Pete Holmes

Peter Benedict Holmes (born March 30, 1979) is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and podcaster.

Musings on spirituality and religion are frequent themes in his works.

Peter Benedict Holmes was born in Boston on March 30, 1979, the son of a Lithuanian refugee mother and an American father of Irish descent.

He has a brother who composes music under the name Dr. Holmes.

He grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he graduated from Lexington High School.

In the mid-2000s, he was making club appearances and took part in Comedy Central's Premium Blend, as a regular panelist on VH1's Best Week Ever, and on VH1's All Access.

He began working as a touring comic, including on the Christian comedy circuit.

Holmes attended Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, where he graduated with a degree in English and Communications in 2001.

During this time, he played in a punk rock band and participated in an improvisational comedy troupe called The Sweaty-Toothed Madmen.

Partly at the behest of his mother, he had plans to become a youth pastor.

This gave way to public speaking, and his love for comedy won over his need to preach; he now refers to himself as "Christ-leaning" or jokingly a "hooraytheist".

Finding little success as a comedian in his home state, he lived in Sleepy Hollow, New York, before moving to Chicago and then Los Angeles.

Holmes career began in the New York City comedy scene.

Since 2006, his cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker.

Holmes also created and appeared in a Super Bowl XLIII ad for Doritos in 2009 featuring a fictional new flavor of the product, beer, in which each chip contains as much alcohol as a 16 o.z. can of beer.

Holmes gained recognition in the early 2010s as a stand-up comic, during which he launched his podcast You Made It Weird (2011–present), released his first comedy special, and worked as an actor and television writer.

In 2010, he performed on John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show as well as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

On February 26, 2010, he performed his first television special on the series Comedy Central Presents.

During the decade, he released five comedy specials: Impregnated with Wonder (2011), Nice Try, The Devil (2013), Faces and Sounds (2016), Dirty Clean (2018), and I Am Not For Everyone (2023).

On March 21, 2011, and on November 17, 2011, he appeared on the TBS talk show Conan.

Holmes released his first album, Impregnated With Wonder, on iTunes on November 15, 2011.

In 2011, Holmes launched his long-form comedy podcast You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes.

It has featured guests such as Garry Shandling, Judd Apatow, Aziz Ansari, John Mulaney, Ben Schwartz, and Dana Carvey.

Topics typically discussed in each episode are the guests' views on comedy, sexuality, and religion.

Holmes has provided the voices for several of the characters on Comedy Central's cartoon Ugly Americans.

He was the voice of the E-Trade baby on several television commercials and was credited as a writer for those commercials.

He wrote for the NBC primetime sitcom Outsourced and for the Fox sitcom I Hate My Teenage Daughter prior to its cancellation in May 2012.

Holmes has created a comedic portrayal of Batman in CollegeHumor's internet series Badman.

He ran a YouTube channel which was focused around skits alongside Matthew McCarthy called frontpagefilms.

On August 21 and 23 in 2012, Holmes recorded three episodes of a talk show pilot for TBS, produced by Conan O'Brien, entitled The Midnight Show with Pete Holmes.

Holmes's guests on the unaired pilots included Nick Offerman, Joel McHale, T. J. Miller, and Bill Burr.

Subsequently, he began his own late-night talk show The Pete Holmes Show (2013–2014), which ran on TBS for two seasons in the time-slot after Conan, a frequent champion of his work.

In 2013, he released his second album, Nice Try, The Devil.

On February 26, 2013, TBS picked up the show and began airing in late 2013.

By July 10, 2013, the name of the show was The Pete Holmes Show.

The series premiered on October 28, after Conan.

The show was picked up for a second season by TBS.

On December 9, 2013, Gabe Liedman performed the show's first stand-up routine.

Holmes is most widely known for creating and starring in the semi-autobiographical scripted comedy series Crashing, which aired on HBO for three seasons (2017–2019).

He has also worked as a voice actor and most recently starred in the 2022 CBS sitcom How We Roll.