Jim Florentine
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James Bernard Florentine (born August 18, 1964) is an American comedian, actor, author, and television personality. He is best known for co-hosting '' That Metal Show'' on VH1 Classic and voicing several characters on '' Crank Yankers'', including Special Ed and Bobby Fletcher. He hosts ''The Jim Florentine Show'' on Sirius XM Satellite Radio and a podcast called ''Everybody Is Awful (Except You)''. He has released six albums of stand-up comedy, two comedy specials, seven installments in the ''Terrorizing Telemarketers'' prank call compilation, and three installments of the ''Meet the Creeps'' hidden camera show. His 2018 book ''Everybody is Awful (Except You!)'' reached No. 1 on the Book Soup nonfiction chart.


Early life

He was born on August 18, 1964, in
Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...
(New York) to a large Catholic family. He has six brothers and sisters and launched his career in New York City comedy clubs.


Personal life

Florentine is a native of
central New Jersey Central Jersey, or Central New Jersey, is the middle region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. The designation Central Jersey is a distinct administrative division, administrative toponymy, toponym. While New Jersey is often divided into North Je ...
. He came from a large Catholic family and was one of the seven children who attended the Catholic school, St Ambrose. He has stated in various interviews and in his stand-up act that he disliked his religious upbringing. Florentine was interested in a musical career growing up because of his love for heavy metal music, but would often joke that he never had the talent to play an instrument. His family lived for several years in
Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale ( ) is a coastal city located in the U.S. state of Florida, north of Miami along the Atlantic Ocean. It is the county seat of and most populous city in Broward County, Florida, Broward County with a population of 182,760 at the ...
when his father decided he wanted to set up a family-run hot dog vending business. The business, however, proved unsuccessful, and the family moved back to
New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...
. In his late teens, Florentine had drug and alcohol problems and was in and out of rehab. He has stated his love of hard rock music set him on a straight path in life. Florentine became a DJ on WCNJ (now WCNM), his college radio station in Hazlet, New Jersey, in the 1980s. Florentine was inspired to do stand-up comedy after seeing Andrew Dice Clay for the first time on 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 becoming his opening acts. Jade, his girlfriend of six years, committed suicide in December 2006 while he was away performing on stage. In August 2007, while a guest on ''
The Howard Stern Show ''The Howard Stern Show'' is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was radio syndication, nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WINS-FM, WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The sho ...
'', Jim Florentine asked co-host Robin Quivers to go on a date with him during a show segment. Due to the attention this garnered, Quivers became tight-lipped about the topic. On July 28, 2008, Quivers announced on the radio show that she and Florentine had ended their relationship, the breakup was amicable, Florentine was "genuine and honest," and that he was the one who initiated the breakup. In 2010, he had a child with lacrosse coach Samantha Warner. The two 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 ''Terrorizing Telemarketers Volume 1''. After numerous plays on the '' Howard Stern Radio Show'', his CD ranking on Amazon.com went from 282,363 to number 2. The only artist ahead of him was the Backstreet Boys. Later that week, Florentine's CD came in at No. 17 on the Internet Billboard charts. After the release of ''Terrorizing Telemarketers Volume 2'' in late 2001, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla took a liking to Florentine's prank calls and hired him for a show to debut in June 2002 on Comedy Central called '' Crank Yankers''. Florentine played Special Ed, a developmentally disabled teenager, and Bobby Fletcher, a despicable, alcoholic slob who is the older cousin of Ed. After season 1,
Eminem Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem, is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time, he is credited with popula ...
took a liking to Florentine's characters and flew him out to his Detroit studio to do prank calls together for the upcoming season of ''Crank Yankers''. The following year in 2004, Eminem and Florentine did a bit together on the MTV Music Awards show where Eminem beat up Special Ed, who kept annoying him (and tore his leg off). ''Crank Yankers'' lasted three seasons on Comedy Central. The show moved over to MTV2 in 2006 for one season. Florentine's Special Ed character that he created is still played at various sporting events at stadiums across the USA. Florentine was featured on the series premiere of ''Down and Dirty with Jim Norton'', a comedy series that aired on
HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
on October 3, 2008. The series spotlights new and established talent, including Artie Lange, Bill Burr ('' Chappelle Show''), Patrice O'Neal, and Andrew Dice Clay. Lemmy, leader of the heavy metal band Motörhead, served as the musical director. Later that year, ''That Metal Show'' made its debut on VH1 Classic. Florentine co-hosted the show with fellow comedian Don Jamieson and rock radio broadcaster Eddie Trunk. The show discussed various topics in the hard rock and metal community, along with interviewing musicians and giveaways for the audience. The show ended production in 2015. Florentine has been seen on '' The Apprentice'', Comedy Central's ''Mother Load'', HBO's '' Inside the NFL'', '' The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn'', ''The Opie and Anthony Show'', '' Opie with Jim Norton'', ''
The Howard Stern Show ''The Howard Stern Show'' is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was radio syndication, nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WINS-FM, WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The sho ...
'', 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, VH1's ''The List'', Louie Anderson's '' Comedy Showcase'', Jim Norton and Sam Roberts on Sirius/XM and Comedy Central's '' @midnight''. He also voiced the redneck radio host Bobbie 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, wherein he turns the tables on often aggressive salespeople by being deliberately difficult and creating awkward situations. In 2004, he worked one season on HBO's '' Inside the NFL'' performing various comedy sketches. The show won an Emmy that season and Florentine has proudly said in various interviews that when he was single, he kept it on his nightstand, and it would close the deal anytime he had a date over. He called it his "Mariano Rivera". At the same time, Florentine released two hidden camera DVDs named Meet The Creeps, where he and his partner Don Jamieson pulled outrageous pranks on people. The DVDs fell into the hands of some ''Comedy Central'' executives, who then brought ''Meet The Creeps'' to their broadband channel called ''Motherload''. After two successful seasons, Comedy Central created a ''Meet The Creeps'' pilot for the network. However, the pilot was deemed too mean-spirited, and the show never made it on the network. Between 2004 and 2008, he made three appearances on '' Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' on ABC. He also appeared on '' The Late Late Show Craig Kilborn''. In 2007, Florentine appeared on the last episode of '' The Apprentice'' in season 4 doing his edgy stand-up comedy at a conservative charity event. He asked Trump's partner George if he wears a diaper. He has not appeared on ''The Apprentice'' since. He is an occasional guest on the late-night Fox News Channel show '' Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld''. Later in 2010, Florentine appeared in the feature film '' A Little Help'' as Brian. In 2011, Florentine launched his weekly podcast called ''Comedy, Metal, Midgets''. It is one of the most popular comedy podcasts landing in the top 20 every week. On October 25, 2011, Florentine released his stand-up CD on Metal Blade Records called ''Cringe N Purge''. It landed at No. 3 on the
iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
charts and No. 5 on the Comedy Billboard Charts. In June 2012, Florentine hosted the OMA Awards for MTV, which aired worldwide. In August 2012, That Metal Show that Jim co-hosts on VH1 Classic will be going into its 11th season. Florentine also opened for the band Metallica at the Orionfest festival which attracted over 50,000 fans. On September 4, 2012, Florentine released his second CD on Metal Blade Records called ''Awful Jokes From My First Comedy Notebook''. The CD also landed at No. 3 on the iTunes Charts and No. 10 on the Comedy Billboard Charts. Jim is only the third comedian ever to have two CDs land in the top 10 in the same year. The concept for this CD was that Jim stumbled across his first comedy notebooks from when he started doing comedy back in the early 1990s. He could not believe how bad his early jokes were and decided to share them with his fans and went into a recording studio and read his awful jokes directly out of his notebook. The CD has received critical acclaim in the comedy world for taking a huge risk. On April 17, 2013, radio personality Marc Maron posted a lengthy interview with Florentine on his '' WTF'' podcast series. He was also on '' Californication'', '' Girls'', and '' Inside Amy Schumer''. In 2015, Jim was on the season finale of '' Louie'' and was submitted for an Emmy nomination for "Best Guest Star." In 2016, he released two comedy specials, ''I'm Your Savior'' was a critically acclaimed one-man show about his life and the death of his ex-girlfriend. His second special released the same year, '' A Simple Man'' debuted at number one on the comedy charts.


