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Robert Smigel: Insult Comic Dog
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Apr 9, 2001 | For years, Robert Smigel has been keenly aware of the robust comedic results that occur when live animals and puppets commingle in the Bob Guccione sense of the word. With a double decade's worth of experience writing for "Saturday Night Live" and "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," Smigel now has his own show and gives mounting proof that he is indeed America's most perverse puppeteer. Largely inspired by the popularity of his Triumph, the insult comic dog character from "Late Night," Smigel (along with Dino Stamatopoulos) developed "TV Funhouse" for Comedy Central.
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Robert Smigel, creator of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and ‘SNL’s TV Funhouse,’ and Adam Sandler are teaming up to produce a new primetime animated series. Hosted by Fox, the new show titled ‘Animals’ will center on a group of human-like animals that are parodying human life in the suburbs.
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Smigel was a writer/co-producer on SNL from 1985-1993, and the original head writer on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 1993. In addition to his work on SNL’s SATURDAY TV FUNHOUSE, Smigel... portrays and puppeteers Triumph the Insult Comic Dog on LATE NIGHT, as well as providing the voices on many of the interviewees in the popular CLUTCH CARGO segment. Wachtenheim/Marianetti Animation has produced most of the TV FUNHOUSE cartoons since 1999. The original TV FUNHOUSE animators (JJ Sedelmaier Studios) still create occasional cartoons for SATURDAY TV FUNHOUSE, including the ACE AND GARY segments for this special.
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Smigel grew up in Manhattan and struggled as a pre-dental student at Cornell and NYU. After moving to Chicago to study with The Players Workshop of the Second City, Smigel performed sketch comedy on stage and was hired by Al Franken and Tom Davis as a writer for Saturday Night Live in 1985. He wrote for the show from 1985-1993, creating such memorable sketches as Da Super Fans, Schmitts Gay Beer and William Shatner's Trekkies convention. He went on to become the original head writer and producer of Late Night with Conan O'Brien where he still plays Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog and the mouth of President Clinton, Don King, Jesse Ventura and many others.
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TV Funhouse is the title of a recurring skit on NBC's Saturday Night Live featuring cartoons created by longtime SNL writer Robert Smigel and J.J. Sedelmaier Productions, as well as a short-lived spinoff series that ran on Comedy Central. The spinoff series was somewhat of a twisted Pee-Wee's Playhouse-style kiddie show, hosted by Doug Dale and his "Anipals" puppet animal friends, including Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. Every episode had a different theme to it (e.g., "Hawaiian Day" or "Astronaut Day") and saw the Anipals usually getting into some sort of trouble, not wanting to do whatever their happy-go-lucky host had in mind for the day. TV Funhouse frequently satirizes public figures and corporations. In between the host segments, they would show either parodies of 1950s educational films or cartoons most frequently drawn in the flat, low-budget style of Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1970s and 80s.
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Over the years, Smigel has tapped a network of entertainers and comedians who have worked with her husband Robert. He is behind the "TV Funhouse" cartoon featured on Saturday Night Live and is the voice of "Triumph the Insult Comic Dog" from Conan O'Brien's late-night show. He is ... a frequent collaborator with Adam Sandler.
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