The Comic's Comic Presents Last Things First

Best known for his work on Ren & Stimpy , Billy West has been making magic with his character voice work since the 1980s, starting on the radio in Boston and graduating to the Howard Stern Show. He has voiced the title characters on the Nickelodeon series Doug , as well as Ren & Stimpy , was Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd for the movie Space Jam , is the red M&M in TV commercials, portrayed Philip J. F...

Heather Anne Campbell is one of America's great improvisers. She has studied under the legendary Del Close in Chicago, performed overseas with Boom Chicago in Amsterdam, appeared on MADtv , written for Saturday Night Live , and helped jumpstart FOX's ADHD Animation Domination High-Definition. In Los Angeles, you've seen her or taken classes from her everywhere you possibly could, from the UCB Thea...

Chaz Miller, Cameron Miller, and Amanuel Richards are one half of the sketch comedy group Dormtainment, who formed in Atlanta in 2009. They went straight from college to YouTube, and over the next eight years, amassed one million YouTube subscribers, a Comedy Central web series called Six Guys One Car , two albums on the Billboard comedy charts, and a live show that's a hit on college campuses. Th...

Jimmy Shubert was just a kid from Philly who wanted to be a magician. That's how he started in show business, before moving to Los Angeles in the 1980s and taking a job at The Comedy Store, where he became the kid in Sam Kinison's outlaws of comedy crew. That led to development deals and pilots early on in his career. Over the years, you've seen him in recurring roles on King of Queens and Entoura...

Dave Smith is a native New Yorker and key member of the emerging new platform, GaS Digital Network. You've likely heard Dave as one-third of the Legion of Skanks alongside Big Jay Oakerson and Luis J Gomez, or as host of the podcast Part of the Problem, which combined receive hundreds of thousands of downloads each week. You also can see Dave featured regularly as a comedic political analyst on FO...

Scot Armstrong grew up outside of Chicago and first studied comedy under the legendary Del Close, before moving to New York City and joining the Upright Citizens Brigade improv troupe Mother, whose members included Jason Mantzoukas, Jon Daly and Jessica St. Clair. He has since worked with St. Clair as an executive producer on both of her TV series, Best Friends Forever and Playing House. But you'v...

Ryan Hamilton grew up in a small town in Idaho and studied broadcasting before turning to comedy. Hamilton calls several comedy scenes home, and that perhaps allowed him to emerge nationally in the mid-2000s in Sierra Mist's America's Next Great Comic Search. He's also won the Great American Comedy Festival contest, and performed multiple times at Montreal's Just For Laughs festival, where I caugh...

Lynne Koplitz caught her first wave of success hosting or co-hosting TV shows the likes of Change of Heart , How to Boil Water , and Life and Style . The stylish comedian became friends with the late great Joan Rivers while paired up in the IFC comedy Z Rock , and later became a recurring character on Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best . Koplitz more recently was seen on the big screen in Chris Rock'...

Janicza Bravo has made several short films that debuted at premier festivals such as Sundance and SXSW, and also directed an episode of the hit FX series, Atlanta . Bravo's first feature film,  Lemon , features her husband, Brett Gelman, as an actor and acting coach who turns 40 and realizes nothing in his life is where it's supposed to be. In real life, you've seen Gelman shine in everything from...

Natalie Morales is an actress best known for her supporting roles in sitcoms that have included Parks and Recreation, Trophy Wife, Girls , and The Grinder . She's also done drama with White Collar , and action-adventure with The Middleman . She directed a webseries for Funny or Die about James Joyce's Love Letters, and you can currently see her on the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet . Later in 2...

Nate Bargatze is Jimmy Fallon's favorite stand-up comedian, and Bargatze has the Tonight Show credits to back that up. Nate also has gone on tour with Fallon, multiple tours to entertain the troops in Iraq and Kuwait, and has two hit comedy albums to boot: Yelled At By A Clown and Full Time Magic. Those are references to his father, who was a clown and now is a magician. Bargatze released his firs...

Judd Apatow has one of the most impressive comedy resumes of anyone, anywhere. His Apatow Productions has produced and developed the television series Freaks and Geeks , Undeclared , Girls , Love and Crashing , he has directed the hit movies The 40-Year-Old Virgin , Knocked Up , Funny People , This Is 40 and Trainwreck , and produced another dozen smash comedies on film since the late 1990s. Befor...

