From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Colin Quinn (born June 6, 1959) is a Irish-American comedian, best known for his five years in the cast of Saturday Night Live.

Contents 1 Early years 2 Saturday Night Live 3 Recurring Characters on SNL 4 Celebrity Impersonations on SNL 4.1 Post-SNL career 5 External links

Colin Quinn was born in Brooklyn to an Irish-American family and was raised in the Park Slope section of the borough. His gravelly Brooklyn accent and idiosyncratic mannerisms are trademarks of his stand-up act, headlining at top comedy clubs across the country, including Caroline's Comedy Club in New York City. Before becoming a comedian, Quinn worked as a bartender. He stopped drinking in the early 1980s after several bad experiences with booze, including drunken blackouts and nights spent in jail.^{[citation needed]}

After quitting bartending, Quinn began his stand-up career in 1984. Some people believe that Jon Stewart wrote Quinn's jokes; in reality Stewart only wrote jokes for an A&E show called Caroline's Comedy Hour, which Quinn hosted in 1989.

He first achieved fame in 1987 as co-host of the MTV game show Remote Control, in which Adam Sandler and Denis Leary appeared. Quinn co-hosted the show for three years, and in 1989 acted in and wrote the comedic short Going Back to Brooklyn along with Ben Stiller. Much of his early comedy career focused on stand-up and writing for shows like In Living Color. He later co-wrote the story and was an associate producer for the movie Celtic Pride, starring Damon Wayans and Dan Aykroyd.

In 1992 he guest starred on episode 5 of The Ben Stiller Show.

In 1995, Quinn was hired by Saturday Night Live as a writer and featured player until early 1998 season, when he became a full cast member. He established himself on the show with characters such as "Lenny the Lion" and "Joe Blow", and did the recurring segment "Colin Quinn Explains the New York Times". Quinn took over as host of the Weekend Update segment in January 1998 after Norm MacDonald's firing, and anchored the segment until departing SNL in 2000. Quinn would often comment on the highly publicized media circuses such as Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal and the Microsoft Anti-Trust Trial.

At the end of each Weekend Update segment, he would use the catchphrase, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it." During his time on SNL, Quinn often struggled to read from cue cards or a teleprompter. He was not thrilled about his run on the show, declaring on an episode of Tough Crowd, "I don't miss it."

During his SNL years, Quinn made his Broadway debut in his one-man show, Colin Quinn: An Irish Wake co-written with fellow comedian Lou DiMaggio, and was offered the role of Scott Evil in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery by Mike Myers, which he turned down to make time for his writing projects [1]. The role was taken by Seth Green.

• Gene, an ex-convict who does menial jobs.
• Joe Blow, a blue-collar worker from Queens who complains about the declining quality of his neighborhood.
• Lenny The Lion, a lion, similar to his Joe Blow character, only he talks about trying to better himself.
• Rolf, a racist who always has second thoughts about his behavior.

• Dale Jarrett
• Elvis Costello
• Gerry Adams
• Leon Panetta
• Robert DeNiro in the now infamous "Joe Pesci Show" sketch where the real Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci make a surprise appearance.

After leaving SNL, Quinn had a sketch comedy show on NBC called The Colin Quinn Show that lasted for only three episodes in 2002, after being canceled due to surprisingly strong, "edgy" racial content, critical pans, and mediocre ratings.

Quinn became host of Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn on Comedy Central in 2003. The show immediately followed The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and was one of several attempts to create a companion show for Stewart's program (eventually this was achieved with The Colbert Report). However, Tough Crowd never managed to keep the majority of its lead-in audience, perhaps because, while both shows dealt with politics, they had widely varying styles of humor, with Quinn's show being less subtly satiric and more rant-based. Although it was renewed through the 2005 television season, Tough Crowd was placed on indefinite hiatus in October 2004, with its "final" episode airing on November 4, 2004. The show featured four comedians (often his friends such as Dave Attell, Jim Norton, and Patrice Oneal) with Quinn as host, discussing various political issues. These conversations often seemed heated and almost violent, but tended to be affectionate at heart. Quinn gave many comedians exposure on the show, which ran for roughly 250 episodes over a two-year period. Quinn often complained on-air about the show's ratings, and made many self-deprecating comments about the state of his career.

Colin performs regularly at the Comedy Cellar in New York City, where many top comedians perform when not on the road. In 2004, he was named #56 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of all time. He was also named to the Irish America Magazine list of the "Top 100 Irish Americans of the Year".[2]

He now can be heard as the "unofficial co-host" on the Nick DiPaolo show on 92.3 Free FM in New York, airing Monday-Friday from noon to 3pm. Nick often refers to him as "the joke fairy," due to his propensity for telling a joke and hanging up the phone before getting a response. Colin also has a top ten podcast on Myspace.com with friend and fellow comedian Robert Kelly.

• Myspace page for Colin
• Comedy Cellar - A Comedy Club in New York and one at which Colin always performs.
• Colin Quinn at the Internet Movie Database
• ColinQuinn.net - Colin Quinn's unOfficial(?) site
• ColinQuinn.com - Colin Quinn's Official site [currently down]
• Colin Quinn Forums - Colin Quinn Forums at ColinQuinn.net
• SNL Transcripts: Colin Quinn - contains searchable database of almost all of Quinn's "SNL" works

Preceded by Norm MacDonald

Weekend Update 1998–2000

Succeeded by Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon