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Jim FlorentineAmerican comedian, actor, writer and television host
Date of Birth: 18.08.1964
Country:  USA |
Content:
- Jim Florentine: A Multifaceted Entertainer
- Early Life
- Personal Life
- Career
- In 2015, Jim was in the season finale of Louie and was nominated
Jim Florentine: A Multifaceted Entertainer
Jim Florentine is an American comedian, actor, writer, and television host. He is best known for co-hosting VH1 Classic's That Metal Show and voicing multiple characters on Crank Yankers, including Special Ed and Bobby Fletcher. He hosts The Jim Florentine Show on Sirius XM satellite radio and the podcast "Everybody's Awful (Except You)." Florentine has released six stand-up comedy albums, two comedy specials, six parts of the Terrorizing Telemarketers prank call compilation, and three parts of the hidden camera show Meet the Creeps. His 2018 book, "Everybody's Awful (Except You!)", became a number-one bestseller in documentary books at Book Soup.
Early Life
Jim Florentine was born on August 18, 1964, in Brooklyn, New York, into a large Catholic family. Raised with six siblings, Florentine began his career at comedy clubs in New York City.
Personal Life
Florentine is a native of central New Jersey. He came from a large Catholic family and was one of seven children who attended St. Ambrose's Catholic School. He has stated in various interviews and his performances that he dislikes his religious upbringing. Florentine was interested in pursuing a musical career as a child due to his love of heavy metal music but has often joked that he never had the talent to play a musical instrument. His family lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for several years when his father decided he wanted to start a family business selling hot dogs. The business was unsuccessful, however, and the family returned to New Jersey. Florentine struggled with drug and alcohol abuse as a teenager and was in and out of rehab programs. He has stated that finding a love for hard rock music led him towards a straighter path in life.
In the 1980s, Florentine became a DJ at WCNJ (now WCNM), his college radio station in Hazlet, New Jersey.
Florentine was inspired to pursue stand-up comedy after first seeing Andrew Dice Clay in a Rodney Dangerfield comedy special. He and Jim Norton met Dice backstage at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles in the late '90s, and the three hit it off, with Florentine and Norton later opening for him.
In December 2006, his girlfriend of six years, Jade, committed suicide while he was on stage performing. While a guest on The Howard Stern Show in August 2007, Jim Florentine asked co-host Robin Quivers to go on a date with him during a segment on the show. After the attention this gained, Quivers became silent on the topic. On July 28, 2008, Quivers announced on the radio show that she and Florentine had broken up, the breakup was amicable, Florentine had been "upfront and honest," and that it was he who had initiated the split.
He had a child in 2010 with lacrosse coach Samantha Warner. They were married in 2012 (her third, his first) and divorced in 2015 after he hired a private investigator who caught Warner having sex with a New Jersey police officer.
Career
In July 2001, Florentine released the first volume of Terrorizing Telemarketers. After numerous appearances on Howard Stern's radio show, the Amazon.com ranking of his CD shot up from 282,363 to number two. The only act that outsold him was the Backstreet Boys. Later that week, Florentine's CD reached number 17 on the Internet Billboard chart.
After the release of the second volume of Terrorizing Telemarketers in late 2001, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla enjoyed Florentine's prank phone calls and hired him for a show that debuted in June 2002 on Comedy Central called Crank Yankers. Florentine played Special Ed, a developmentally challenged teenager, and Bobby Fletcher, Ed's sleazy, alcoholic older cousin.
After the first season, Eminem became a fan of Florentine's characters and flew him to his Detroit studio to collaborate on prank calls for the upcoming season of Crank Yankers. The following year, in 2004, Eminem and Florentine made a brief appearance together at the MTV Music Awards, where Eminem beat up Special Ed, who had become a nuisance to him (and ripped his arm off). Crank Yankers ran for three seasons on Comedy Central. The show moved to MTV2 in 2006 for one season. The character Florentine created, Special Ed, is still played at various sporting events at stadiums around the U.S.
