Dave Attell

Dave Attell (born January 18, 1965) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and writer, best known as the host of Comedy Central's Insomniac with Dave Attell which gave him a cult following. Born in Queens, New York; he grew up in Rockville Centre, New York with his cousins the Small family and now lives in New York City. Patton Oswalt and Bill Burr have hailed him as the greatest off-color comedian alive.

Stand-Up Career
After graduating from New York University in 1987 with a degree in communication, Attell worked menial jobs during the day and put in his time at comedy clubs at night. He worked his first gig at Governor's in Levittown and according to Attell, "Totally Bombed".

Attell's first appearance on television was in 1988on VH1's Stand-Up Spotlight which also featured early appearance of Lewis Black, Margaret Cho, Jeff Garlin, Jay Mohr and Wanda Sykes. The show was hosted by Rosie O'Donnell.

Perhaps his biggest break was achieved on November 23, 1993 when he made his first appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman. The appearance was seen of Saturday Night Live (SNL) creator Lorne Michaels, who then recruited Attell to be a writer an occasional performer on SNL. Attell can be seen behind Chris Farley during the famous "Rudy Giuliani Inauguration" sketch. Attell worked on the show for the 1993-94 season.

In 1995, Attell was featured on two HBO specials: alongside up-and-comers Lewis C.K. Anthony Clark, Eric Tunney and Dave Chappelle. He was a featured performer on the 1995 Young Comedians Special hosted by Garry Shandling. He was given his own 60-minute special on the channel's HBO Comedy Showcase. Subsequently, Attell was also given an episode of HBO Comedy Half-Hour in 1997. He is widely regarded as the ultimate "comedian's comedian" an a pioneer in the genre of blue comedy and black humor. Attell's first one-hour special, Captain Miserable and December 8, 2007 on HBO. His latest special Road Work aired in 2014 on Comedy Central. He was labelled as one of the most brilliant comedians with phenomenal joke-writing prowess. Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K. have hailed him as one of the most prolific geniuses of stand-up comedy. Colin Quinn described him as the Fellini of stand-up. On the 39th episode of the Comedy Central podcast, the owner of the Comedy Cellar Noam Dworman referred to him as the greatest comedian after Richard Pryor and George Carlin. He performs regularly at the Comedy Cellar which boasts the likes of comedians such as Louis C.K. Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle as some of its regular performers.

Television
In 1995, Attell appeared as Squiggly Dave on ''Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. In 1999, the network issued Attell in the Comedy Central Presents series.

The same year the network signed him on a regular commentator on their satirical news show The Daily Show. When he arrived in 1999, the show was just finding its audience after the departure of host Craig Kilborn and the arrival of John Stewart, an old friend of Attell's from the New York Comedy Circuit. The three- year stint gave Attell access to a mass audience on a regular basis (The Daily Show has done much the same for comedians Stephen Colbert, Steve Carrell, Lewis Black and others) Attell's series of commentary on the show was called The Ugly American. He appeared in the finale for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In 2003, Attell began appearing semi-regular on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn. The show featured many of the performers he works with every day at the underground comedy club the Comedy Cellar and is based on the conversations they would have offstage at the Olive Tree Café, the restaurant above the club. The unscripted show was cancelled in November 2004.

In 2007, Attell appeared in the Michael Addis film Heckler. Attell also appeared on Comedy Central's Last Laugh in 2007.

In July 2008, Attell began hosting The Gong Show with Dave Attell for Comedy Central. Like the 1970s version, the show had a rotating panel of celebrity judges grading usual acts.

Other notable television roles:

"Dave" in a couple of early episode of Everybody Loves Raymond

The voice of "Franke Demore" on Crank Yankers

Brad Campbell in Ed

Himself on Arrested Development

In January 2010, he cohosted the AVN Awards show, along with porn actress Kristen Price and Kayden Kross and again in 2012 with Sunny Leone and Bress Olson.

In May 2008, Attell announced a casting call on his Myspace page for Comedy Central's relaunch of The Gong Show. Attell was the host along with Greg Fitzsimmons serving as head writer on the series. However, The Gong Show with Dave Attell aired only from July to September 2008.

Attell returned to television on Showtime beginning October 20, 2011 in Dave's Old Porn, a TV series in which Attell views and jokes about retro 1970s and 1980s pornographic movies with different guest comedians. Typically, during a given show, Attell and his guest view clips that give an overview of a particular retro porn star's career. Near the end of that show, that particular porn actor appears and also comments on clips from some of his or her movies.

Insomniac with Dave Attell
Insomniac with Dave Attell was a television series described by Attell as Wild on E! for ugly people, it featured Attell walking the streets of America's cities late at night, meeting the people in a haze of ecstatic inebriation. The show occasionally went overseas.

The American cities featured on the show were: Albuquerque, Anchorage, Atlanta, Austin (2 times), Baltimore, Boise, Boston, Charleston (WV), Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Honolulu, Houston, Kansas City, Key West, Las Vegas, Little Rock, Long Island, Memphis, Miami, Myrtle Beach, Nashville, New Orleans, New York City (4 times) Oakland, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Reno, San Francisco and Salt Lake City.

The foreign cities featured on the show were: Amsterdam, Dublin, London, Montreal, Tijuana, Toronto and specials that took place in Berlin, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.

The most common activity (besides roaming the streets aimlessly and visiting bars) was visiting workers on their night shifts. Instead of spending time with gas station attendants, he went searching for odd professions to highlight. Among them were crime-scene cleaners, bail bondsmen, cow-milkers, bicycle cops, coal miners and porn overdubbers. Memorable episodes include a visit to Chicago's world-famous The Weiners Circle, where the staff routinely got in cursing matches with their customers, and a visit to a Phoenix nudist camp.

Throughout the run of the show, Attell carried around a one-time-use film camera and took pictures of random events, which would be shown during the end-credits.

Comedy Underground with Dave Attell
In April 2014, Comedy Central premiered Comedy Underground with Dave Attell a late night (mostly) uncensored stand-up comedy show taped live in New York.

The series has featured fellow comics Jeff Ross, Amy Schumer, Jermaine Fowler, Ari Shaffir, Judah Friedlander, Brad Williams, Jay Oakerson, Nikki Glaser, Kurt Metzger, Ali Wong, Louis Katz, Junior Stopkia, Luenelle, Russ Meneve, April Macie, Ralphie May, Al Jackson, Jimmy Shubert, Tom Rhodes, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and Artie Lange.

Film
Attell played the role of "Don" in Los Enchilladas!, a film written, produced and directed by comedian Mitch Hedberg, starring Hedberg as well as fellow comedians Todd Barry and Marc Maron.

In the shot film The Office Party, Attell once again played the role of "Don". The film co-starred ex-karate kid outsider Ralph Macchio, Jon Stewart, Carol Kane and Tate Donovan. The film was written and directed by Daily Show producer Chiara Edmands.

Pootie Tang saw Attell as the bumbling corporate lackey "Frank". The film was written and directed by his friend Louis C.K. it co-starred Lance Crouther, Wanda Sykes and Chris Rock among others.

Attell also played "Efram the Driver" in the independent feature My Suicidal Sweetheart written and directed by filmmaking newcomer Michael Parness. The film co-starred Natasha Lyonne, David Krumholtz, Tim Blake Nelson, Lorraine Bracco, David Paymer and Rosanna Arquette.

Attell had cameo appearances in the films Abby Singer and Scary Movie 4.

He played the character Barker in the 2008 comedy film Harold.

Attell had a cameo appearance in the Judd Apatow film Funny People which starred Adam Sandler (an old friend of Attell's from his New York University days).

He voice GPS on the Mystery Machine in the 2010 film Scooby-Doo Abracadabra-Doo.

He appeared in Trainwreck as the main character Amy's homeless friend "Noam".

Video Games
Attell provided humorous in-game commentary for the 2005 PlayStation 2 and Xbox game Outlaw Golf 2.

Show Hosted
The Gong Show with Dave Attell (2008)

Link
Official Website