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A joke^[1] is something spoken, written, or done with humorous intention. Jokes may have many different forms, e.g., a single word or a gesture (considered in a particular context), a question-answer, or a whole short story. The word "joke" has a number of synonyms, including wisecrack, gag, prank, quip and jest.^[2]

To achieve their end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punch line, i.e. an ending to make it humorous.

A practical joke or prank differs from a spoken joke in that the major component of the humour is physical rather than verbal (for example placing salt in the sugar bowl).

Purpose[link]

Jokes are typically for the entertainment of friends and onlookers. The desired response is generally laughter; when this does not happen the joke is said to have "fallen flat" or "bombed". However, jokes have other purposes and functions, common to comedy/humour/satire in general.

Antiquity of jokes[link]

Jokes have been a part of human culture since at least 1900 BC. According to research conducted by Dr Paul McDonald of the University of Wolverhampton, a fart joke from ancient Sumer is currently believed to be the world's oldest known joke.^[3] Britain's oldest joke, meanwhile, is a 1,000-year-old double-entendre that can be found in the Codex Exoniensis.^[4]

A recent discovery of a document called Philogelos (The Laughter Lover) gives us an insight into ancient humour. Written in Greek by Hierocles and Philagrius, it dates to the third or fourth century AD, and contains some 260 jokes. Considering humour from our own culture as recent as the 19th century is at times baffling to us today, the humour is surprisingly familiar. They had different stereotypes: the absent-minded professor, the eunuch, and people with hernias or bad breath were favourites. A lot of the jokes play on the idea of knowing who characters are:

A barber, a bald man and an absent minded professor take a journey together. They have to camp overnight, so decide to take turns watching the luggage. When it's the barber's turn, he gets bored, so amuses himself by shaving the head of the professor. When the professor is woken up for his shift, he feels his head, and says "How stupid is that barber? He's woken up the bald man instead of me."

There is even a joke similar to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch: a man buys a slave, who dies shortly afterwards. When he complains to the slave merchant, he is told: "He didn't die when I owned him." Comic Jim Bowen has presented them to a modern audience. "One or two of them are jokes I've seen in people's acts nowadays, slightly updated. They put in a motor car instead of a chariot - some of them are Tommy Cooper-esque."^[5]

Psychology of jokes[link]

Why people laugh at jokes has been the subject of serious academic study, examples being:

• Immanuel Kant, in Critique of Judgement (1790) states that "Laughter is an effect that arises if a tense expectation is transformed into nothing." Here is Kant's 220-year old joke and his analysis:

An Englishman at an Indian's table in Surat saw a bottle of ale being opened, and all the beer, turned to froth, rushed out. The Indian, by repeated exclamations, showed his great amazement. - Well, what's so amazing in that? asked the Englishman. - Oh, but I'm not amazed at its coming out, replied the Indian, but how you managed to get it all in. - This makes us laugh, and it gives us a hearty pleasure. This is not because, say, we think we are smarter than this ignorant man, nor are we laughing at anything else here that it is our liking and that we noticed through our understanding. It is rather that we had a tense expectation that suddenly vanished...

• Henri Bergson, in his book Le rire (Laughter, 1901), suggests that laughter evolved to make social life possible for human beings.
• Sigmund Freud's "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious". (Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten).
• Arthur Koestler, in The Act of Creation (1964), analyses humour and compares it to other creative activities, such as literature and science.
• Marvin Minsky in Society of Mind (1986).

Marvin Minsky suggests that laughter has a specific function related to the human brain. In his opinion jokes and laughter are mechanisms for the brain to learn nonsense. For that reason, he argues, jokes are usually not as funny when you hear them repeatedly.

• Edward de Bono in "The Mechanism of the Mind" (1969) and "I am Right, You are Wrong" (1990).

Edward de Bono suggests that the mind is a pattern-matching machine, and that it works by recognising stories and behaviour and putting them into familiar patterns. When a familiar connection is disrupted and an alternative unexpected new link is made in the brain via a different route than expected, then laughter occurs as the new connection is made. This theory explains a lot about jokes. For example:

• Why jokes are only funny the first time they are told: once they are told the pattern is already there, so there can be no new connections, and so no laughter.
• Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive set up: The repetition establishes the familiar pattern in the brain. A common method used in jokes is to tell almost the same story twice and then deliver the punch line the third time the story is told. The first two tellings of the story evoke a familiar pattern in the brain, thus priming the brain for the punch line.
• Why jokes often rely on stereotypes: the use of a stereotype links to familiar expected behaviour, thus saving time in the set-up.
• Why jokes are variants on well-known stories (e.g. the genie and a lamp and a man walks into a bar): This again saves time in the set up and establishes a familiar pattern.

• In 2002, Richard Wiseman conducted a study intended to discover the world's funniest joke [1].

Laughter, the intended human reaction to jokes, is healthy in moderation, uses the stomach muscles, and releases endorphins, natural "feel good" chemicals, into the brain.

Jokes in organizations[link]

Jokes can be employed by workers as a way to identify with their jobs. For example, 9-1-1 operators often crack jokes about incongruous, threatening, or tragic situations they deal with on a daily basis.^[6] This use of humour and cracking jokes helps employees differentiate themselves from the people they serve while also assisting them in identifying with their jobs.^[7] In addition to employees, managers use joking, or jocularity, in strategic ways. Some managers attempt to suppress joking and humour use because they feel it relates to lower production, while others have attempted to manufacture joking through pranks, pajama or dress down days, and specific committees that are designed to increase fun in the workplace.^[8]

Rules[link]

The rules of humour are analogous to those of poetry. These common rules are mainly timing, precision, synthesis, and rhythm. French philosopher Henri Bergson has said in an essay: "In every wit there is something of a poet."^[9] In this essay Bergson views the essence of humour as the encrustation of the mechanical upon the living. He used as an instance a book by an English humorist, in which an elderly woman who desired a reputation as a philanthropist provided "homes within easy hail of her mansion for the conversion of atheists who have been specially manufactured for her, so to speak, and for a number of honest folk who have been made into drunkards so that she may cure them of their failing, etc." This idea seems funny because a genuine impulse of charity as a living, vital impulse has become encrusted by a mechanical conception of how it should manifest itself.