Dylan Brody started his stand-up career in New York City while still a teenager in the early 1980s, performing on multiple TV showcases, writing monologue jokes for Jay Leno when Leno was still just guest-hosting The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson , and he has performed around the world. In more recent years, you may have seen him on The Green Room with Paul Provenza , opening for fellow humorist...

Kristin Hensley and Jen Smedley had mutual friends growing up in Nebraska, but didn't meet each other until they were both aspiring comedic actresses in Los Angeles. Hensley has appeared in shows such as Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Smedley has appeared in several TV commercials. But together, they've built up a fan base of more than a million Facebook followers for their video...

Erik Griffin is recognizable to fans of Comedy Central's Workaholics as Montez, but he's also a veteran stand-up comedian who's playing a stand-up comedian and a Vietnam veteran in the Showtime series about comedy in the 1970s, I'm Dying Up Here . I sat down with Griffin in LA's iconic Canter's Deli to talk about his career path, what it's like to fictionalize stand-up comedy for TV, and the makin...

Tom Rhodes has been obsessed with stand-up comedy since he was 12. As a teenager in Florida in the 1980s, he performed with fake IDs to get into the comedy clubs and won a contest that allowed him to perform at 19 at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. After stops in New York City and San Francisco, Rhodes became the first comedian signed to a deal with Comedy Central, and starred in his own NBC sitcom...

Haley Joel Osment was just a kid when he made his movie debut in Forrest Gump, racked up TV appearances as Jeff Foxworthy's sitcom son and the Murphy Brown baby growing up, and earned his first Oscar nomination at the tender age of 11 for seeing dead people in The Sixth Sense. He's also worked with Stephen Spielberg, starring in A.I., and paid it forward in Pay It Forward. After graduating from NY...

Chris Hardwick is probably hosting a TV show or podcast as you listen to me introduce him here. Four nights a week, Hardwick hosts the comedy game show @midnight on Comedy Central. Sunday nights you can watch him Talking with Walking Dead cast members and everyone else on AMC. He also hosts a primetime game show for NBC, The Wall. Hardwick currently serves as founder, CEO, and creative head of Ner...

A comedian, actor and writer, Jim Jefferies has established himself as one of the most respected comics of his generation with a controversial and belief-challenging stand-up style that continues to surprise and entertain audiences around the globe. He recently wrapped an international stand-up tour, "The Unusual Punishment Tour," to rave reviews which came on the heels of releasing his second Net...

Tom Shlllue can be seen on FOX News, where he hosted the late late-night comedy panel show, Red Eye, and still appears regularly in other hours, offering his homespun comedic values to the day's news. Shillue has been featured on Comedy Central's Broad City, and he can be seen and heard from time to time on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon as a member of Fallon's celebrity barbershop quartet...

Mark Lonow is an actor, producer and talent manager, but he's perhaps best known for something else he did offstage -- going into business with Budd Friedman to save the Hollywood Improv and help oversee its expansion as the first major comedy club chain. But there's a lot more to Lonow's story, from his job as a teenager at the legendary Pip's in Brooklyn, to the improv/sketch trio he performed i...

Lavell Crawford is best known for his portrayal of Huell, the bodyguard for Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad and now Better Call Saul. Originally from St. Louis, Crawford rose up the comedy ranks from Showtime at the Apollo to Comicview to Def Comedy Jam to runner-up on season five of Last Comic Standing. He since has been seen multiple times as a panelist on Chelsea Lately and The Nightly Show with L...

Scout Durwood grew up in the Kansas outskirts of Kansas City with dreams of becoming the next Julia Roberts. Instead, after first playing soccer and then becoming a cabaret singer, Scout's first major screen credit came in the MTV reality dating stunt, A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. Durwood shook that off to remain entrenched in New York City's cabaret and burlesque scenes as a funny singer, ta...

Norm Macdonald is Canada's most-famous play-by-play golf commentator on Twitter. Of course, you know and love Norm Macdonald even more for his years anchoring Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live in the mid-1990s, followed by The Norm Show on ABC. He's also much beloved by David Letterman and many other comedians for the way he breaks down jokes to their humorous essence, whether it was his memor...

Aunty Donna is an Australian sketch comedy group that includes no aunts and no Donnas, but instead one Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly and Zachary Ruane. They burst onto the comedy scene Down Under with their first show in 2012 at Melbourne's comedy and fringe festivals. They produced a new show each year since, taking three of them to the other side of the globe at the Edinburgh Fringe, and the...