Greg Proops

Gregory Everett "Greg" Proops (born October 3, 1959)^[1] is an American actor, stand-up comedian and television host. He is widely known for his work as an improvisational comedian on the UK and U.S. versions of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He also performed on Drew Carey's Green Screen Show and played Max Madigan on the Nickelodeon sitcom True Jackson, VP.^[2][3]

Early life

Proops was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in San Carlos, California, a suburb south of San Francisco, attending San Carlos High School.^[4][5] He attended the College of San Mateo and spearheaded the comedy duo "Proops & Brakeman". Later, he took courses in improvisation and acting at San Francisco State University though he never finished college.^[6]

Career

Improv comedy

After college, he joined an improv group with Mike McShane. Both Proops and McShane impressed producers Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson, who put them on their show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He frequently instigated jokes concerning various idiosyncrasies and differences between British English and American English (e.g. "lift" vs. "elevator"), and would frequently banter with Clive Anderson on these matters (among others). He lived in London for four years when he was doing the show and lists McShane, Richard Vranch^[7] and Colin Mochrie as among his best friends. After the show ended, he was recalled for the American version and was a regular "fourth contestant".

Proops performing in a nightclub in November 2008

Proops also appeared in every episode of the short-lived Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, where the performers would play improv games (some of which were taken from the show's main influence Whose Line Is It Anyway?) in front of a massive green screen. Later animators would draw on the background and other props.

In April 2011, a new series Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza premiered on GSN featuring Proops along with others from Whose Line is it Anyway?.

In November 2011, Proops did a week on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas with the Lewis Black Comedy Cruise Tour. He performed the entire week of stand-up with other artists, which included a live, one-hour podcast in front of his entire audience.

In July 2012, Proops also started appearing in the new improvisation show on ABC called Trust Us with Your Life.

Film and television

Proops has performed his stand-up act across Britain, mainland Europe, Australia and New Zealand. However, he remains best known for appearances on both the US and UK versions of Whose Line is it Anyway?. His other credits include hosting Space Cadets, a mid-1990s science-fiction comedy game show on Channel 4 in the UK, which also featured Craig Charles (Dave Lister from Red Dwarf) and Bill Bailey, and appearances on BBC2's Mock the Week. He appeared as a panelist on the 2000 revival of To Tell the Truth. Proops also hosted two game shows: VS. in 1999 and Rendez-View in 2001. He was on Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn on a recurring basis. In 2004 he appeared on Drew Carey's Green Screen Show.^[8] He is also a panelist on Chelsea Lately.

In addition to his stand-up and improv acts, Proops has done voice work in various films and TV shows, including the miniseries Stripperella with Pamela Anderson, and in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas alongside co-star Catherine O'Hara. He also provided the voice for the Fode, the Galactic Basic speaking half of the two-headed Pod-Race announcer in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, with Scott Capurro providing the voice for the other, Huttese-speaking half, Beed.

Proops provided the voice of Bob in the US version of the TV series Bob the Builder for the five seasons of Project Build-It. He has also featured in 2003 film Brother Bear as the voice of one of the Love Bears and also provided the voice as Cryptograf in 2006 film Asterix and the Vikings.

Proops appeared as an extra in the music video for the 1987 song "Into the Night" by Frehley's Comet.

Proops also voiced the film director Quentin Hitchberg in one episode of Dennis and Gnasher.

In 2007 he started his own web show, The Greg Proops Experiment, on online humour site Super Deluxe, which consists of Proops ranting about current events.

In 2008, he was in Cyxork 7.^[9]

On 28 August 2008, Greg returned to his UK improvisation roots as he guest starred on Mock the Week having first appeared as a guest in 2006. He was one of the two guest stars for that week along with Scottish comedian Fred MacAulay.

Proops has a recurring role on Nickelodeon's True Jackson, VP. He plays Max Madigan, Mad Style's CEO.

Proops appeared on "A Good Opportunity", the season premiere of the second season of the HBO sitcom Flight of the Conchords.

Proops has been a frequent guest on Fox News' Red Eye. He has also been featured on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Kevin Pollak's Chat Show, and @midnight. He plays Ben, Illeana Douglas’ agent on her webshow Easy to Assemble.^[10][11]

Proops hosted Head Games, a Science Channel game show which debuted on Oct. 17, 2009. As host, he showed clips of somewhat wacky science experiments and asked the contestants to guess the outcome.

