A. Whitney Brown

Last updated

A. Whitney Brown
Birth nameAlan Whitney Brown
Born (1952-07-08) July 8, 1952 (age 71)
Charlotte, Michigan, U.S.
MediumComedian, writer, actor
Years active1977–present
SpouseCynthia Swanson (1976–2011)
Carolyn Wonderland (2011–present)
Children1
Notable works and roles Saturday Night Live
The Daily Show

Alan Whitney Brown (born July 8, 1952) is an American comedian and writer. He is best known for his tenure as a writer and cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1991. He was also one of the original correspondents on Comedy Central's The Daily Show from 1996 to 1998. Brown has been nominated for an Emmy award four times, winning once.

Contents

Early life

Brown was arrested for stealing cars and sent to a reformatory. He never finished high school. [1] He had legal troubles in Toronto and spent time in jail in Texas, where he learned to juggle. He followed the Grateful Dead tour as a Deadhead and began busking in San Francisco. [2]

Career

Brown began his career as a street juggler, and he became a stand-up comedian after entering the 1977 San Francisco Comedy Competition. Early television appearances include Showtime's The Big Laff Off (1978), Late Night with David Letterman (1983), and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1986). [2] He became a member of the Writer's Guild when he was hired by Lorne Michaels to join the writing staff of Saturday Night Live in 1985; he was also a featured performer, most notably on a Weekend Update segment called The Big Picture. [3] He shared an office with Chris Farley. [4] He won a 1989 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program, along with Al Franken, Tom Davis, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, Lorne Michaels and Conan O'Brien. [5]

He worked briefly for the liberal radio network Air America Radio during its start-up period in early 2004. [6]

He also wrote the screenplay for an episode of HBO's horror anthology show Tales From the Crypt named "Collection Completed".

Personal life

On March 4, 2011, Brown married Carolyn Wonderland, a blues singer and guitarist, in Austin, Texas. The marriage was officiated by Michael Nesmith of The Monkees. [4] Brown was previously married to Cynthia Swanson, a New York newspaper designer, from 1976 to 2011.

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorne Michaels</span> Canadian-American television producer, writer, and actor (born 1944)

Lorne Michaels is a Canadian-American television writer and film producer. He created and produces Saturday Night Live and produced the Late Night series, The Kids in the Hall and The Tonight Show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadway Video</span> American multimedia entertainment studio

Broadway Video is an American multimedia entertainment studio founded by Lorne Michaels, creator of the sketch comedy TV series Saturday Night Live and producer of other television programs and movies. Broadway Video also held the rights to much of the pre-1974 Rankin-Bass library and Lassie from 1988 to 1996 before they sold the rights to Golden Books Family Entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenan Thompson</span> American comedian and actor (born 1978)

Kenan Thompson is an American comedian and actor. He has been a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live since 2003, making him the longest-tenured cast member in the show's history. He was also the first regular cast member born after the show's premiere in 1975. Outside of SNL, Thompson starred on NBC's sitcom Kenan from 2021 to 2022.

<i>Saturday Night Live</i> American late-night live TV sketch comedy and variety show

Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American late-night live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and streams on Peacock. Michaels currently serves as the program's showrunner. The show's premiere was hosted by George Carlin on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. The show's comedy sketches, which often parody contemporary American culture and politics, are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest, who usually delivers the opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast, with featured performances by a musical guest. An episode normally begins with a cold open sketch that was usually based on political events and ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", properly beginning the show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greg Daniels</span> American writer, producer, and director (born 1963)

Gregory Martin Daniels is an American screenwriter, television producer, and director. He has worked on several television series, including writing for Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons, adapting The Office for the United States, and co-creating Parks and Recreation and King of the Hill. Daniels attended Harvard University, where he befriended and began collaborating with Conan O'Brien. His first writing credit was for Not Necessarily the News, before he was laid off because of budget cuts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Hader</span> American actor and comedian (born 1978)

William Thomas Hader Jr. is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and director. He gained widespread attention for his eight-year stint as a cast member on the long-running NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2005 to 2013, for which he received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations and a Peabody Award. He became known for his impressions and especially for his work on the Weekend Update segments, where he played Stefon Meyers, a flamboyant New York City nightclub tour guide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Zweibel</span> American author, playwright, screenwriter, producer, director, actor, and comedian

Alan Zweibel is an American television writer, author, playwright, and screenwriter whom TheNew York Times says has “earned a place in the pantheon of American pop culture." An original Saturday Night Live writer, Zweibel has won five Emmy Awards and two Writers Guild of America Awards for his work in television, which includes It's Garry Shandling's Show and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Gammill and Max Pross</span> American comedy writing team

Tom Gammill and Max Pross are an American comedy writing team. Together they have written episodes for the TV shows Seinfeld, The Critic, The Wonder Years, It's Garry Shandling's Show, and Monk. They have also worked as producers on The Simpsons and Futurama.

