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Brian Unger

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Brian Unger
Born (1965-07-12) July 12, 1965 (age 59)
Dayton, Ohio, United States
Occupation(s)Actor, comedian, writer, producer, and commentator
Years active1996–present

Brian D. Unger[1] (born July 12, 1965)[2] Born: November 30, 1965 in Granville, Ohio, USA [3] is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and commentator.

Biography

Born in Dayton, Ohio to Richard ("Rich") Unger and Eleanor ("Ellie") Oprea, Unger grew up in Granville. He graduated Granville Highschool and then from Ohio University in 1987, where he majored in communication.[4] 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 has Romanian ethnic heritage.[5]

Career

Unger was an original correspondent and producer on The Daily Show, from 1996-99. [6] While working for The Daily Show in 1998, he was named one of Entertainment Weekly's "100 Most Creative People in Entertainment." [4] 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 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.[7]

Unger has appeared as a spokesman for Yoo-hoo and Maxwell House Coffee. In 2008, he 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.[8] He also appears in a number of recent Quicken Loans commercials.

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. The show shortly joined the former Current TV television network from 2011 to 2013.

How the States Got Their Shapes

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. As of 2014, Unger co-hosts Showdown of the Unbeatables.

As of September 8, 2013, Brian Unger hosted an NFL.com segment titled "Game Day Satisfaction: Week 1".[9]

References

  1. ^ "Ohio Birth Index". Ogs.org. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  2. ^ "Brian Unger INVALID Twitter". Twitter.com. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  3. ^ "Brian Unger IMDB". imdb.com. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
  4. ^ a b "Brian Unger". Ohio History Central. Ohio Historical Society. August 1, 2006.
  5. ^ on his own admission at minute 98 of the How the States Got Their Shapes special
  6. ^ "Yahoo TV". Tv.yahoo.com. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  7. ^ [1] Archived December 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Abe Sauer. "Minor Celeb Endorsements Trip Up Sony, BMW". Brandchannel.com. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  9. ^ "Game Day Satisfaction: Week 1". NFL.com. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
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