From October 2010 to December 2012, Proops starred in an online TV news show called "Odd News" on Yahoo!.

In 2011, Proops made a cameo in the indie feature comedy Bad Actress, where he played Adidas-wearing personal attorney "Barry."

Proops made a guest appearance on Last Comic Standing along with Kathleen Madigan and Gilbert Gottfried (season 5, episode 12) in 2007.

Proops has been involved with Turner Classic Movies since 2013, appearing on several of the network's podcasts and in person at public events. In 2016, he appeared as a television presenter for TCM, introducing comedy films by the Marx Brothers and Wheeler & Woolsey.

Star Wars

Proops has been involved with the Star Wars franchise as well. He played the role of Fode in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. He would later work with the Expanded Universe, reprising his role as Fode in the video game Star Wars Episode I: Racer and the video game adaptation of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and he guest-starred on two episodes of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars ("The Mandalore Plot" and "Voyage of Temptation") as Tal Merrick. When Proops was in Whose Line Is It Anyway? he occasionally used one of Fode's lines, "I don't care what universe you're from, that's gotta hurt."

Radio/Podcast

Proops in January 2007

Proops hosts a weekly (episodes of the Proopcast come out weekly) radio program, and a nightclub-atmosphere talk show at the Largo, in Hollywood, and played the title role in BBC Radio 4's sci-fi comedy series Seymour the Fractal Cat.

He was a frequent guest on Marc Maron's radio show, The Marc Maron Show.

He is a frequent guest on the Harmontown podcast, notably playing a Dungeons and Dragons character: a unicorn named Tylenol With Codeine.

He presented Bits from Last Week's Radio on BBC Radio 1 from Jan 1995-July 1996.

He was a guest star on comedian Joe Rogan's iTunes podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, as well as comedian Doug Benson's "Doug Loves Movies", and is a frequent guest on his podcast, "Getting Doug with High".

He did voice work for the BBC Radio 2 series Flight of the Conchords, first broadcast in September 2005.

Greg Proops was also part of the cast for Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack and movie back in 1993. His name is listed under "Cast" in the original version of the soundtrack's booklet. He provided the vocal work for the Harlequin Demon, the Devil, and the Sax Player.

Proops currently hosts a podcast, The Smartest Man In The World,^[12] in which he talks about current events, celebrity culture, Satchel Paige and his personal life, usually in front of a live audience.

On Monday, July 14, 2014 and Tuesday, July 15, 2014, Proops was a guest host on The Tim Conway Jr. Show, on KFI AM640, in Los Angeles.

Proops appeared on Ken Reid's TV Guidance Counselor Podcast on May 6, 2015.

Video games

Proops provides voice-over work as Howard "Buckshot" Holmes, a game show announcer along with John DiMaggio for the Nintendo Wii game, MadWorld. DiMaggio and Proops play as comical announcers on a brutal game show set in the future. Proops also provided the voice of Fargus, a pyromantic court jester for the PlayStation Pandemonium game series.

He later provided voice-work in Skylanders: Imaginators where he voiced a Brain that was freed by Kaos in order to help perfect his Doomlanders project.

Comedy albums

• Live (1994)
• Back in the UK (1997)
• Houston, We Have a Problem (2007)
• Joke Book (2007)
• Elsewhere (2009)
• Greg Proops Digs In! (2010)
• In the Ball Park (2015)

Comedy specials

• Greg Proops: Live At Musso & Frank (2013)

The Smartest Book in the World

On May 5, 2015, Proops released nonfiction book The Smartest Book in the World through publisher Touchstone. The book is based in part on Proops's weekly podcast The Smartest Man in the World, detailing the author's movie and poetry recommendations, baseball facts, powerful women, and misconstrued history.

Personal life

Proops is married to the artist Jennifer Canaga. They reside in Los Angeles and London. They have no children.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Greg Proops.

• Official website
• Greg Proops at the Internet Movie Database
• The Smartest Man in the World Podcast
• Greg Proops on The Joe Rogan Experience