Brian Unger
Encyclopedia
Brian Unger is an American
actor, comedian, writer, producer, and commentator.
in a family with Romanian ethnic heritage, Unger graduated from Ohio University
in 1987, where he majored in communication
. He had worked on a television show called Fridays Live, an OU student-produced comedy show airing on WOUB-TV
, the local PBS affiliate. Unger recently returned to make a cameo on the show's Season 17 finale.
Unger was an original correspondent and producer on The Daily Show
, from 1996-99. While working for The Daily Show
in 1998, he was named one of Entertainment Weekly
s "100 Most Creative People in Entertainment." Unger's other television
appearances include O2Be
on Oxygen
, the Comedy Central
shows Reno 911!
and The Man Show
, various I Love the... shows on VH1
, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
, Hollywood Off-Ramp on E!
, as well as appearances on NBC's The Jay Leno Show
and ABC
's Jimmy Kimmel Live
, NBC
's Later
, E!
's Talk Soup
, the syndicated entertainment newsmagazine Extra
, the stand-up comedy DVD
Zach Galifianakis Live at the Purple Onion
.
He provided regular commentary ("The Unger Report") for the NPR
show Day to Day
from its launch in 2003 until its cancellation, making his final "Unger Report" on March 16, 2009. He currently provides regular commentary to NPR's All Things Considered
.
He has hosted on MSNBC
's Countdown with Keith Olbermann
and The Discovery Channel show Some Assembly Required
(with University of Virginia Professor of Physics Lou Bloomfield; and then solo in its final season). Unger was one of the co-hosts for the pilot of a new PBS series, Wired Science
, which aired in January 2007 and was subsequently picked up to debut later in the year, though Unger did not remain involved with the show.
Unger has appeared as a spokesman for Yoo-hoo
and Maxwell House
Coffee. In 2008, Brian appeared in a BMW documentary about testing of BMW diesels as they embark on a 500-mile road trip from South Carolina to Virginia. The film's purpose was to raise awareness of driving diesels in the United States. Unger later became the official spokesman for the BMW Advanced Diesel.
Unger's written commentary has appeared in The New York Times
and The Minneapolis Star Tribune
, and he has written a book review for The Washington Post
. He is a commentator on the internet talk show The Young Turks
, which streams on YouTube; it is one of the most watched news programs produced solely for the web.
Unger hosted a documentary special on The History Channel
titled How the States Got Their Shapes
. In 2011, the network expanded the special into a weekly series, which Unger hosts.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor, comedian, writer, producer, and commentator.
Biography
Born in Granville, OhioGranville, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 3,167 people, 1,309 households, and 888 families residing in the village. The population density was 790.4 people per square mile . There were 1,384 housing units at an average density of 345.4 per square mile...
in a family with Romanian ethnic heritage, Unger graduated from Ohio University
Ohio University
Ohio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...
in 1987, where he majored in communication
Communication studies
Communication Studies is an academic field that deals with processes of communication, commonly defined as the sharing of symbols over distances in space and time. Hence, communication studies encompasses a wide range of topics and contexts ranging from face-to-face conversation to speeches to mass...
. He had worked on a television show called Fridays Live, an OU student-produced comedy show airing on WOUB-TV
WOUB-TV
WOUB-TV channel 20 is a Public Broadcasting Service member Public television station at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. WOUB-TV's programming can be seen in southeastern Ohio on digital channel 27...
, the local PBS affiliate. Unger recently returned to make a cameo on the show's Season 17 finale.
Unger was an original correspondent and producer on The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
, from 1996-99. While working for The Daily Show
The Daily Show
The Daily Show , is an American late night satirical television program airing each Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central. The half-hour long show premiered on July 21, 1996, and was hosted by Craig Kilborn until December 1998...
in 1998, he was named one of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s "100 Most Creative People in Entertainment." Unger's other television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
appearances include O2Be
O2Be
O2Be is an American comedy television series starring Lizz Winstead and Brian Unger. The series premiered September 22, 2002, on Oxygen. After October 27, 2002, they began showing reruns on Nickelodeon until December 31, 2002. The program is a parody of daytime television with Winstead and Unger as...
on Oxygen
Oxygen (TV channel)
Oxygen is an American cable television specialty channel with television programming marketed towards women, with a format similar to Lifetime.- History :...
, the Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
shows Reno 911!
Reno 911!
Reno 911! is an American comedy television series on Comedy Central that ran from 2003 to 2009. It is a mockumentary-style parody of law enforcement documentary shows, specifically COPS, with comic actors playing the police officers. Most of the material is improvised, using a broad outline, and...
and The Man Show
The Man Show
The Man Show is an American comedy television show on Comedy Central. It was created in 1999 by its two original co-hosts, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla, and their executive producer Daniel Kellison.-Format:...
, various I Love the... shows on VH1
VH1
VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an American television sitcom that premiered on FX on August 4, 2005. New episodes continue to air on FX, with reruns playing on Comedy Central, general broadcast syndication, and WGN America—the first-ever cable-to-cable syndication deal for a sitcom...
, Hollywood Off-Ramp on E!
E!
E! Entertainment Television is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by NBCUniversal. It features entertainment-related programming, reality television, feature films and occasionally series and specials unrelated to the entertainment industry.E! has an audience reach of...
