Elisha Yaffe is a comedian, actor and producer. He has co-created several webseries, including Downers Grove, Minor Stars and Remember When: A Comedy Series which, according to Gigaom

GigaOM

GigaOM is a Web 2.0 blog started by Om Malik and published by Giga Omni Media, Inc. in San Francisco, California. According to the company website it has a monthly global audience of 500,000. It is among the top 50 blogs worldwide by Technorati Rank, and is listed on CNet's Blog 100 list...

, was recently taken out to pitch as a television series. Currently he can be seen in commercials for Mike's Hard Lemonade, Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable

Time Warner Cable is an American cable television company that operates in 28 states and has 31 operating divisions...

 and Nintendo

Nintendo

is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....

. In 2010, he was named to the Heeb 100, a yearly roundup of 100 creative Jews you need to know about.

Life and career

Yaffe is from Amherst, Massachusetts, where he was a founding member of the Valley Arts Project, a non-profit dedicated to supporting the development of young artists. Yaffe organized the project's Valley Arts Festival, which featured performances by up and coming artists in the Pioneer Valley

Pioneer Valley

The Pioneer Valley is the colloquial name for the U.S. Commonwealth of Massachusetts's portion of the Connecticut River Valley. The Pioneer Valley consists of three counties in Massachusetts which collectively feature much of New England's most fertile farmland...

 area, including a then-unknown Sonya Kitchell

Sonya Kitchell

Sonya D. Kitchell is an American singer-songwriter. Sonya Kitchell formed her first band and began writing music in 2001...

. He is a graduate of Emerson College

Emerson College

Emerson College is a private coeducational university located in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of oratory," Emerson is "the only comprehensive college or university in America dedicated exclusively to communication and the arts in a liberal arts...

. While at Emerson, he founded Zebro, a Boston-based sketch comedy group that drew national attention due to popular YouTube videos by the troupe. The troupe put on a regular live show at the ImprovBoston

ImprovBoston

ImprovBoston is a nonprofit improvisational theater, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers shows five nights per week at its theater in Central Square and training programs in improvisation, stand-up comedy and sketchwriting....

. According to The Boston Herald, Zebro's live show featured sketches, stand up, videos, and even Yaffe's own grandmother crocheting live onstage.

As a senior at Emerson he was asked to take part in the 30 Years of Comedy show that was held at the Majestic Theater in Downtown Boston. He shared the bill that included the likes of Steven Wright

Steven Wright

Steven Alexander Wright is an American comedian, actor and writer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes and one-liners with contrived situations.-Early life and career:Wright was born in Mount Auburn...

, Denis Leary

Denis Leary

Denis Colin Leary is an Irish-American actor, comedian, writer and director. Leary is known for his biting, fast paced comedic style and chain smoking...

, Bill Burr

Bill Burr

William "Bill" Burr is an American stand-up comedian, radio host and actor.-Life and career:Burr was born in Canton, Massachusetts. His father was a dentist, and Bill worked as a hygienist for a short time. He began stand-up at age 23 after attending Emerson College. In 1995, he moved to New...

, Eddie Brill

Eddie Brill

Eddie Brill is an American comedian, writer, and actor who started his career in Boston, Massachusetts. He is also the warm-up comedian and talent coordinator of Late Show with David Letterman. He tours frequently, performing in the US as well as England, Ireland, France, Australia, Amsterdam, and...

, and Bill Dana. That same year, Yaffe was asked to perform a showcase in front of Emerson alumn and Comedy Central

Comedy Central

Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....

 president Doug Herzog

Doug Herzog

Douglas Alan "Doug" Herzog is an American television executive.He is currently serving as President of MTV Networks Entertainment Group...

.

After college, he formed Sorry, Dad Productions with Michael Blaiklock, Dave Horwitz, and Justin Becker. Together they produced the slacker comedy "Downers Grove" for Warner Brothers Studio 2.0. It eventually premiered on TheWB.com as part of a major site redesign and content launch. The project took nearly three years to launch. Within that time Michael Angelokas, the composer of the show's title track, became a household name with the success of his indie pop band Passion Pit

Passion Pit

Passion Pit is an American electropop band from Cambridge, Massachusetts. The group, which formed in 2007, consists of Michael Angelakos , Ian Hultquist , Ayad Al Adhamy , Jeff Apruzzese and Nate Donmoyer...

. According to Yaffe, the delay of "Downers Grove" was due to the fact that Warner Brothers, like many big production houses at the time, was still trying to find the right strategy for web content production.

He now resides in Los Angeles.

External links