H. Jon Benjamin

Benjamin was born on May 23, 1966, to a Jewish family[3] in Worcester, Massachusetts and graduated from Worcester Academy in 1984 and Connecticut College in 1988.[4]

Although his first name was thought to be "Henry", Benjamin himself said that it was not and that he would not reveal what it actually stands for.[5] However, in his comedic autobiography Failure is an Option: An Attempted Memoir, he writes that his first name is "Harry".[6] He chooses to go by "Jon" and the addition of the "H" in credits was not his idea; it was allegedly initially added by Laura Silverman, Benjamin's Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist co-star, "just to make fun of me."[5]

Benjamin's comedy career began in Boston, where he was in a comedy duo with Sam Seder, then a member of Cross Comedy, a comedy team led by David Cross. For the first seven years of his career, Benjamin almost exclusively worked in groups rather than independently. Afterwards, his independent work remained more experimental, rejecting traditional styles of stand-up comedy.

Benjamin's live projects include the Midnight Pajama Jam, a show performed in New York City with Jon Glaser and Tinkle, a show combining stand-up comedy and live music, co-hosted by Todd Barry and David Cross. A Midnight Pajama Jam DVD is currently in production. Benjamin and Cross appear together on the album Invite Them Up.

He was the guest on Space Ghost Coast to Coast in its eighty-first episode, "King Dead" on December 17, 1999 where Zorak and Moltar kidnapped him. He has appeared in the television show Cheap Seats, on ESPN Classic, as "Gene Stapleton" and "Rabbi Marc Shalowitz". He co-starred in Todd Barry's short film Borrowing Saffron and portrayed a talking can of vegetables with a shameful habit of autofellatio in the film Wet Hot American Summer. He made short cameos in Not Another Teen Movie as the football trainer, and on the FX Network comedy-drama Rescue Me as the pimp "F-bomb" in season two. He can be seen in Turbocharge-the Unauthorized Story of the Cars, a comedy biopic about '80s rock band The Cars, playing the role of Cars' manager Elliot Roberts in his usual deadpan comedic delivery.[7]

Benjamin has done extensive voice work in animated TV shows. His credits include starring roles in several Soup2Nuts cartoon shows, such as Science Court; Home Movies; O'Grady; Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist; and Assy McGee. He co-created Freak Show with David Cross. Benjamin starred as the Devil and multiple other roles in Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil, which ran for one season on Adult Swim beginning September 9, 2007. Benjamin plays a recurring character on the PBS Kids series WordGirl and is the announcer for The Sam Seder Show and The Majority Report. He did the voice of "Shelly", Sam Seder's accountant, on Breakroom Live with Maron & Seder.

Benjamin has made guest appearances in several animated shows. He was in the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episodes "Bus of the Undead" and "The Last One" as Mothmonsterman, in "Broodwich" as Mr. Sticks, in "Bible Fruit" as Mortimer Mango and played the live-action role of Master Shake in "Last Last One Forever and Ever", credited as Capt. Turd Mahoy. He made a cameo appearance as a government agent in the film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters alongside frequent collaborator Jon Glaser. He has appeared in Family Guy as Carl, a movie trivia obsessed convenience store clerk who portrayed Yoda in the Star Wars parody episode "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side".

Other appearances include The Venture Bros., in the episodes "Escape to the House of Mummies Part II," "I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills" and "The Better Man," in which he played Dr. Orpheus's master—who appears in the form of Cerberus, Catherine the Great's horse and, in "The Better Man", both Dr. Orpheus's ex-wife and a future Dean Venture, respectively. He appeared in the Stella short "Bar", which can be found as an easter egg on the Season 1 DVD. Benjamin appeared on the Comedy Central sketch/variety show Important Things with Demetri Martin.

In 2009, Benjamin and David Cross created and wrote for Paid Programming, a live-action pilot for Cartoon Network's late night programing block, Adult Swim. Paid Programming was not picked up for a full series and Benjamin referred to it as an "abject failure".[8]

Benjamin was featured in a Super Bowl XLIII Bud Light commercial with Conan O'Brien[9] and was responsible for the McCain Girls[10] videos on YouTube.[11] He voices Sterling Archer, a secret agent in the FX series Archer that first aired January 14, 2010.[12] He has appeared in several segments of the television show Human Giant and had a cameo in the American Dad! episode "License to Till" as a talking head of cabbage.

Benjamin starred in the Comedy Central series Jon Benjamin Has a Van, which he co-created with comedian Leo Allen.[13] The series debuted on May 14, 2011; a total of 10 episodes aired, the last on August 10, 2011.

Beginning in 2013, Benjamin's voice can be heard as the narrator of a series of TV commercials for Coke Zero, including some with tie-ins to ESPN's College Game Day program.

In 2014, Benjamin was named as the year's best male comedy performer for his work on Bob's Burgers and Archer by the Vulture TV Awards, a digital expansion of New York magazine.[14]

In 2015, despite not knowing how to play any instrument, Benjamin released his first jazz album, Well, I Should Have....[15] Benjamin "played" piano and was joined by Scott Kreitzer on sax, David Finck on bass and Jonathan Preitz on drums.[16]

Benjamin wrote the comedic autobiography Failure is an Option: An Attempted Memoir, which was published by Penguin Random House in May 2018.[6] He narrated the audiobook.[17]

Benjamin began appearing in commercials for Arby's restaurant chain in 2018 as their new spokesman promoting their variety of meats "for sandwiches".[18]

On January 22, 2020, Benjamin endorsed Bernie Sanders for president and narrated a series of videos on Sanders's health care proposals.[19]

In March 2020, Benjamin was the voice of Saddam Hussein in Blowback, a podcast of the Iraq War created and hosted by Brendan James and Noah Kulwin.[20]

In September 2020, Benjamin narrated the launch video for the Gravel Institute.[21]

Notes

Wikimedia Commons has media related to H. Jon Benjamin.

• H. Jon Benjamin at IMDb