Jimmy Dore

James Patrick Anthony Dore (born July 26, 1965) is an American stand-up comedian, political commentator, conspiracy theorist, podcaster and YouTube personality.

He is the host of The Jimmy Dore Show, a comedic political talk show on YouTube.

Dore was born in southwest Chicago, Illinois, on July 26, 1965, into a Catholic family of Polish and Irish descent.

He was raised in the blue-collar neighborhood of Vittum Park.

Dore has 11 siblings and is the youngest of seven boys.

Due to his large family, Dore grew accustomed to playing to an audience early in life, and he used comedy to avoid beatings from his older brothers.

Dore's father was a policeman who owned a brickwork business.

Dore has described his father as being a Reagan Democrat, and in Dore's senior year of high school, he argued with his father against Ronald Reagan's presidency.

For 12 years, he attended Catholic schools, followed by Illinois State University, dropping out after three years and gaining employment as a forklift driver.

He later graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a degree in marketing communications.

Dore started as a comedian in Illinois in 1989 and made several appearances on late night talk shows early in his comedy career.

Dore started performing stand-up comedy in Chicago in 1989.

In 1995 he moved to Los Angeles, where his first big break was an appearance on Comedy Central's Make Me Laugh.

He has said he began pursuing his career after watching many late-night talk shows and thinking he could do better than them.

The stand-up comedians that influenced Dore include George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Hicks.

Dore has made appearances as a stand-up comic on late-night television shows such as ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live!, CBS's The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, and NBC's Late Friday.

He was the lead performer in a Comedy Central Presents half-hour special on April 9, 2004.

He was also a writer-performer for the off-Broadway show The Marijuana-Logues, which ran at the Actor's Playhouse in New York City.

Dore has performed at the Tropicana Comedy Stop in Las Vegas, the Palms' Playboy Comedy Club, Catch a Rising Star in Reno, and Harrah's on the Las Vegas Strip.

He has performed at several comedy festivals, including Just for Laughs in Montreal, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and the Amsterdam Comedy Festival, and has also performed for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

From 2005 onward, his performances increasingly included political commentary.

Starting in 2005, Dore moved away from a standard stand-up set to a 50-minute show, which he would later take on tour.

Dore launched the new show, Citizen Jimmy, at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB Theatre) in Hollywood.

Dore's new act incorporated video clips of politicians, journalists, TV personalities and entertainers, and he expressed surprise that no one else was doing it.

Dore's comedy style was described in 2006 by The Central New Jersey Home News Tribune as incendiary and "based on what makes most in the States angry and uncomfortable."

An article in the Chicago Tribune compared Dore's stand-up, where he "riffs off the faux pas and flubs of famous folks", to Jon Stewart's The Daily Show.

In May 2008, Dore launched the podcast Comedy and Everything Else.

In August 2008, Comedy Central aired Dore's hour-long special Citizen Jimmy, based on his UCB show of the same name.

The special was chosen "Best of 2008" by iTunes, and its accompanying DVD was cited as one of the five best comedy DVDs of the year by Punchline Magazine.

That year, Dore also appeared in the documentary film Super High Me.

Dore hosted a monthly show, Left, Right & Ridiculous, at the UCB Theatre.

Dore was affiliated with The Young Turks from 2009 to 2019 and appeared on a Young Turks Network show titled Aggressive Progressives.

The show was co-hosted by Todd Glass, who departed from the show in late 2009, and then by Dore's wife Stefane Zamorano.

Comedians who were guests on the podcast included Jim Gaffigan, David Spade, Maria Bamford and Kyle Cease.

In June 2009, Dore began producing The Jimmy Dore Show, a weekly one-hour comedic look at the news, which originated at KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles and aired nationally on the Pacifica Radio Network, ending in 2021.

From 2010 to 2021 The Jimmy Dore Show was broadcast on public radio station KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles, California.

From 2021 onward, The Jimmy Dore Show became entirely independent and streams live, as well as posts, via YouTube regularly.

Dore has gained a reputation for presenting a positive perspective on established conspiracy theories, such as the assertion that the Syrian government was not responsible for chemical weapons attacks on Syrian civilians in Khan Shaykhun.

His first book, Your Country Is Just Not That Into You, was published in 2014.

Another comedy special, Sentenced to Live, was released on October 6, 2015.