Florentine was featured in the premiere of the sketch comedy series Down and Dirty with Jim Norton, which aired on HBO on October 3, 2008. The show featured up-and-coming talent and established stars, including Artie Lange, Bill Burr (Chappelle's Show), Patrice O'Neal, and Andrew Dice Clay. Motörhead lead singer Lemmy was the show's music director.
Later that year, That Metal Show debuted on VH1 Classic. Florentine co-hosted the show with fellow comedian Don Jamieson and rock radio personality Eddie Trunk. The show discussed various topics within the hard rock and metal community, had interviews with musicians, and gave away prizes to the audience. The show ended production in 2015.
Florentine has been featured on The Apprentice, Comedy Central's Motherload, HBO's Inside the NFL, Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, The Opie and Anthony Show, Opie with Jim Norton, The Howard Stern Show, Spike TV's Video Game Awards, MTV Music Video Awards, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Call with Carson Daly, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn on Comedy Central, The List on VH1, Louis Anderson's Comedy Showcase, Jim Norton and Sam Roberts on Sirius/XM, and @midnight on Comedy Central. He has also voiced the radio host Bobby Ray in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.
He has a series of prank call CDs known as Terrorizing Telemarketers, Volumes 1–5. The CDs feature a series of recorded telephone conversations, often with Florentine receiving calls from telemarketers, in which he turns the tables on the often-aggressive salesmen by intentionally acting difficult and creating awkward situations.
In 2004, he worked one season on the HBO series Inside the NFL, performing various comedy sketches. The show won an Emmy Award that season, and Florentine has proudly stated in various interviews that when he was single, he kept it on his nightstand, and it closed the deal every time he had a date over. He has called it his "Mariano Rivera."
Around the same time, Florentine released two hidden camera DVDs titled Meet The Creeps, in which he and partner Don Jamieson played outrageous pranks on people. The DVDs made their way into the hands of some Comedy Central executives, who then greenlit Meet The Creeps for their broadband channel, Motherload. After two successful seasons, Comedy Central produced a pilot for the network series Meet The Creeps. The pilot was deemed too mean-spirited, however, and the show never aired on the network.
Florentine has made three appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC between 2004 and 2008. He has also appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn. In 2007, Florentine appeared in the fourth-season finale of The Apprentice, performing his edgy stand-up comedy routine at a conservative charity event. He referred to Trump's partner George as wearing adult diapers. He has not appeared on The Apprentice since.
He is an occasional guest on the Fox News Channel late-night show Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld.
Later in 2010, Florentine appeared in the feature film Little Help as the character Brian.
In 2011, Florentine launched his weekly podcast Comedy, Metal, Midgets. It is one of the most popular comedy podcasts, regularly charting in the top 20 each week.
On October 25, 2011, Florentine released his stand-up record on Metal Blade Records titled Cringe N Purge. It debuted at number three on the iTunes charts and number five on the Comedy Billboard chart.
In June 2012, Florentine hosted the OMA Awards for MTV, which aired worldwide. The 11th season of That Metal Show, co-hosted by Florentine, premiered on VH1 Classic in August 2012. Florentine also opened for Metallica at Orionfest, which had an attendance of over 50,000 fans.
On September 4, 2012, Florentine released his second comedy CD on Metal Blade Records titled Awful Jokes From My First Comedy Notebook. It also debuted at number three on the iTunes charts and number 10 on the Comedy Billboard chart. Jim is only the third comedian to ever have two CDs debut in the top 10 in the same year. The premise for the CD was that Jim stumbled upon his first-ever comedy notebooks from when he first started doing comedy back in the early 1990s. He couldn't believe how bad his early jokes were and decided to share them with his fans, so he went into a recording studio and read his terrible jokes directly from the notebook. The CD received critical acclaim in the comedy world for taking such a big risk.
On April 17, 2013, podcaster Marc Maron published a lengthy interview with Florentine on his WTF podcast series.
He has also been in the television shows Californication, Girls, and Inside Amy Schumer.