, as well as appearances on NBC's The Jay Leno Show
The Jay Leno Show
The Jay Leno Show is an American comedy show created by and starring Jay Leno, that aired from September 14, 2009 to February 9, 2010 on NBC following the May 29, 2009 conclusion of Leno's first tenure as host of The Tonight Show...
and ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's Jimmy Kimmel Live
Jimmy Kimmel Live
Jimmy Kimmel Live! is an American late-night talk show, created and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and broadcast on ABC.The nightly hour-long show made its debut on January 26, 2003, following Super Bowl XXXVII. Jimmy Kimmel Live! is produced by Jackhole Productions in association with ABC Studios...
, NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
's Later
Later (talk show)
Later was a nightly half hour-long talk show that ran on NBC from 1988 until 2001. Later typically aired for half an hour at 1:30 a.m. following Late Night with David Letterman from 1988 to 1993, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien from 1993 to 2001...
, E!
E!
E! Entertainment Television is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by NBCUniversal. It features entertainment-related programming, reality television, feature films and occasionally series and specials unrelated to the entertainment industry.E! has an audience reach of...
's Talk Soup
Talk Soup
Talk Soup was a television show produced for cable network E! that debuted on January 7, 1991, and aired until August 2002. Talk Soup aired selected clips of the previous day's daily talk shows—ranging from daytime entries like The Jerry Springer Show and to celebrity interview shows like The...
, the syndicated entertainment newsmagazine Extra
Extra (TV series)
Extra is an American entertainment television news program covering events and celebrities which debuted on September 5, 1994 in syndication. It is produced at Victory Studios in Glendale, California by Telepictures Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television Distribution...
, the stand-up comedy DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
Zach Galifianakis Live at the Purple Onion
Zach Galifianakis Live at the Purple Onion
Live at the Purple Onion is a DVD by American stand-up comedian Zach Galifianakis directed by Michael Blieden. The show was recorded at the San Francisco club The Purple Onion in June 2005. In addition to Zach's routine, which features Zach's trademark dry humor, a large portion of which is...
.
He provided regular commentary ("The Unger Report") for the NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
show Day to Day
Day to Day
Day to Day was a one-hour weekday American radio newsmagazine distributed by National Public Radio , and produced by NPR in collaboration with Slate. Madeleine Brand served as host since 2006...
from its launch in 2003 until its cancellation, making his final "Unger Report" on March 16, 2009. He currently provides regular commentary to NPR's All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
.
He has hosted on MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
's Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Countdown with Keith Olbermann is an hour-long weeknight news and political commentary program that airs on Current TV, where it began airing on June 20, 2011. The program was broadcast on MSNBC from March 31, 2003, to January 21, 2011. On MSNBC, the show presented five selected news stories of...
and The Discovery Channel show Some Assembly Required
Some Assembly Required (TV series)
Some Assembly Required is a Discovery Channel TV series which premiered in the United States on December 27, 2007 and originally aired in 2007 and 2008. Hosts Brian Unger and physicist Lou Bloomfield explain how various things are manufactured and participate in the manufacturing process.-Season 1:...
(with University of Virginia Professor of Physics Lou Bloomfield; and then solo in its final season). Unger was one of the co-hosts for the pilot of a new PBS series, Wired Science
WIRED Science
Wired Science is a weekly high-definition television program that covers modern scientific and technological topics. In January 2007 PBS aired pilot episodes for three different science programs, including Wired Science. Using Nielsen ratings, CPB-sponsored research and public feedback, PBS...
, which aired in January 2007 and was subsequently picked up to debut later in the year, though Unger did not remain involved with the show.
Unger has appeared as a spokesman for Yoo-hoo
Yoo-Hoo
Yoo-hoo is an American chocolate beverage. Technically, it is a dairy drink, but it contains very little actual milk. The stated ingredients on the label include water, high-fructose corn syrup, dairy whey, sugar, corn syrup solids, cocoa, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, sodium caseinate ,...
and Maxwell House
Maxwell House
Maxwell House is a brand of coffee manufactured by a like-named division of Kraft Foods. Introduced in 1892, it is named in honor of the Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. For many years until the late 1980s it was the largest-selling coffee in the U.S. and is currently second behind...
Coffee. In 2008, Brian appeared in a BMW documentary about testing of BMW diesels as they embark on a 500-mile road trip from South Carolina to Virginia. The film's purpose was to raise awareness of driving diesels in the United States. Unger later became the official spokesman for the BMW Advanced Diesel.
Unger's written commentary has appeared in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and The Minneapolis Star Tribune
Star Tribune
The Star Tribune is the largest newspaper in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is published seven days each week in an edition for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. A statewide version is also available across Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota. The...
, and he has written a book review for The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
. He is a commentator on the internet talk show The Young Turks
The Young Turks (talk show)
The Young Turks is a progressive Internet talk show via live web stream and YouTube, and starting in late 2011, a weeknight news and political commentary program airing on Current TV. It was Sirius Satellite Radio's first original talk programming. The Young Turks claims to be the first Internet...
, which streams on YouTube; it is one of the most watched news programs produced solely for the web.
Unger hosted a documentary special on The History Channel
The History Channel
History, formerly known as The History Channel, is an American-based international satellite and cable TV channel that broadcasts a variety of reality shows and documentary programs including those of fictional and non-fictional historical content, together with speculation about the future.-...
titled How the States Got Their Shapes
How the States Got Their Shapes
How the States Got Their Shapes is a television series that airs on the History channel. It is hosted by Brian Unger and is based on Mark Stein's book, How the States Got Their Shapes. The show deals with how the various states of the United States established their borders, but also delves into...
. In 2011, the network expanded the special into a weekly series, which Unger hosts.