Timothy Richard Heidecker (; born February 3, 1976) is an American comedian, writer, director, actor, and musician. Along with Eric Wareheim, he is a member of the comedy duo Tim & Eric. As an actor, Heidecker's filmography includes roles in ''

Bridesmaids Bridesmaids are members of the bride's party at some Western culture, Western traditional wedding ceremonies. A bridesmaid is typically a young woman and often the bride's close friend or relative. She attends to the bride on the day of a weddi ...

'' (2011), '' Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie'' (2012), '' The Comedy'' (2012), '' Ant-Man and the Wasp'' (2018), and '' Us'' (2019). He currently hosts the parodic film review web series ''

On Cinema ''On Cinema'' (also called ''On Cinema at the Cinema'') is an American comedy web series and podcast starring Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington as amateur film critics. The duo appear as fictionalized versions of themselves. The show started ...

'', with guest star Gregg Turkington, and hosts a weekly call-in show, ''Office Hours Live with Tim Heidecker'', with DJ Douggpound and Vic Berger. Heidecker is also a singer-songwriter, having released a blend of

comedy rock Comedy rock is a genre of rock music that is Comedy music, comedic in nature. It is often mixed with satirical music, satire or irony.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, ''All music guide to rock: the definitive guide to rock, pop, and ...

and more earnest

folk rock Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from pop, English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music re ...

across an eight-album solo discography. His latest album, ''Slipping Away'', was released in October of 2024.

Early life and education

Timothy Richard Heidecker was born in

Allentown, Pennsylvania Allentown (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Allenschteddel'', ''Allenschtadt'', or ''Ellsdaun'') is a city in eastern Pennsylvania, United States. The county seat of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh County, it is the List o ...

, on February 3, 1976. He attended and graduated from

Allentown Central Catholic High School Allentown Central Catholic High School (ACCHS), often referred to as Central Catholic or Central, is a private, parochial school located at 301 N. 4th Street in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The school is managed by the Diocese of Allentown, and pred ...

in Allentown, then attended

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist ministe ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, where he met his comedy partner Eric Wareheim.

Career

Television

Heidecker and Wareheim created, wrote, and starred in ''

Tom Goes to the Mayor ''Tom Goes to the Mayor'' is an American adult animated sitcom created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim for Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim. It premiered on November 14, 2004 and ended on September 25, 2006 with a t ...

'', a

limited animation Limited animation is a process in the overall technique of traditional animation that reuses frames of character animation. Early history The use of budget-cutting and time-saving animation measures in animation dates back to the earliest commerc ...

series that aired from November 2004 to September 2006 on

Adult Swim Adult Swim (stylized as dult swimand s is an American adult-oriented television programming block that airs on Cartoon Network which broadcasts during the evening, prime time, and Late-night television, late-night Dayparting, dayparts. T ...

. Heidecker plays Tom, the protagonist of the show who continually brings his ideas to the Mayor (played by Wareheim) only to have them thwarted in most cases, leaving Tom worse off than when he started. According to their website, Wareheim and Heidecker had mailed copies of an early version of the show to comedian

Bob Odenkirk Robert John Odenkirk (; born October 22, 1962) is an American actor, screenwriter, comedian, and producer. He started his career as a comedian and comedy writer before expanding his career by acting in dramatic works. His List of awards and no ...

, who agreed to take on the project as the executive producer of the series and sold it to Adult Swim. The duo's second show, ''

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! ''Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!'' is an American sketch comedy television series created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim for Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block Adult Swim. It premiered on February 11, 2007 and originally ...

'', premiered in 2007, on

. They also created and starred in '' Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie'', and appeared together as debt collectors on the Adult Swim special '' Young Person's Guide to History'' and have made guest appearances in the movie '' Let's Go to Prison'', as well as the Scottish video game series ''

VideoGaiden ''VideoGaiden'' is a Scottish computer games television show that was broadcast by BBC Two Scotland. Its creators and presenters, Robert Florence ("Rab") and Ryan Macleod, were responsible for the internet-distributed videogaming show '' Conso ...

