Biography
Robert Smigel is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, producer, and puppeteer best known for his Saturday Night Live “TV Funhouse” cartoon segments. He also serves as the voice and puppeteer of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. In addition, he co-wrote Leo and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, the first two Hotel Transylvania movies starring Adam Sandler.
Age
He is 64 years old as of 7 February 2024. He was born in 1960 in New York, New York, United States.
Family – Education
Smigel was born in New York City to aesthetic dentist, inventor, and philanthropist Irwin Smigel and his wife Lucia. Being Jewish, he attended Jewish summer camps on a regular basis. He studied pre-dental at Cornell University and earned a political science degree in 1983 from New York University’s College of Arts and Science. Smigel began honing his comic skills at The Players Workshop in Chicago, where he studied improvisation under Josephine Forsberg. Bob Odenkirk was a fellow student there.
Wife – Children
Smigel has three daughters and a wife, Michelle, who was a lighting technician for the Chicago theater that presented the comic company All You Can Eat and the Temple of Dooom, which he joined.
Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $3 million.
Height
He stands at a height of 6 feet 0 inches (1.83m).
Saturday Night Live
When Lorne Michaels rejoined the writing crew of Saturday Night Live as executive producer for the 1985–1986 season, Smigel made his writing debut. Following their observation of Smigel in a Chicago sketch show, SNL producers Al Franken and Tom Davis hired Smigel. Smigel was one of the few authors who made it through a cast and writer purge that followed the “disappointing” 1985–1986 season. It was at this period that Smigel started penning increasingly memorable sketches, one of which had presenter William Shatner telling adoring guests of a Star Trek conference to “get a life.” Though he was listed as a prominent player in the early 1990s and had a recurring role in Bill Swerski’s Superfans routines, Smigel did not often appear on film.
Following the 1987–1988 season, Smigel and fellow SNL writers Bob Odenkirk and Conan O’Brien wrote for the improvised comedic revue Happy Happy Good Show in Chicago while on a writers’ strike from the show. Following the show’s cancelation, Smigel kept coming up with new animation concepts, which he would debut on Saturday Night Live under the TV Funhouse moniker the following summer. Smigel furthered his career on Saturday Night Live by creating short animated pieces titled TV Funhouse, which typically parodied pop culture and public people.
Career
Lookwell was co-written by Smigel and Conan O’Brien for NBC. The pilot was never made into a series, but it quickly became a fan favorite and was shown live at “The Other Network,” a festival of unaired TV pilots put on by Un-Cabaret with Smigel’s live and recorded intros. Smigel went on to become the first head writer at Late Night with Conan O’Brien. There, he wrote a number of funny episodes, one of which featured Smigel performing only the lips of public figures that were superimposed on photos of the actual people. (This method, Syncro-Vox, was pioneered as a cost-cutting measure on the Clutch Cargo cartoon series.) Smigel wrote and performed on ABC’s short-lived primetime sketch comedy show Dana Carvey Show in 1996. The show gave Smigel the chance to show off his first cartoon, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, even though it ended too soon.
Smigel’s most renowned creation, in any case, would be the obscene manikin Win the Affront Comic Canine, who hardheartedly taunts big names and others in the style of a Borscht Belt jokester. This character made his first appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in February 1997, and he would continue to appear on the show and other shows for a long time after that. In 2000, he voiced a wise bulldog named Mr. In Little Nicky, Beefy. The script for the movie You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, in which Smigel played Yosi, an Israeli electronics salesman, was written by Smigel, Adam Sandler, and Judd Apatow.
Even though Smigel has worked frequently with Sandler, this is his first time serving as one of the film’s executive producers. In 2006, it was said that Adam Sandler and Smigel were working on an animated sitcom called Animals for Fox. There is no official statement regarding the show from Fox. In addition, in the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode titled “Mister Softee,” Smigel portrayed Larry, a gay mailman, and Yari the Mechanic in the Adam Sandler film I Now Pronounce You Chuck.
He voiced Beam and a satire of the Star Wars character, Sovereign Palpatine, in the primary episode of Robot Chicken: Star Battles, as well as the beast 100 in the episode of a similar name of Water Youngster Craving Power. He co-wrote and co-executive produced Hotel Transylvania (2012) and Hotel Transylvania 2 (2015), in which he voiced Marty, a fictitious Dracula, and Harry Three-Eye, respectively. He currently resides in New York. Smigel was given a story credit in the episode “Cop Story” of the fifth season of Louie, an FX show, because he had a similar incident to what appears in the show. The cop was crying in his apartment while Smigel went out and carried the missing gun home, terrified that anyone would notice. However, because Smigel only ever told Louis C.K. about the gun itself, the character played by Michael Rapaport was not based on the man Smigel knew.
In 2015, Smigel co-wrote, executive produced, and starred alongside Jack McBrayer in The Jack and Triumph Show as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Smigel would play Triumph in Triumph’s Election Special 2016 on Hulu in February 2016, it was announced in January 2016. Smigel will executive produce Let’s Be Real, a one-off adaptation of the French satirical series Les Guignols, in September 2020, after being hired to develop the project in 2019. On June 16, 2022, Smigel was captured for unlawful passage of the Longworth House Place of business in Washington, D.C, alongside eight others related with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. CBS put out an announcement saying that “Their meetings at the State house were approved and set up through Legislative helpers of the individuals talked with,” and that “Subsequent to leaving the individuals’ workplaces on their last meeting of the day, the creation group remained to film stand-ups and other last parody components in the lobbies when they were confined by Legislative hall Police.”
In apparent reference to the attack on the United States Capitol in 2021, Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson said that Smigel was involved in “insurrection” and that it was “exactly like what happened.” In his monologue, Stephen Colbert discussed the incident, claiming that Smigel had committed “First-Degree Puppetry” and that “Drawing any equivalence between rioters storming our Capitol to prevent the counting of electoral ballots and a cigar-chomping toy dog is a shameful and grotesque insult to the memory of everyone who died.” Colbert also stated that Smigel had committed “First-Degree Puppetry.” “This is an active criminal investigation, and may result in additional criminal charges after consultation with the U.S.,” the United States Capitol Police said in a statement. Attorney.” It was announced on July 19 that no charges would be brought.
Movies
♦ 2024 – Between the Temples
♦ 2023 – Leo
♦ 2022 – Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm
♦ 2020 – The King of Staten Island
♦ 2019 – Marriage Story
♦ 2018 – The Week Of
♦ 2017 – Too Funny to Fail
♦ 2016 – The Do-Over
♦ 2015 – Pixels
♦ 2015 – Hotel Transylvania 2
♦ 2012 – Hotel Transylvania
♦ 2012 – This Is 40
♦ 2011 – Jack and Jill
♦ 2008 – You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
♦ 2007 – I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
♦ 2002 – Punch-Drunk Love
♦ 2000 – Little Nicky
TV Shows
♦ 2023 – White House Plumbers
♦ 2023 – What We Do in the Shadows
♦ 2021 – Let’s Be Real
♦ 2019 – The Masked Singer
♦ 2018 – New Girl
♦ 2016 – Triumph’s Election Special 2016
♦ 2016 – Portlandia
♦ 2016 – Triumph’s Summer Election Special 2016
♦ 2016 – Triumph’s Election Watch 2016
♦ 2015 – The Jack and Triumph Show
♦ 2015 – Louie