Precision[link]

To reach precision, the comedian must choose the words in order to provide a vivid, in-focus image, and to avoid being generic as to confuse the audience, and provide no laughter. To properly arrange the words in the sentence is also crucial to get precision.

Synthesis[link]

That a joke is best when it expresses the maximum level of humour with a minimal number of words, is today considered one of the key technical elements of a joke.^{[citation needed]} An example from George Carlin:

I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.^[10]

Though, the familiarity of the pattern of "brevity" has led to numerous examples of jokes where the very length is itself the pattern-breaking "punchline".^{[citation needed]} Numerous examples from Monty Python exist, for instance, the song "I Like Traffic Lights". More recently, Family Guy often exploits such humour: for example in the episode "Wasted Talent", Peter Griffin bangs his shin, a classic slapstick routine, and tenderly nurses it while inhaling and exhaling to quiet the pain, for considerably longer than expected.^[vague] Certain versions of the popular vaudevillian joke The Aristocrats can go on for several minutes, and it is considered an anti-joke, as the humour is more in the set-up than the punchline.^[vague]

Rhythm[link]

The joke's content (meaning) is not what provokes the laugh, it just makes the salience of the joke and provokes a smile. What makes us laugh is the joke mechanism. Milton Berle demonstrated this with a classic theatre experiment in the 1950s: if during a series of jokes you insert phrases that are not jokes, but with the same rhythm, the audience laughs anyway^{[citation needed]}. A classic is the ternary rhythm, with three beats: Introduction, premise, antithesis (with the antithesis being the punch line).

In regards to the Milton Berle experiment, they can be taken to demonstrate the concept of "breaking context" or "breaking the pattern". It is not necessarily the rhythm that caused the audience to laugh, but the disparity between the expectation of a "joke" and being instead given a non-sequitur "normal phrase." This normal phrase is, itself, unexpected, and a type of punchline—the anti-climax.

Comic[link]

In the comic field plays the 'economy of ideative expenditure'; in other words excessive energy is wasted or action-essential energy is saved. The profound meaning of a comic gag or a comic joke is "I'm a child"; the comic deals with the clumsy body of the child.

Laurel and Hardy are a classic example. An individual laughs because he recognises the child that is in himself. In clowns stumbling is a childish tempo. In the comic, the visual gags may be translated into a joke. For example in Side Effects (By Destiny Denied story) by Woody Allen:

"My father used to wear loafers," she confessed. "Both on the same foot".

The typical comic technique is the disproportion.

Wit[link]

In the wit field plays the "economy of censorship expenditure"^[11] (Freud calls it "the economy of psychic expenditure"); usually censorship prevents some 'dangerous ideas' from reaching the conscious mind, or helps us avoid saying everything that comes to mind; adversely, the wit circumvents the censorship and brings up those ideas. Different wit techniques allow one to express them in a funny way. The profound meaning behind a wit joke is "I have dangerous ideas". An example from Woody Allen:

I contemplated suicide again - this time by inhaling next to an insurance salesman.

Or, when a bagpipe player was asked "How do you play that thing?" his answer was "Well." Wit is a branch of rhetoric, and there are about 200 techniques (technically they are called tropes, a particular kind of figure of speech) that can be used to make jokes.^[12]

Irony can be seen as belonging to this field.

Humour[link]

In the comedy field, humour induces an "economised expenditure of emotion" (Freud calls it "economy of affect" or "economy of sympathy". Freud produced this final part of his interpretation many years later, in a paper later supplemented to the book.).^[11][13] In other words, the joke erases an emotion that should be felt about an event, making us insensitive to it.e.g.: "yo momma" jokes. The profound meaning of the void feeling of a humour joke is "I'm a cynic". An example from Woody Allen:

Three times I've been mistaken for Robert Redford. Each time by a blind person.

This field of jokes is still a grey area, being mostly unexplored. Extensive use of this kind of humour can be found in the work of British satirist Chris Morris, like the sketches of the Jam television program.

Black humour and sarcasm belong to this field. Another kind of joke is the ever popular "Yo Mamma" joke.

Cycles[link]

Folklorists, in particular (but not exclusively) those who study the folklore of the United States, collect jokes into joke cycles. A cycle is a collection of jokes with a particular theme or a particular "script". (That is, it is a literature cycle.)^[14] Folklorists have identified several such cycles:

• the Helen Keller Joke Cycle that comprises jokes about Helen Keller^[15]
• Viola jokes^[16]
• the NASA, Challenger, or Space Shuttle Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster^[17][18][19]
• the Chernobyl Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to the Chernobyl disaster^[20]
• the Polish Pope Joke Cycle that comprises jokes relating to Pope John Paul II^[21]
• the Essex girl and the Stupid Irish joke cycles in the United Kingdom^[22]
• the Dead Baby Joke Cycle^[23]
• the Newfie Joke Cycle that comprises jokes made by Canadians about Newfoundlanders^[24]
• the Little Willie Joke Cycle, and the Quadriplegic Joke Cycle^[25]
• the Jew Joke Cycle and the Polack Joke Cycle^[26]
• the Rastus and Liza Joke Cycle, which Dundes describes as "the most vicious and widespread white anti-Negro joke cycle"^[27]
• the Jewish American Princess and Jewish American Mother joke cycles^[28]
• The Wind-up doll joke cycle^[29]
• The "Blonde joke" cycle.

Gruner discusses several "sick joke" cycles that occurred upon events surrounding Gary Hart, Natalie Wood, Vic Morrow, Jim Bakker, Richard Pryor, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson, noting how several jokes were recycled from one cycle to the next. For example: A joke about Vic Morrow ("We now know that Vic Morrow had dandruff: they found his head and shoulders in the bushes") was subsequently recycled about Admiral Mountbatten, and again applied to the crew of the Challenger space shuttle ("How do we know that Christa McAuliffe had dandruff? They found her head and shoulders on the beach.").^[30]

Berger asserts that "whenever there is a popular joke cycle, there generally is some widespread kind of social and cultural anxiety, lingering below the surface, that the joke cycle helps people deal with".^[31]

Types of jokes[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Jokes often depend on the humour of the unexpected, the mildly taboo (which can include the distasteful or socially improper), or playing off stereotypes and other cultural beliefs. Many jokes fit into more than one category.