'' and a Version 2 episode of '' Mega64''. Heidecker also had a small role in the 2011 film ''

'', and a leading role in the 2012 independent drama '' The Comedy'', directed by

Rick Alverson Patrick James Alverson Jr. (born June 25, 1971) is an American film director, screenwriter and musician, living in Richmond, Virginia. His films have been characterized by their confrontational nature and unconventional dramatic structure. Care ...

and also starring Wareheim. In July 2012, Heidecker starred in an episode of '' Workaholics''. In 2012, he guest starred in Dinosaur Jr.'s music video "Watch the Corners". In the same year, Heidecker made a cameo appearance on the independent movie reviewing site, Red Letter Media. Heidecker appeared in an episode of the ''

RedLetterMedia Red Letter Media, LLC is an American film and video production company operated by independent filmmakers Mike Stoklasa, Jay Bauman, and Rich Evans. It was formed by Stoklasa in 2004 while he was living in the Scottsdale section of Ashburn, Chica ...

'' series, "Half in The Bag." The episode is titled "Season Finale: Step Up Revolution." Within the short sketch comedy, Heidecker plays a VCR repairman named "Tim". Shortly after his introduction into the scene, he flies through the ceiling and makes his exit from the skit. Heidecker starred in a series of films for Absolut Vodka's website with Wareheim and Zach Galifianakis. In 2010, Heidecker and Wareheim directed a series of Old Spice commercials starring actor

Terry Crews Terry Alan Crews (born July 30, 1968) is an American actor, television host, and former professional American football, football player. He played Julius Rock in the UPN/The CW Television Network, CW sitcom ''Everybody Hates Chris'', which air ...

. Using characters and skits from Awesome Show, Heidecker and Wareheim (via their Abso Lutely Productions company) created an online-only show called " Tim and Eric Nite Live!," originally broadcast on the website SuperDeluxe. Since 2012, Heidecker has hosted a parodic

web series A web series (also known as webseries, short-form series, and web show) is a series of short scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet (i.e. World Wide Web), which first emerged in the late 1 ...

and

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

called ''

'', where he and special guest ( Gregg Turkington) discuss films from past and present. In 2013 an ''On Cinema Film Guide'' app was released, featuring the voices of Heidecker and Turkington reviewing over 17,000 films. Heidecker, Wareheim,

Sarah Silverman Sarah Kate Silverman (born December 1, 1970) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer. She first rose to prominence for her brief stint as a writer and cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series ''Saturday Night Live'' during its ...

Michael Cera Michael Austin Cera ( ; ; born June 7, 1988) is a Canadian actor. Over his career he has received nominations for a British Academy Film Award, three Critics' Choice Movie Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Tony Award. Cera beca ...

, and

Reggie Watts Reginald Lucien Frank Roger Watts (born March 23, 1972) is an American comedian, musician, beatboxer, and actor. His improvised musical sets are created using only his voice, a keyboard, and a looping machine. He refers to himself as a "disinfo ...

announced on the podcast '' Comedy Bang! Bang!'' that they were starting a comedy

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel called '' Jash''. Since 2016, Heidecker has hosted the podcast and web series ''Office Hours Live'' along with Vic Berger and Doug Lussenhop. It features phone and video calls with fans, comedians, musicians, and political commentators. The duo's anthology horror series, '' Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories'', aired on Adult Swim from 2014 to 2017. A sitcom starring the duo, '' Beef House'', premiered in March 2020. On October 23, 2020, Heidecker released his first stand-up comedy special, '' An Evening with Tim Heidecker'', on YouTube. Filmed in the style of a typical standup special, Heidecker's special is a parody of the format in which he deliberately plays a

hack Hack may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Hack (Unix video game), ''Hack'' (Unix video game), a 1984 roguelike video game * .hack (video game series), ''.hack'' (video game series), a series of video games by the multimedia fran ...

stand-up comic.

