Anthony Jeselnik

Anthony Jeselnik (born December 22, 1978) is an American comedian, writer, actor, and producer.

He is known for his dark comedy style, which emphasizes ironic misdirection, non sequiturs, biting insults, an arrogant demeanor, and a stage persona that frequently takes amoral or psychopathic stances.

Jeselnik graduated from Upper St. Clair High School in 1997.

In the early years of the 2000s, while in his early 20s, Jeselnik moved to Los Angeles and was working at a Borders when he first tried stand-up.

He found a book by writer and comedian Greg Dean that promoted Dean's Santa Monica comedy workshops.

In his first attempt at a joke, Jeselnik did an impression of his father being stung by wasps.

By the end of the skit—which lasted only one minute, but Jeselnik claimed "felt like 10"—no one had laughed, leading Jeselnik to swear off physical comedy forever.

After being fired by Borders, he worked behind the scenes as an accounting clerk for the TV series Deadwood, during which time he would perform at open-mic nights.

Inspired in part by Mitch Hedberg, Dennis Miller, Sarah Silverman, and Steven Wright, it was two years into his stand-up comedy career when Jeselnik had a "lightbulb moment".

After writing a bizarre joke with a dark twist to it, the audience response encouraged Jeselnik to focus more in that area.

The joke, titled "My Girlfriend Loves to Eat Chocolate", was later featured on Shakespeare.

The place where Jeselnik found his "home" was the Comedy Cellar, where he said that they let him take earlier sets so he could go home early and go to sleep for work the next morning.

The Cellar comedians, known for busting the chops of other comedians, were influential to Jeselnik, and he said that the best at it were Jim Norton, Colin Quinn, Bobby Kelly, and Keith Robinson.

He earned a bachelor's degree in English literature with a business minor from Tulane University in 2001.

During his senior year at Tulane, his girlfriend accidentally burned down his apartment, which he would later use as early stand-up material.

He was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity while at Tulane University.

His original dream was to write the great American novel, but an internship in Los Angeles between his junior and senior years of college convinced him there were other avenues for a writer.

Jeselnik was a writer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in its first season and hosted a Comedy Central Presents in 2009.

Jeselnik's Comedy Central Presents stand-up special premiered in 2009, and he was named one of Comedy Central's breakout comedians of the year alongside Nick Kroll, Aziz Ansari, Whitney Cummings, Donald Glover, Matt Braunger, T. J. Miller, Kumail Nanjiani, and Jon Lajoie.

In 2009, Jeselnik was hired as a writer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

His dream job, predating stand-up or his first comedy class, was to sit around a table and "throw out jokes with people you respected."

After getting the job, Jeselnik's pitches would be continually shot down as they were too dark.

For example, he routinely fought for a single joke regarding obesity each day for a month, and although Fallon liked the joke, he felt uncomfortable performing it as it would likely jeopardize his likability with the obese.

During this period, he was a regular at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, New York City.

Jeselnik would work hard each day for the show and then proceed to go to Comedy Cellar, have a "big stiff drink," and do his act, feeling "miserable."

After releasing his critically acclaimed debut album Shakespeare in 2010, he began writing for the Comedy Central Roasts and moved up to performer in the 2011 roast of Donald Trump.

In March 2010, he approached the show's producers and told them he wanted to leave.

"We understand—you want to go be Anthony Jeselnik," they said.

He continued to perform on the roasts of Charlie Sheen and Roseanne Barr in 2012.

In 2013, he hosted his own Comedy Central series for two seasons, The Jeselnik Offensive, and released his second album, Caligula, which doubles as an hour-long stand-up special.

On July 22, 2015, Jeselnik replaced J. B. Smoove as the new host of NBC's Emmy Award-nominated series Last Comic Standing.

His second stand-up special, Thoughts and Prayers, premiered in October 2015 on Netflix; his third, Fire in the Maternity Ward, premiered on Netflix in April 2019.

Jeselnik starred in the first season of the NFL Media podcast The Rosenthal & Jeselnik Vanity Project (or RJVP) along with best friend Gregg Rosenthal.

The second season debuted in 2018 on the Comedy Central Podcast Network under the slightly different name of The Jeselnik & Rosenthal Vanity Project (or JRVP).

Anthony Jeselnik grew up in Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania.

Jeselnik was interested in making others laugh from an early age.

In elementary school, he would often interrupt the class to tell a joke.

On one occasion, a classmate was moving to a different town that was not generally regarded well, and Jeselnik cracked a sarcastic comment: "Oh, well, send us a postcard."

When the teacher laughed at his joke, he realized: "If you're smart enough that adults get it, you can get away with anything."

He would often stay up attempting to watch Saturday Night Live and, as he grew older, The Ben Stiller Show and Mr. Show.