Subjects[link]

Political jokes are usually a form of satire. They generally concern politicians and heads of state, but may also cover the absurdities of a country's political situation. A prominent example of political jokes would be political cartoons. Two large categories of this type of jokes exist. The first one makes fun of a negative attitude to political opponents or to politicians in general. The second one makes fun of political clichés, mottoes, catch phrases or simply blunders of politicians. Some, especially the "you have two cows" genre, derive humour from comparing different political systems.

Professional humour includes caricatured portrayals of certain professions such as lawyers, and in-jokes told by professionals to each other.

Mathematical jokes are a form of in-joke, generally designed to be understandable only by insiders. (They are also often strictly visual jokes.)

Ethnic jokes exploit ethnic stereotypes. They are often racist and frequently considered offensive.

For example, the British tell jokes starting "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman..." which exploit the supposed parsimony of the Scot, stupidity of the Irish or rigid conventionality of the English. Such jokes exist among numerous peoples.

Jokes based on other stereotypes (such as blonde jokes) are often considered funny.

Religious jokes fall into several categories:

• Jokes based on stereotypes associated with people of religion (e.g. nun jokes, priest jokes, or rabbi jokes)
• Jokes on classical religious subjects: crucifixion, Adam and Eve, St. Peter at The Gates, etc.
• Jokes that collide different religious denominations: "A rabbi, a medicine man, and a pastor went fishing..."
• Letters and addresses to God.

Self-deprecating or self-effacing humour is superficially similar to racial and stereotype jokes, but involves the targets laughing at themselves. It is said to maintain a sense of perspective and to be powerful in defusing confrontations. A common example is Jewish humour. A similar situation exists in the Scandinavian "Ole and Lena" joke.

Self-deprecating humour has also been used by politicians, who recognise its ability to acknowledge controversial issues and steal the punch of criticism.^{[citation needed]} For example, when Abraham Lincoln was accused of being two-faced he replied, "If I had two faces, do you think this is the one I’d be wearing?".

Dirty jokes are based on taboo, often sexual, content or vocabulary. The definitive studies on them have been written by Gershon Legman.

Other taboos are challenged by sick jokes and gallows humour, and to joke about disability is considered in this group.^{[citation needed]}

Surrealist or minimalist jokes exploit semantic inconsistency, for example: Q: What's red and invisible? A: No tomatoes..^{[citation needed]}

Anti-jokes are jokes that are not funny in regular sense, and often can be decidedly unfunny, but rely on the let-down from the expected joke to be funny in itself.^{[citation needed]}

An elephant joke is a joke, almost always a riddle or conundrum and often a sequence of connected riddles, frequently operating on a surrealistic, anti-humorous or meta-humorous level, that involves an elephant.

Jokes involving non-sequitur humour, with parts of the joke being unrelated to each other; e.g. "My uncle once punched a man so hard his legs became trombones", from The Mighty Boosh TV series.

Dark humour is often used in order to deal with a difficult situation in a manner of "if you can laugh at it, it won't kill you". Usually those jokes make fun of tragedies like death, accidents, wars, catastrophes or injuries.

Styles[link]

The question/answer joke, sometimes posed as a common riddle, has a supposedly straight question and an answer which is twisted for humorous effect; puns are often employed. Of this type are knock-knock joke, light bulb joke, the many variations on "why did the chicken cross the road?", and the class of "What's the difference between a _______ and a ______" joke, where the punch line is often a pun or a spoonerism linking two apparently entirely unconnected concepts.

Some jokes require a double act, where one respondent (usually the straight man) can be relied on to give the correct response to the person telling the joke. This is more common in performance than informal joke-telling.

A shaggy dog story is an extremely long and involved joke with an intentionally weak or completely non-existent punchline. The humour lies in building up the audience's anticipation and then letting them down completely. The longer the story can continue without the audience realising it is a joke, and not a serious anecdote, the more successful it is.

See also[link]

• Anecdote
• Comedy
• Comedy genres
• Computational humour
• East Frisian jokes
• Feghoot
• Funny
• Humour
• Internet humour
• Irish jokes
• Joke chess problem
• Mathematical joke
• Paradox
• Polish joke
• Practical jokes
• Pun
• Punch line
• Roman jokes
• Russian jokes
• Stand-up comedy
• The Funniest Joke in the World
• World's funniest joke

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Mary Douglas "Jokes." in Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. [1975] Ed. Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991.

Further reading[link]

• Cante, Richard C. (March 2008). Gay Men and the Forms of Contemporary US Culture. London: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 0-7546-7230-1. Chapter 2: The AIDS Joke as Cultural Form. 
• Holt, Jim (July 2008). Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-06673-8. 
• Grace Hui Chin Lin & Paul Shih Chieh Chien, (2009) Taiwanese Jokes from Views of Sociolinguistics and Language Pedagogies [2]

External links[link]

Look up joke in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Dictionary of the History of ideas: Sense of the Comic
• Jokes at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of links to jokes.

Jimmy Fallon
Jimmy Fallon, 2010
Birth name	James Thomas Fallon, Jr.
Born	(1974-09-19) September 19, 1974 (age 37) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, music, television, film
Nationality	American
Years active	1990–present
Genres	Satire/political satire/news satire, observational comedy, musical comedy, surreal humor, awkward
Subject(s)	American culture, American politics, pop culture, current events, mass media/news media
Influences	Dana Carvey, Robin Williams
Spouse	Nancy Juvonen (2007–present)
Notable works and roles	Saturday Night Live Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (host, 2009–present)

James Thomas "Jimmy" Fallon, Jr. (born September 19, 1974) is an American actor, comedian, singer, musician and television host. He currently hosts Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, a late-night talk show that airs Monday through Friday on NBC. Prior to that he appeared in several films, and was best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1998–2004.