Music

Heidecker played in various

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent reco ...

bands while in

. He made an appearance in the 2008

Ben Folds Benjamin Scott Folds (born September 12, 1966) is an American singer-songwriter from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. After playing in several small independent bands throughout the late 80s and into the early 90s, Folds came to prominence as the f ...

and

Regina Spektor Regina Ilyinichna Spektor (, ; born February 18, 1980) is a Russian Americans, Russian-born American singer, songwriter, and pianist. After self-releasing her first three records and gaining popularity in New York City's Indie music scene, in ...

music video titled " You Don't Know Me". Although Davin Wood composed the music for ''Awesome Show'', Heidecker would sometimes sing and write lyrics. Williams Street Records released both ''Awesome Record, Great Songs!'' and ''Uncle Muscles Presents Casey and His Brother'' in 2008, featuring music from the first two seasons. Wood previously composed the music for ''Tom Goes to the Mayor'', and he and Heidecker form the duo Heidecker & Wood. Inspired by 1970s soft rock, they released their first album, '' Starting from Nowhere'', on March 15, 2011. The duo released a second album in the same style on November 12, 2013, '' Some Things Never Stay the Same''. They cite the influence of

Randy Newman Randall Stuart Newman (born November 28, 1943) is an American singer, songwriter, arranger, pianist, composer, conductor and orchestrator. He is known for his non-rhotic Southern American English, Southern-accented singing style, early America ...

Warren Zevon Warren William Zevon (January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer and songwriter. His most famous compositions include "Werewolves of London", "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner". All t ...

Harry Nilsson Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994), sometimes credited as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter who reached the peak of his success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering vocal overdub experi ...

, and

Boz Scaggs William Royce "Boz" Scaggs (born June 8, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was a bandmate of Steve Miller (musician), Steve Miller in the Ardells in the early 1960s and a member of the Steve Miller Band from 1967 to 196 ...

. In 2012, Heidecker contributed a

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

campaign jingle for

Herman Cain Herman Cain (December 13, 1945July 30, 2020) was an American businessman and Tea Party movement activist in the Republican Party. Cain graduated from Morehouse College with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. He then earned a master's degree ...

's presidential bid titled "Cain Train". This was the first of nine songs which would eventually become a full album, titled ''Cainthology: Songs in the Key of Cain''. All of the proceeds from the album's sales go to benefit the Violence Intervention Program. The number nine was chosen as the number of songs, and $9.99 the original price, in reference to Herman Cain's 9-9-9 financial plan. Before the release of

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...

's album '' Tempest'' in September 2012, Heidecker released a Dylan pastiche called "Titanic", spoofing the news that the album would feature a 14-minute track about the RMS ''Titanic''. In 2013, he released two more Dylan parodies—"Running Out the Clock", inspired by Dylan's 1983 album ''

Infidels An infidel (literally "unfaithful") is a person who is accused of disbelief in the central tenets of one's own religion, such as members of another religion, or irreligion, irreligious people. Infidel is an Ecclesiology, ecclesiastical term in Ch ...

'', and "Long Black Dress", a song in the actual style of Dylan's album ''Tempest''—and collaborated with the indie band The Earth is a Man on a cover of Dylan's " All the Tired Horses." In 2013, Heidecker released the album ''Urinal St. Station'' under the Drag City label with his band, The Yellow River Boys. The lead single, "Hot Piss", was released in June 2013. ''

Vice Magazine ''Vice'' (stylized in all caps) is a Canadian-American magazine focused on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news/politics. It was founded in 1994 in Montreal as an alternative punk magazine, and its founders later launched the youth media company V ...

'' named ''Urinal St. Station'' as the best album of 2013. Heidecker and Davin Wood composed and performed the song "Weatherman" which was used in the 2014 film ''The Age of Reason''. In June 2014, Heidecker and Wareheim released a 12" single, "Jambalaya", as Pusswhip Banggang. Heidecker's solo album '' In Glendale'' was released in May 20, 2016, on Rado Records. Tim Heidecker released “I Am a Cuck”, a parody of

Paul Simon Paul Frederic Simon (born October 13, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter known for his solo work and his collaborations with Art Garfunkel. He and Garfunkel, whom he met in elementary school in 1953, came to prominence in the 1960s as Sim ...