Filmography


Television work


Video games

* '' Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories'' .... Bobbie Ray (2006)


Discography

* ''Terrorizing Telemarketers I'' (CD) * ''Terrorizing Telemarketers II'' (CD) * ''Terrorizing Telemarketers III'' (CD) * ''Terrorizing Telemarketers IV'' (CD) * ''Terrorizing Telemarketers V'' (CD) * ''Terrorizing Telemarketers VI'' (CD) * ''Get The Kids Out Of The Room'' (2005) (CD) * ''Anger's A Gift'' (2008) (CD) * ''Cringe & Purge'' (2011) (CD) * ''Awful Jokes From My First Comedy Notebook'' (2012) (CD) * ''I'm Your Savior'' DVD/CD) *''A Simple Man'' (DVD) * ''I Got The House'' * ''Bite The Bullet'' * ''Terrorizing Telemarketers VII'' (CD)


DVDs

* ''Meet The Creeps Volume 1'' (DVD) * ''Meet The Creeps Volume 2'' (DVD) * ''Meet The Creeps Volume 3'' (DVD)


References


External links

* *
Interview with WickedInfo.com

Jim Florentine on Tom Green Live



Jim Florentine Podcast
{{DEFAULTSORT:Florentine, Jim Living people American stand-up comedians American male writers American male voice actors Place of birth missing (living people) American male film actors American male television actors American male video game actors American television personalities Barstool Sports people American puppeteers 1964 births American Internet celebrities Male actors from New Jersey 21st-century American male actors 20th-century American male actors Comedians from Brooklyn 20th-century American comedians 21st-century American comedians Comedians from New Jersey American male comedians Male actors from Brooklyn