Early life[link]

James Thomas Fallon, Jr., was born in Brooklyn, New York. Jimmy is the son of Gloria and James Fallon, Sr.,^[1] who is a Vietnam War veteran.^[2] His family later settled in Saugerties, New York, while his father worked at IBM in nearby Kingston, New York. He is of Irish descent.^[3] As a child, he and his older sister, Gloria, would reenact the “clean parts” of Saturday Night Live that his parents had taped for him.^[4] Fallon was such a fan of Saturday Night Live that he made a weekly event of watching it in his dormitory during college. In his teens, he impressed his parents with different impersonations, the first being of James Cagney.^[5][6] He was also musically inclined, and started playing guitar at age 13. He would go on to mix comedy and music in contests and shows.^[6]

Education[link]

Fallon attended St. Mary of the Snow, a Roman Catholic parochial school, and Saugerties High School, from which he graduated in 1992. He attended The College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York. He was a Computer Science major, but switched to Communications in his senior year, dropping out a semester shy of a degree.^[7][8] "I was a Computer Science major. I got out once it got really hard. I made it up to C++. Then I couldn't do the math – it got really confusing. I switched to Communications, which is a ridiculous major – let's be honest," he recalls.^[9] On May 9, 2009, Fallon received a B.A. in Communications and^[10] an honorary doctorate degree from The College of Saint Rose after presenting college officials with his portfolio, which satisfied all requisites for his degree.^[7] In addition to receiving a BA, Fallon spoke at the school's 86th commencement. That night, on Saturday Night Live, he held up his diploma during the closing of the show. Additionally, he showed excerpts from the ceremony on his late night show May 11, 2009.

Career[link]

Stand-up[link]

Fallon gives credit to troll dolls for his big break. He was given a troll doll with a graduation cap in his senior year of high school. His mother heard about an impression contest at Bananas Comedy Club in Poughkeepsie, NY. Fallon came up with a stand-up routine that was a commercial for troll dolls. He would impersonate various celebrities auditioning to be the spokesperson. He won the contest and after college he began to do stand-up tours across the country. When he was in Los Angeles, he took improv classes with The Groundlings.^[5]

Early work[link]

Fallon appeared in the feature film The Scheme (originally entitled The Entrepreneurs). His one line in Father's Day was cut but he can still be seen in the background. In 1998 Fallon appeared briefly on the show Spin City in the second season as a man selling photographs. By late 1998, Fallon was studying at the Groundlings Theater in Los Angeles, making $7.50 a set at The Improv Theater, when he was summoned to New York to audition for the long-running late night sketch comedy show, Saturday Night Live. Fallon did his impersonations of Jerry Seinfeld,^[11] French Stewart, Pat O'Brien, Chris Rock, Hilary Swank, Gilbert Gottfried, Enrique Iglesias, Adam Sandler, Jeff Foxworthy, Eddie Murphy, Larry the Cable Guy, many of which drew laughter from producer Lorne Michaels, which is generally unheard of. Fallon also did musical impersonations of Bono of U2, Adam Duritz of Counting Crows, Alanis Morissette, and Robert Smith of The Cure.^[4]

[edit] Saturday Night Live

Fallon's impersonations helped land him on Saturday Night Live as a featured player in the 1998–1999 season,^[12] and he was promoted to full cast member in the summer of 1999.^[4] Among his signature bits were his song parodies, which he performed when Colin Quinn was doing Update and continued to showcase on special occasions after he had replaced him. He became co-anchor of Weekend Update with Tina Fey with the October 7, 2000 season premiere.^[13] Fallon left SNL in 2004 and began pursuing a film career.

Fallon returned to SNL, hosting the December 17, 2011 episode, having made several cameos in episodes in the years since his departure.^[14]

Recurring characters[link]

• Dave, a young man in the Will Ferrell/Rachel Dratch recurring sketch, "The Lovers", often used as a pawn in Roger and Virginia's matchmaking.
• Jarret (from Jarret's Room), a stoner who hosts his own Internet webcam show.
• Jeffrey's clerk, one of the clerks (the other being a male host for the show) of an upscale department store.
• Joey Mack, an obnoxious radio DJ who mocks his celebrity guests.
• Kip Bloder, brother to Chris Parnell's Wade Bloder.
• The Leather Man, an intense man who owns a shop filled with leather clothes.
• Nick Burns, a sarcastic tech support representative who helps office workers with computer problems (and is almost always exposed as not knowing as much as he should by one of the workers). He frequently used the catchphrase "Moooooove!" when ousting people from their desk so he could fix the problem.
• Pat Sullivan, nicknamed "Sully", one of the Boston Teens, boyfriend of Rachel Dratch's Denise character.
• Patrick Fitzwilliam, a surly Irishman who hosts a show called Top O' The Morning with his friend, William Fitzpatrick (played by Seth Meyers)
• Randy Goldman, from "Wake Up Wakefield", Megan's (Maya Rudolph) crush who does not know she exists.
• Rodney "The Zipper" Calzoun, the MC at the Rialto Grande
• Señor Guadalupe Ramirez, one of the guitar players on the recurring sketch, "The 'How Do You Say, Ah, Yes' Show"
• Wade, one of the members of the boy band 7 Degrees Celsius
• Barry Gibb, in the skit called "The Barry Gibb Talk Show", he hosts along with his brother Robin Gibb (played by Justin Timberlake).
• Carson Daly, whom he impersonated with the catch phrase "I am a massive tool."^[15]
• Pat O'Brien, who "doesn't breathe through his nose ever!"

[edit] Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Fallon succeeded fellow Saturday Night Live alumnus Conan O'Brien as the host of NBC's Late Night after O'Brien left the show to prepare to take over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno in 2009.^[16] The deal for the long-expected succession was confirmed April 24, 2008, with an official announcement made on May 12, 2008 at NBC's upfront presentation.^[17][18] The official press conference was released on Hulu.com.^[19]

The show, titled Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, first aired on March 2, 2009 with guests Robert De Niro, Justin Timberlake, Nick Carter, and musical guest Van Morrison. Guests on the show's first week included Tina Fey, Jon Bon Jovi, Cameron Diaz, Donald Trump, and Drew Barrymore.

"Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" sometimes features parodies by Fallon impersonating various musicians, and he has been praised for his ability to pull off spot-on impressions. Fallon often changes the lyrics to honour a recent event in popular culture and videos of these performances tend to go viral. In one segment, on May 26, 2011, Fallon impersonated Neil Young, singing along with guests Graham Nash and David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Recent victims include Fallon making parodies of Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam performing "Jeremy (Lin)" in light of the hysteria surrounding New York Knicks shocking standout Jeremy Lin, the Doors singing the theme song to the PBS children's show "Reading Rainbow", Neil Young's version of the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme song, and David Bowie's "Space Oddity" with inspiration by Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. First appearing in January 2012, and dubbing himself as "Tebowie", Fallon's impersonation of the famously-religious quarterback went viral. Due to overwhelmingly positive acclaim from the public, Fallon revived the act on March 20, 2012 after the Denver Broncos acquired superstar and future hall of fame quarterback Peyton Manning, and revealed their intentions to trade Tebow. Fallon continues to do impersonations, in some of the show's comedy segments, especially impersonations of famous singers.

To celebrate the second anniversary on March 2, 2011, Ben & Jerry's launched a personalized "Late Night Snack" ice cream. This was immediately parodied on The Colbert Report the next day and the two show hosts engaged in a brief ice cream personality war. Colbert used numerous "fecal matter" jokes to describe the flavor of the ice cream named after Jimmy Fallon.^[20]

On November 21, 2011 U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann, who was active in the Republican Presidential Primaries at the time, appeared as a guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. As she walked onto the stage, the band played a funk song titled "Lyin' Ass Bitch," without any lyrics. Hours earlier, the band's drummer Questlove had sent a tweet about the song choice: “late night walkon song devotees: you love it when we snark: this next one takes the cake. ask around cause i aint tweeting title.” After a prominent Democratic Congress woman complained, Fallon made a general apology by tweet.^[21] Fallon began his tweet with the words: "I'm honored that @michelebachmann was on our show yesterday and I'm so sorry about the intro mess."^[22] Fallon also used his Twitter account to tease his Roots bandleader Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson that he was "grounded".^[22]

Fallon in April 2007

Fallon has appeared in Taxi, Anything Else, Almost Famous, Fever Pitch, Band of Brothers, Doogal, Factory Girl and Whip It. He occasionally does stand up comedy at the Comedy Club in New York City and has also performed at the House of Blues in Boston, Massachusetts on occasions.

In 2002, Fallon released the comedy album The Bathroom Wall. In a mixed review, Rolling Stone praised the album's songs, calling the album the "second-best Prince parody ever, after Beck's 'Debra'." However the magazine panned the album's comedy routines, ultimately giving it two-out-of-five stars.^[23] The album was nominated for a Grammy in 2003 for Best Spoken Comedy Album. Fallon co-hosted the 2001 MTV Movie Awards with Kirsten Dunst on June 7, 2001.^[24] Fallon has played Neo in Sex and the Matrix, a comedic two-in-one parody of Sex and the City and The Matrix.^[25] He hosted the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards alone that year.^[26] His opening number included parodies of videos by Eminem, Avril Lavigne, Nelly, The White Stripes, Dave Matthews and Enrique Iglesias.

Also in 2002, Fallon appeared in The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch as the son of Melvin Hall, and constantly pesters his father, often stealing his mike, claiming that the film is "his documentary."^[27]

Fallon also hosted the 2005 MTV Movie Awards and played Anakin Skywalker in comedic parody of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith's Mustafar scene, in which Anakin and Padme have their last conversation. Fallon was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 2002, an honor Fallon found embarrassing.^[28]

Following the Boston Red Sox's World Series clinching game over the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004, Fallon ran onto the field at Busch Stadium with Drew Barrymore to film a scene for their movie Fever Pitch.

In 2006, Fallon starred in "Spontaneous Combustion", a Traktor-directed Pepsi television commercial with actress Parker Posey. In the ad, Fallon and Posey can be seen dancing and jumping around to the song Streamline by Newton. In October of that year, Fallon appeared on stage in The Secret Policeman's Ball, a charity gig filmed to raise awareness of Amnesty International at the Royal Albert Hall. Fallon made three appearances during the show, the first in a sketch in which he performed impressions of people such as David Bowie, Jerry Seinfeld and David Blaine in order to get past a doorman (Shaun Williamson) who claims Fallon is not on the list. The doorman finally recognizes him for his role in Taxi, but still will not let him in. He later masqueraded as Russell Brand before being led off by Williamson, and made one final appearance in a cameo role as the front of a pantomime horse in the Al Murray "pub landlord" routine. He also provided the voice of Dylan in Doogal.

In 2007, Fallon wrote the song "Car Wash for Peace" and donated all proceeds to charity. He performed the song on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The View and dedicated a MySpace page to the cause. Around the same time, a video circulated on various Internet sites called lonelyfallon32, in which Fallon parodied YouTube celebrity Jessica Rose (a.k.a. lonelygirl15) and later performed the song.

Fallon, along with his sister Gloria, wrote I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life for TV Books in 1999. A second book is anticipated but has not yet been released, to be titled "I Hate This Place 2: Tokyo Drift."^[4] Fallon has also written a children's book, illustrated by Adam Stower, entitled Snowball Fight.

Fallon also appeared on Diggnation's 185th show.^[29]

On May 4, 2010, NBC announced that Fallon would host the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards.^[30] With Fallon as host, viewership of the 2010 Emmy Awards increased by over 200,000 viewers from the year before.^[31]

On April 24, 2012, Jimmy Fallon filmed his live show in Chapel Hill, NC on the campus of the University of North Carolina. His guest was President Barack Obama, who spoke primarily about Congress potentially doubling the interest rates of student loans. His musical guest was Dave Matthews.

Personal life[link]

Fallon married Nancy Juvonen on December 22, 2007.^[32] Juvonen and Drew Barrymore own the production company Flower Films.