's song I Am a Rock, on August 26, 2016. He released '' Too Dumb for Suicide: Tim Heidecker's Trump Songs'' via

Jagjaguwar Jagjaguwar is an American independent record label based in Bloomington, Indiana. History In 1996, in Charlottesville, Virginia, University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public resear ...

on November 8, 2017, a year to the date after Trump's presidential victory. In August 2020, Heidecker announced '' Fear of Death'', a concept album featuring members of Foxygen, The Lemon Twigs, and

Weyes Blood Natalie Laura Mering (born June 11, 1988), known professionally as Weyes Blood (pronounced , like "wise blood"), is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She was primarily raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. She has been performing her o ...

, slated for release on September25 from Spacebomb Records. Heidecker's sixth album, ''

High School A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

'', was released June 24, 2022, on Spacebomb Records followed by a supporting North American tour.

Personal life

Heidecker is married to actress Marilyn Porayko. They have a daughter born in 2013 and a son born in 2016. Heidecker joined the

Democratic Socialists of America The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a political organization in the United States and the country's largest Socialism, socialist organization. Sitting on the Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left of the politic ...

in June 2018. He has described himself as both an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

and an

agnostic Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or unknown in fact. (page 56 in 1967 edition) It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to ...

Filmography

Film

Television

Web series

Podcasts

Applications

Discography

Solo

Studio albums * 2011: ''Cainthology: Songs in the Key of Cain'' *2012: ''Titanic and Other Songs'' * 2016: '' In Glendale'' * 2017: '' Too Dumb for Suicide'' * 2019: '' What the Brokenhearted Do...'' * 2020: '' Fear of Death'' * 2022: ''

'' * 2024: ''Slipping Away'' Compilation albums *2018: ''Another Year in Hell: Collected Songs from 2018'' Live albums *2023: ''Live in Boulder''

The Tim Heidecker Masterpiece

* 2000: ''Working Vacation'' (EP) * 2002: ''Theatre of Magic'' (

rock opera A rock opera is a collection of rock music songs with lyrics that relate to a common story. Rock operas are typically released as concept albums and are not scripted for acting, which distinguishes them from operas, although several have been ad ...

)

Tim & Eric

* 2008: '' Awesome Record, Great Songs! Volume One'' * 2008: ''Uncle Muscles Presents Casey And His Brother'' (as Casey and His Brother) * 2014: ''Jambalaya'' (12" single, as Pusswhip Banggang)

Heidecker & Wood

* 2011: '' Starting from Nowhere'' * 2013: '' Some Things Never Stay the Same''

The Yellow River Boys

* 2013: ''Urinal St. Station'' * 2021: ''Greatest Hits''

Bibliography

* (2010) '' Bicycle Built for Two'' (with Gregg Turkington) * (2015) ''Tim and Eric's Zone Theory'' (with Eric Wareheim) * (2019) ''Brendan Kearney's Official On Cinema at the Cinema Reader Volume 1 : 2010–2018'' (with Gregg Turkington and Brendan Kearney)

Stand-up special

* 2020: '' An Evening with Tim Heidecker''

Awards and honors

Webby Award The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

for best actor as part of the comedy team of Tim and Eric * Directors Guild of America Awards nomination for "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials" for CeraVe's "Michael CeraVe" (shared with Eric Wareheim)

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Heidecker, Tim 1976 births Living people 21st-century American comedians 21st-century American male actors 21st-century American male musicians 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American screenwriters Allentown Central Catholic High School alumni American agnostics American atheists American comedy musicians American comedy writers Film producers from Pennsylvania American male comedians American male film actors American male screenwriters American male television actors American male television writers American male web series actors American music video directors American sketch comedians American television directors American television writers California socialists Comedians from Pennsylvania Male actors from Allentown, Pennsylvania Members of the Democratic Socialists of America from Pennsylvania Pennsylvania socialists Screenwriters from Pennsylvania American showrunners Spacebomb Records artists Television producers from Pennsylvania Temple University alumni Tim & Eric Writers from Allentown, Pennsylvania