Rise to Fame
At NYU in 1988, he and ten other students formed what became The State on MTV. Fox passed on Reno 911! for being too risque. Comedy Central picked it up, and Lt. Jim Dangle in those short khaki shorts turned into the kind of character people are still doing impressions of. The show ran six seasons, then came back on Quibi in 2020 and Roku in 2022, earning eight Emmy nominations for the Quibi run. That's an unusually long shelf life for a cop show parody.
In the Spotlight
The acting career is a rounding error on the writing career. Working with Robert Ben Garant, he's co-written films that grossed over $1.4 billion worldwide, including the Night at the Museum films and Baywatch. Hollywood casts him as the reliable supporting guy in everything from Christopher Nolan pictures to Netflix comedies. He's also a New York Times-bestselling children's book author. Nobody who knows him from Reno 911! expects any of that.
Side Notes
He appeared in two separate Christopher Nolan films, Memento (2000) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), with no scripted connection between them. Four of his sketches appeared on IFC's 2008 list of the 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time. He also writes Irish fantasy novels for young readers, and the Ronan Boyle series hit the New York Times bestseller list. He met his Reno 911! co-star Kerri Kenney at theater camp at sixteen, which is a more wholesome origin story than the show suggests.