On February 22, 2011, Fallon was on The Dr. Oz Show. He had a mole removed from his left hand in front of a live studio audience by visiting cosmetic surgeon Arthur Perry.^[33][34]

Television[link]

• Saturday Night Live (1998–2004)
• Spin City (1998)
• Band of Brothers as 2nd Lt. George C. Rice in "Crossroads"(2001)
• 30 Rock (2009)
• Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2009–present)
• The Electric Company (2009)
• Family Guy (2009)
• Saturday Night Live (December 17, 2011)
• Silent Library (2011)
• 30 Rock (2012) - Young Jack
• iCarly (2012) - As Himself

Filmography[link]

• Almost Famous (2000)
• The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch (2002)
• Anything Else (2003)
• The Entrepreneurs a.k.a. The $cheme (filmed in 1998, released in 2003)
• Taxi (2004)
• Fever Pitch (2005)
• The Magic Roundabout (2006) (voice)
• Arthur and the Invisibles (2006) (voice)
• Factory Girl (2006)
• The Year of Getting to Know Us (2008)
• Whip It (2009)
• Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• The Bathroom Wall (2002)
• Blow Your Pants Off (2012)

Singles[link]

• "Idiot Boyfriend" (2002)
• "Car Wash for Peace" (2008)
• "Drunk On Christmas (feat. John Rich)" (2010)

Further reading[link]

• Baldwin, Kristen (2002-05-10), "Update with Destiny". Entertainment Weekly. (653):26
• Thank You Notes (Jan 2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (May 2011)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jimmy Fallon

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Jimmy Fallon

• Jimmy Fallon at the Internet Movie Database
• Food Bank For New York City public service announcement
• Jimmy Fallon with Popular Radio Personality Rich Stevens
• JimmyFallon.net – Bathroom Wall
• NBC's Official Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Site
• Interview of Jimmy Fallon for New Beacon Theatre Documentary

Jerry Seinfeld
Seinfeld at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival Vanity Fair party
Birth name	Jerome Allen Seinfeld[1]
Born	(1954-04-29) April 29, 1954 (age 58)[1] Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Medium	Television, Stand up
Nationality	American
Years active	1976–present
Genres	Observational comedy, Political satire, Black comedy
Subject(s)	Avant-garde, American culture, Human behavior, American Politics, Gender differences, Everyday life
Influences	Bill Cosby,[2] George Carlin,[3] Robert Klein,[3] Abbott and Costello,[4] Jean Shepherd, Michael Gough, Pat Hingle, Don Rickles, Ricardo Montalban[5]
Influenced	Carol Leifer, Ricky Gervais, Mitch Hedberg
Spouse	Jessica Seinfeld (1999–present), 3 children
Notable works and roles	Jerry Seinfeld' on Seinfeld
Signature	128px
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Comedy Series 1993 Seinfeld
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor – Musical or Comedy Series 1994 Seinfeld
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Ensemble – Comedy Series 1995 Seinfeld 1997 Seinfeld 1998 Seinfeld
American Comedy Awards
Funniest Male Performer in a TV Series (Leading Role) Network, Cable or Syndication 1992, 1993 Seinfeld Comedy Club Stand-Up Comic – Male 1988 Lifetime Achievement

Jerome Allen "Jerry" Seinfeld^[1] (born April 29, 1954) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and television and film producer, best known for playing a semi-fictional version of himself in the sitcom Seinfeld (1989–1998), which he co-created and co-wrote with Larry David, and, in the show's final two seasons, co-executive-produced.

In his first major foray back into the media since the finale of Seinfeld, he co-wrote and co-produced the film Bee Movie, also taking on the lead role of Barry B. Benson. In February 2010, Seinfeld premiered a reality TV series called The Marriage Ref on NBC. Seinfeld directed Colin Quinn in the Broadway show Long Story Short at the Helen Hayes Theater in New York which ran until January 8, 2011.

Seinfeld is known for specializing in observational humor, often focusing on personal relationships and uncomfortable social obligations. Comedy Central ranked Jerry Seinfeld as one of the twelve greatest stand-up comedians of all time in its four-part special The 100 Greatest Standups Of All Time.^[6]

Early life[link]

Seinfeld was born in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. His father, Kalmen Seinfeld (1918–1985), was of Austrian Jewish background and was a sign maker;^[7][8] his mother, Betty (1915- ),^[9] is of Syrian Jewish descent.^[10] Her family identified their nationality as Turkish when they emigrated to the United States in 1917.^[10]

Seinfeld grew up in Massapequa, New York. In September 1959, his mother enrolled him at Birch Lane Elementary School, Massapequa High School.^[11] At the age of 16, he spent a short period of time volunteering in Kibbutz Sa'ar in Israel.^[12] He went to SUNY Oswego, and after his sophomore year he transferred to Queens College, City University of New York, graduating with a degree in communications and theater.^[7]

Seinfeld developed an interest in stand-up comedy after brief stints in college productions.^[13] In 1976 after graduation from Queens College, he tried out at an open-mic night at New York City's Catch a Rising Star, which led to an appearance in a Rodney Dangerfield HBO special.^[7] In 1979 he had a small recurring role on the Benson sitcom as "Frankie", a mail delivery boy who had comedy routines that no one wanted to hear, but he was abruptly fired from the show due to creative differences.^[7] Seinfeld has said that he was not actually told he had been fired until he turned up for the read-through session for an episode, and found that there was no script for him.^[14] In May 1981 Seinfeld made a highly successful appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, impressing Carson and the audience and leading to regular appearances on that show and others, including Late Night with David Letterman.^[7]

[edit] Seinfeld

Seinfeld with Julia Louis-Dreyfus at the 1997 Emmy Awards

Seinfeld created The Seinfeld Chronicles with Larry David in 1989 for NBC. The show was later renamed Seinfeld to avoid confusion with the short-lived teen sitcom The Marshall Chronicles and, by its fourth season, had become the most popular and successful sitcom on American television. The final episode aired in 1998, and the show has been a popular syndicated re-run. The show also starred Saturday Night Live veteran Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as well as experienced actors Michael Richards and Jason Alexander. On the show, Seinfeld played a caricature of himself. He has said that his show was influenced by the 1950s sitcom The Abbott and Costello Show. Citing Jean Shepherd as an influence in his commentary for "The Gymnast" episode on "Seinfeld, Season 6," he said, "He really formed my entire comedic sensibility--I learned how to do comedy from Jean Shepherd." Seinfeld also holds the distinction of being the only actor to appear in every episode of the show.^[15] From 2004–2007, the former Seinfeld cast and crew recorded audio commentaries for episodes of the DVD releases of the show. Seinfeld himself provided commentary for numerous episodes.

