zweig. It was produced by Jesse Ikeman and Jeff Glickman for Sudden Storm Entertainment. The film features two dozen interviews with a variety of Jewish comedy professionals in North America and explores the role of Jewish humour in the context of North American comedy. The filmmaker asks whether earlier generations of Jews were funnier than the present generation and, if so, why. The film becomes more personal as its focus shifts to the filmmaker's desire to reconnect with a culture that has changed.
The Secret Life of Pets is a 2016 American animated comedy film produced by Illumination Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Chris Renaud, co-directed by Yarrow Cheney, and produced by Chris Meledandri and Janet Healy, from a screenplay written by Brian Lynch and the writing team of Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio. The film stars the voices of Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Kevin Hart, Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, Steve Coogan, and Albert Brooks.
Dying to do Letterman is a 2011 documentary film, directed by Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina, and produced under their Joke Productions banner. The documentary follows the journey of Steve Mazan, a stand up comedian with the lifelong dream of performing a comedy routine on the Late Show with David Letterman.
The Problem with Apu is a 2017 American documentary film written by and starring comedian Hari Kondabolu and produced and directed by Michael Melamedoff. It focuses on the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, an Indian immigrant in the animated sitcom The Simpsons who, for a period, was the only figure of Indian heritage to appear regularly on mainstream U.S. television. The film explores encounters with negative stereotypes, minstrelsy, racial microaggressions, and slurs against people of Indian and South Asian heritage.
Events in 1947 in animation.
Events in 1926 in animation.
Dean Ward is an American screenwriter, television comedy writer and documentary filmmaker.
