Patton Oswalt Concerts Tickets

About Patton Oswalt

Patton Oswalt was born on January 27, 1969 in Portsmouth, Virginia, into a military family. Oswalt was named after General George S. Patton, and spent his childhood moving across the US due to his father's career as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. His family lived in Ohio and Tustin, California, before settling in Virginia, where they lived in Sterling and where Oswalt attended Broad Run High School in Ashburn. After graduating high school in 1987, he enrolled at The College of William & Mary where he majored in English, and was initiated into the Alpha Theta Chapter of the Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity.

Career

A year after graduating high school, in the summer of 1988, Oswalt performed his first ever stand-up set at Garvin's comedy club in Washington, D.C. Whilst at college, he worked as a paralegal and had plans to pursue a writing career, but he fell in love with comedy and began performing stand-up professionally in 1989, relocating to San Francisco in 1992 to sharpen his skills on the comedy circuit. It was around this time that he landed his first comedy writing job, working alongside fellow comedian Blaine Capatch on a series of short films for Comedy Central called Food for Thought.

In 1995, Oswalt moved to Los Angeles, where he became a writer for Fox's new sketch comedy series Mad TV. He was cast in several bit-parts on shows like Seinfeld and The Weird Al Show, and in 1996 he filmed an HBO Half Hour Comedy Hour, where he performed his stand-up on TV for the first time. That year, he also made his feature film debut in the military comedy submarine movie Down Periscope.

In 1998, he was cast in the role of Spencer Olchin in the CBS sitcom The King of Queens – a role that he played for nine years through nine seasons. Throughout the late-1990s and early-2000s, Oswalt's profile grew as he starred in another stand-up special, this time for Comedy Central, and had roles in the features Magnolia, Man on the Moon, and Zoolander, as well as voice acting roles for varies animated series. It was in the early-2000s that Oswalt also first tried his hand at writing for comic books, beginning with "JLA: Welcome to the Working Week", a DC one-shot story in Batman #600 in 2003.

His debut comedy album, Feelin' Kinda Patton (2004), is an edited version of the previously released 222 (Live & Uncut), which is a recording of a comedy set at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia. In the fall of 2004, he formed the Comedians of Comedy collective alongside Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn, and Maria Bamford. The group of alternative comedians toured indie rock venues across the US and the tour was filmed for Comedy Central. The Comedians of Comedy film premiered at the South by Southwest film festival in March 2005 and a six-episode Comedians of Comedy television series, as well as a further tour and appearance at the 2007 Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival.

Oswalt appeared as a roaster on the Comedy Central roasts of William Shatner and Flavor Flav in 2006 and 2007, respectively. 2007 also brought him his first starring film role as the voice of Remy, the lead character in the 2007 Academy Award-winning Pixar film Ratatouille. This was the beginning of a series of high-profile voice acting roles for Oswalt, who has gone on to appear in the animated series Archer, BoJack Horseman, The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Word Girl, as well as his recurring voice role as the narrator on the ABC comedy The Goldbergs. As of 2017, he also voices the titular character on the hit SYFY series Happy!, and in 2018 he had a prominent voice role in the film Sorry to Bother You.

In 2009, Oswalt starred in the Robert Siegel film Big Fan, and earned a Gotham Award nomination for his performance. That year, he was also cast as a series regular on the Showtime comedy-drama United States of Tara, and he earned his first Grammy Award nomination for his comedy album My Weakness is Strong.

2011 brought Oswalt his second Grammy Award nomination for his stand-up album Patton Oswlat: Finest Hour. He also landed a starring role in the Adult Swim black comedy The Heart, She Holler – a role that he played for three seasons. That year, he also found further success in the world of film, starring alongside Charlize Theron in the comedy-drama Young Adult and earning several nominations for his role, including a Critics Choice Award nomination. He won his first Critics Choice Award two years later, taking home the award for Best Guest Performer in a Comedy Series for his role in Parks and Recreation in 2013.

Oswalt has had many notable TV guest roles over the past decade, including recurring roles on the Netflix revival of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Veep, and the 2019 reboot of Veronica Mars, among others.

Five of his seven stand-up comedy specials have been nominated for Grammy Awards, and he won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album with his 2016 Netflix special Talking for Clapping, which also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special. Oswalt's latest Netflix comedy special, Annihilation (2017), received widespread critical acclaim for its funny and tender portrayal of loss, as he addressed the recent death of his wife and his experience of grief. The special recieved both Grammy and Emmy nominations.