[edit] Post-Seinfeld

1998–2006[link]

After his sitcom ended, Seinfeld returned to stand-up comedy instead of pursuing a film career. In 1998, Seinfeld went on tour and recorded a comedy special titled I'm Telling You for the Last Time. The process of developing and performing new material at clubs around the world was chronicled in a 2002 documentary, Comedian, which focused also on fellow comic Orny Adams, directed by Christian Charles. He has written several books, mostly archives of past routines.

In the late 1990s, Apple Computer came up with an advertising slogan called "Think different" and produced a 60-second commercial to promote the slogan which showed people who were able to "think differently", like Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and many others. This commercial was later cut short to thirty seconds and ended up paying tribute to Jerry Seinfeld. This commercial aired only once, during the series finale of Seinfeld.^[16]

Seinfeld at the 1997 Emmy Awards.

In 2004, Seinfeld also appeared in two commercial webisodes promoting American Express, titled The Adventures of Seinfeld & Superman, in which he appeared together with an animated rendering of Superman, who was referenced in numerous episodes of Seinfeld as Seinfeld's hero, voiced by Patrick Warburton, who had portrayed David Puddy on Seinfeld. The webisodes were aired in 2004 and directed by Barry Levinson. Seinfeld and "Superman" were also interviewed by Matt Lauer in a specially-recorded interview for the Today show.

On November 18, 2004, Seinfeld appeared at the National Museum of American History to donate the "Puffy Shirt" he wore in the famous Seinfeld episode of the same name. He also gave a speech when presenting the "Puffy Shirt", claiming humorously that "This is the most embarrassing moment of my life."

Seinfeld had a special appearance on May 13, 2006, Saturday Night Live episode as Julia Louis-Dreyfus' assassin. Louis-Dreyfus was the host of that episode and in her opening monologue she mentioned the "Seinfeld Curse". While talking about how ridiculous the "curse" was, a stage light suddenly fell next to her. The camera moved to a catwalk above the stage that Seinfeld was standing on, holding a large pair of bolt cutters. He angrily muttered, "Dammit!", angry that it didn't hit her. Louis-Dreyfus then continued to say that she is indeed not cursed.

2007[link]

On February 25, 2007, Seinfeld appeared at the 79th Academy Awards as the presenter for "Best Documentary". Before announcing the nominations he did a bit of a stand-up comedy routine about the unspoken agreement between movie theater owners and movie patrons. One of the winners of the award was Larry David's now ex-wife, Laurie.

On October 4, 2007, Seinfeld made a brief return to NBC, guest-starring in the episode "SeinfeldVision" of 30 Rock as himself.^[17]

2008[link]

On February 24, 2008, Seinfeld appeared as the voice of his Bee Movie animated character Barry, at the 80th Academy Awards as the presenter for "Best Animated Short". Before announcing the nominees, he showed a montage of film clips featuring bees, claiming that they were some of his early work (as Barry).

Amidst his spring 2008 tour Seinfeld made a stop in his hometown of New York City for a one-night-only performance on June 2, 2008 at the Hammerstein Ballroom to benefit Stand Up for a Cure, a charity aiding lung cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

In August 2008 the Associated Press reported that Jerry Seinfeld would be the pitchman for Windows Vista, as part of a $300 million advertising campaign by Microsoft. The ads, which were intended to create buzz for Windows in support of the subsequent "I'm a PC" advertisements, began airing in mid-September 2008 and were cut from television after just 3 installments, Microsoft opting instead to continue with the "I'm a PC" advertisements,^[18] and instead continued running the Seinfeld ads on the Microsoft website as a series of longer advertisements.^[19]

2009[link]

In March 2009, it was announced that Seinfeld and the entire cast of Seinfeld would be appearing for a reunion in Larry David's HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm. The fictional reunion took place in the seventh season's finale.

Seinfeld appeared on an episode of the Starz original series Head Case. Like many of his previous guest appearances on sitcoms he played himself.

In Australia, Seinfeld appears on a series of advertisements for Greater Building Society, a building society based in New South Wales and south eastern Queensland.^[20] His appearance in these ads were highly publicized and considered a coup for the society, being only the third time Seinfeld had appeared in a television commercial.^[21] The advertisements were filmed in Cedarhurst, Long Island, with the street designed to emulate Beaumont Street in Hamilton, where the Greater's head offices are located.^[22] Seinfeld also wrote the scripts for the fifteen advertisements that were filmed. The ads largely aired in the Northern New South Wales television market, where the society has most of its branches.

Seinfeld was the first guest of Jay Leno's new talk show, The Jay Leno Show, which premiered on September 14, 2009.

2010s[link]

Seinfeld was featured on Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update sketch to do the "Really!?!" segment with Seth Meyers. Seinfeld was also executive producing and occasionally starring as a panelist in The Marriage Ref. On August 30, 2010, Seinfeld made a notable surprise guest appearance on The Howard Stern Show, repairing the falling out the two had in the early 90s.

Seinfeld toured the U.S. in 2011 and made his first appearance on stage in the U.K. in thirteen years. In July 2011, he was a surprise guest on The Daily Show, helping Jon Stewart to suppress his urge to tell "cheap" "Michele Bachmann's husband acts gay" jokes.^[23] He launched a personal archives website at JerrySeinfeld.com. In 2011 he appeared in the HBO special Talking Funny with fellow comedians Chris Rock, Louis C.K. and Ricky Gervais.

