American comedianFor other people named Pete Holmes, see Pete Holmes (disambiguation).

Peter Benedict Holmes (born March 30, 1979) is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and podcaster. Holmes is known for his cheerful personality, self-aware humor, and musings on spirituality and religion, which are all frequent themes across his works.

Contents

• 1 Early life
• 2 Career
  • 2.1 You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes
  • 2.2 The Pete Holmes Show
  • 2.3 Crashing
  • 2.4 Badman
• 3 Influences
• 4 Personal life
• 5 Discography
• 6 Filmography
  • 6.1 Film
  • 6.2 Television
• 7 References
• 8 External links

Early life

Peter Benedict Holmes was born in Boston on March 30, 1979, the son of a Lithuanian refugee mother and an American father of Irish descent. He has a brother who composes music under the name Dr. Holmes. He attended Lexington High School and Gordon College in Wenham, M*achusetts, during which time he played in a punk rock band. In college, he majored in English and communications and participated in an improvisational comedy troupe called The Sweaty-Toothed Madmen. Partly at the behest of his mother, he had plans to become a youth pastor. This gave way to public speaking, and his love for comedy and his devolving faith in God eventually won over his need to preach; he now refers to himself as "Christ-leaning" or jokingly a "hooraytheist". Finding little success as a comedian in his home state, he lived in Sleepy Hollow, New York, before moving to Chicago and then Los Angeles.

Career

Early in his career, Holmes performed on the Christian comedy circuit.

Holmes has appeared on Comedy Central's Premium Blend, as a regular panelist on VH1's Best Week Ever, and on VH1's All Access. His cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker. In 2010, he performed on John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show as well as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. On February 26, 2010, he performed his first television special on the series Comedy Central Presents. On March 21, 2011, and on November 17, 2011, he appeared on the TBS talk show Conan.

Holmes has provided the voices for several of the characters on Comedy Central's cartoon Ugly Americans. He was the voice of the E-Trade baby on several television commercials and was credited as a writer for those commercials.

He wrote for the NBC primetime sitcom Outsourced and for the Fox sitcom I Hate My Teenage Daughter prior to its cancellation in May 2012.

Holmes released his first album, Impregnated With Wonder, on iTunes on November 15, 2011. In 2013, he released his second album, Nice Try, The Devil. He released his third album, Faces and Sounds, in 2016. In 2019, he released his fourth album, "Dirty Clean."

Holmes has created a comedic portrayal of Batman in CollegeHumor's internet series Badman. He ran a YouTube channel which was focused around skits alongside Matthew McCarthy called frontpagefilms.

Holmes created and stars in the HBO series Crashing. The pilot was written by Holmes and directed by Judd Apatow. After the season three finale, it was announced that HBO had canceled the series.

On May 14, 2019, Holmes released his book Comedy Sex God, which is described as, "Part autobiography, part philosophical inquiry, and part spiritual quest."

On March 29, 2021, Holmes was selected to play the lead role of a laid-off auto worker-turned-professional bowler (based on the life of Tom Smallwood) in a CBS sitcom pilot. On May 14, 2021, the pilot for Smallwood was ordered to series, with a mid-season debut planned for the 2021–22 television season. On November 24, CBS announced the sitcom has been re*led How We Roll, and received an adjusted first season order of 11 episodes. On December 10, 2021, CBS announced the series would premiere on March 31, 2022. On May 5, 2022, CBS announced the show had been canceled after one season.

You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

Main article: You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

Holmes hosts a podcast, You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes. It has featured guests such as Garry Shandling, Judd Apatow, Aziz Ansari, John Mulaney, Ben Schwartz, and Dana Carvey. Topics typically discussed in each episode are the guests' views on comedy, sexuality, and religion.

The Pete Holmes Show

Main article: The Pete Holmes Show

On August 21 and 23 in 2012, Holmes recorded three episodes of a talk show pilot for TBS, produced by Conan O'Brien, en*led The Midnight Show with Pete Holmes. Holmes's guests on the unaired pilots included Nick Offerman, Joel McHale, T. J. Miller, and Bill Burr. On February 26, 2013, TBS picked up the show and began airing in late 2013. As of July 10, 2013 the name of the show was The Pete Holmes Show. The series premiered on October 28, after Conan.

The show was picked up for a second season by TBS. On December 9, 2013, Gabe Liedman performed the show's first stand-up routine. On May 23, 2014, TBS canceled the talk show after two seasons following poor audience ratings. The show ended its run on June 19, 2014.

Crashing

Main article: Crashing (American TV series)

Crashing is a semi-autobiographical show on HBO that revolves around Holmes' character Pete, a young comedian who pursues a career in stand-up comedy after his wife cheats on him, leaving him homeless. Holmes successfully pitched the idea of the show to Judd Apatow and it was picked up by HBO for filming in September 2015, with Apatow as director. The success of the pilot led HBO to give the green-light to the first season in January 2016. After four episodes had aired, HBO renewed the series for a second season which premiered on January 14, 2018.

On February 21, 2018, HBO renewed the series for a third season. Although season three was praised by critics, HBO canceled Crashing in March 2019.

Badman

Main article: CollegeHumor

Holmes portrays the lead character Batman in this parody web series. The series recreates scenes from Christopher Nolan's Batman films with a comedic twist, such as Batman appearing completely incompetent or sex-obsessed.

Influences

Holmes has listed Weird Al, Brian Regan, Sinbad, Steve Martin, Gallagher, Jackie Martling, Conan O'Brien, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Farley, Dane Cook, and Ray Romano as his biggest comedic influences.

Personal life

Holmes married his first wife, whose name has never been disclosed, when he was 22 years old. After she had an affair, they divorced when he was 28. He married Valerie Chaney in late 2017. Their daughter, Lila Jane, was born in September 2018.

Holmes is a vegan.

Discography

• Impregnated with Wonder (2011)
• Nice Try, The Devil (2013)
• Faces and Sounds (2016)
• Dirty Clean (2018)

Filmography

Film

Television

References

External links

• Official website
• Pete Holmes at IMDb
• Pete Holmes on Twitter