<i>Saturday Night Live</i> season 30 Season of television series

The thirtieth season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between October 2, 2004, and May 21, 2005.

<i>Saturday Night Live</i> season 11 Season of television series

The eleventh season of Saturday Night Live, an American sketch comedy series, originally aired in the United States on NBC between November 9, 1985, and May 24, 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Mulaney</span> American comedian and actor (born 1982)

John Edmund Mulaney is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Mulaney first rose to prominence for his work as a writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 2008 to 2013, where he contributed to numerous sketches and characters, including Stefon, a recurring character that he and Bill Hader co-created. Since his departure from SNL, Mulaney has hosted it several times, becoming a member of the SNL Five Timers Club in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carolyn Wonderland</span> American singer-songwriter

Carolyn Wonderland is an American blues singer-songwriter and musician. She is married to comedian and writer A. Whitney Brown.

Steve Earl Higgins is an American writer, producer, announcer, actor, and comedian. He has served as the announcer of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon since 2014, and as a writer and producer of Saturday Night Live since 1995. Prior to The Tonight Show, he was the announcer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon from 2009 to 2014. Early in his career, he was part of the sketch comedy trio The Higgins Boys and Gruber, who had their own eponymous sketch series on Comedy Central from 1989 to 1991.

Rosie Shuster is a Canadian-born comedy writer and actress. She was a writer for Saturday Night Live during the 1970s and 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colin Jost</span> American comedian, actor, and screenwriter (born 1982)

Colin Kelly Jost is an American comedian, writer, and actor. Jost has been a staff writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live since 2005, and co-anchor of Weekend Update since 2014. He also served as one of the show's co-head writers from 2012 to 2015 and later came back as one of the show's head writers in 2017 until 2022 alongside Michael Che.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jen Statsky</span> American television writer and comedian

Jen Statsky is an American television writer and comedian known for her work on Hacks, The Good Place, Parks and Recreation, and Broad City. She is the co-creator and co-showrunner of the critically-acclaimed HBO Max series Hacks, for which she has received a Primetime Emmy, Peabody Award, and multiple WGA Awards, among others.

Christopher Jerell Redd is an American comedian and actor. After several years performing stand-up comedy, Redd was hired to join the cast of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live ahead of the show's 43rd season in 2017, making his debut alongside Heidi Gardner and Luke Null, and serving as a cast member for five seasons until 2022. For his work on the show, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics in 2018 for co-writing the SNL song "Come Back Barack". He is also known for his roles in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), Disjointed (2017–2018), and Kenan (2021–2022).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramy Youssef</span> American actor, comedian and writer (born 1991)

Ramy Youssef is an American stand-up comedian, actor, screenwriter, and director. He is known for his role as Ramy Hassan on the Hulu comedy series Ramy (2019–2022), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy and a Peabody Award in 2020. He was also nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards: Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

Julio Torres is a Salvadoran-American writer, comedian, and actor. He is known as a writer for Saturday Night Live and as the co-creator, writer, and executive producer of the HBO series Los Espookys. He previously wrote for The Chris Gethard Show on truTV. He directed, wrote, and starred in the surrealist comedy film Problemista.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shane Gillis</span> American comedian and actor (born 1987)

Shane Michael Gillis is an American stand-up comedian. He is co-host, along with fellow stand-up comedian Matt McCusker, of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, the most subscribed-to podcast on Patreon. In 2019, the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal named Gillis one of its "New Faces".

References

  1. Curtin, Kevin (February 11, 2022). "Diggin' Way Down Into Life With Carolyn Wonderland & A. Whitney Brown". Austin Chronicle . Retrieved June 25, 2023.
  2. 1 2 Wright, Megh (August 20, 2013). "Saturday Night's Children: A. Whitney Brown (1986–1991)". Vulture. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
  3. Brown, A. Whitney (1991). The Big Picture: An American Commentary. HarperPerennial. ISBN   978-0-06-096825-0.
  4. 1 2 Hoinski, Michael (March 11, 2011). "Carolyn Wonderland and Whitney Brown". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved June 25, 2023.
  5. "Outstanding Writing For A Variety Series Nominees / Winners 1989". Television Academy. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
  6. Holden, Stephen (January 4, 1988). "Comedy: A. Whitney Brown". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved June 25, 2023.