Books[link]

Seinfeld is also a bestselling author, most notably for his book Seinlanguage. Released in 1993, the book went on to become a number one New York Times bestseller. The book, written as his television show was first rising in popularity, is primarily an adaptation of the comedian's standup material. The title comes from an article in Entertainment Weekly listing the numerous catch-phrases for which the show was responsible.

In 2002, he wrote a children's book titled Halloween. The book was illustrated by James Bennett. There are also several books about both the sitcom and Seinfeld himself, though many of them are not written by Seinfeld.

Seinfeld wrote the forewords to Ted L. Nancy's Letters from a Nut series of books and Ed Broth's Stories from a Moron. Both authors were rumored to be pseudonyms for Seinfeld or a friend of his. Neither Nancy nor Broth have been seen publicly, although Seinfeld is heavily involved in pitching their books for television.

In promoting Broth's book, Seinfeld hosted a toast in the author's honor. Broth did not attend.^[24]

Seinfeld also wrote the foreword to the Peanut Butter & Co. Cookbook, from his favorite sandwich shop in New York City.

Personal life[link]

Jessica and Jerry Seinfeld in 2010.

Seinfeld dated Carol Leifer, a fellow comedian and rumored to be the inspiration for the character of Elaine from his eponymous sitcom Seinfeld, although both parties deny it.^{[citation needed]} When he was in his late thirties, Seinfeld began a romantic relationship with then-seventeen year old high school student Shoshanna Lonstein.^[25] A while later, after meeting Jessica Sklar at the Reebok Sports Club, he began dating her. Sklar, a public relations executive for Tommy Hilfiger, had just returned from a three-week honeymoon in Italy with Eric Nederlander, a theatrical producer and scion of a theater-owning family. Sklar divorced Nederlander and married Seinfeld on November 14, 1998.^[26] Comedian George Wallace was the best man at the wedding. After the nuptials Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld bought Billy Joel's Amagansett, Long Island house for $32 million in March 2000.

Seinfeld and his wife have one daughter and two sons; daughter Sascha was born in 2000,^[27] son Julian Kal was born in 2003,^[28] and Shepherd Kellen was born in 2005, all in New York City.^[29][30] His son Julian's middle name, Kal, is the first name of Seinfeld's father and also the first name of Seinfeld's hero Superman, aka Kal-El. Among Seinfeld's best friends are fellow comedians Larry Miller, George Wallace, and Mario Joyner.^[31]

In 2000, Jessica Seinfeld launched Baby Buggy, a charity that provides clothing and gear for underprivileged women and children. She is the author of the best-seller Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, released by HarperCollins in October 2007.^[32]

Seinfeld is recorded as having made several political contributions, including George W. Bush and Al Gore's presidential campaigns in 2000, and subsequently to four Democratic Party primary candidates in 2000 and 2004.^[33]

Seinfeld says that he has practiced Transcendental Meditation for most of his life,^[34] and he appeared at a 2009 benefit for TM.^[35] Seinfeld has admitted dabbling in Scientology when he was in his twenties,^[36] though he says he was never in the organization.^[37][38] The association came to light in 1992.^[37]

A fan of the New York Mets, Seinfeld periodically calls Steve Somers' show on WFAN-AM, a sports talk radio station, as "Jerry from Queens."^[39] Seinfeld called four innings of a Mets game on SportsNet New York June 23, 2010, reuniting with analyst Keith Hernandez who appeared in the Seinfeld two part episode The Boyfriend.^[40]

Personal wealth[link]

According to Forbes magazine, Jerry Seinfeld's annual earning from Seinfeld in 1998 was $267 million, making him the highest-earning celebrity that year.^[41] He reportedly turned down $5 million per episode, for 22 episodes, to continue the show for a tenth season.^[42] He earned $100 million from syndication deals and stand-up appearances in 2005 and $60 million in 2006.^[43][44] He also earned $10 million for appearing with Bill Gates in Microsoft's 2008 ads for Windows.^[45] Between June 2008 and June 2009, Seinfeld earned $85 million, making him the highest-paid comedian during that 12-month period.^[46]

Car collection[link]

Seinfeld, an automobile enthusiast and avid collector, owns a large Porsche collection. He rented a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, in Santa Monica, California, for an extended period of time during the 1990s for storage of some of the vehicles in the collection. After his return to New York City, he was involved in an extended dispute with several neighbors over the proposed building of a $1.4 million multi-story garage to contain the cars.

One tally has Seinfeld owning 46 Porsches. Reporter Paul Bannister reports that Seinfeld's collection includes Porsche 911s from various years, 10 Porsche Boxsters each painted a different color, and the famous 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder, the same model and pearl-grey color that actor James Dean was driving when he crashed and died. The Discovery Channel television show "Chasing Classic Cars" claims that Seinfeld owns the first and last original Porsche 911s produced. The centerpiece is a $700,000 Porsche 959, one of only 337 ever built. To his initial despair, he was not allowed to drive it as US emission and crash tests were never performed because Porsche refused to donate four Porsche 959s for destruction tests, rendering the car "not street-legal". He imported the car "for exhibition purposes", which stipulates the car may never be driven on American roads.^[47] The car was made US street legal in 1999 under the "Show and Display" federal law.^[48][49] In several episodes of Seinfeld, Seinfeld drives a Saab 900 (NG) convertible, but a Porsche-themed painting, depicting a Porsche 904 GTS race car competing in the 1964 Targa Florio race in Italy, is visible on a wall in his apartment, as well as a Porsche racing poster featuring a 550 Spyder depicting the 1958 Targa Florio. In another episode, he is seen hiding behind a red Porsche 911RS parked on the street. In addition, an issue of Excellence, a Porsche-centered publication, is featured prominently on an outdoor magazine rack in one episode and on at least one occasion he is seen reading an issue of Road and Track magazine from circa 1990 with a cover article on the Porsche 964. He also wrote an article for the February 2004 issue of Automobile, reviewing the Porsche Carrera GT. For the story he was awarded Road Pest — Silver at the 2004 International Automotive Media Awards.