Doug Benson

Douglas Steven Benson (born July 2, 1962) is an American comedian, marijuana rights advocate, television and podcast host, and actor, best known for hosting the podcasts and TV series Doug Loves Movies (2006–present), The Benson Interruption (2010-2013), Getting Doug with High (2013-2019) and The High Court with Doug Benson (2017).

While working as a stand-in on numerous movies in the 1980s, he had roles as an extra in films such as Blade Runner, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, About Last Night and a backup dancer in the Disney theme park attraction Captain EO.

While in Los Angeles, Benson began doing stand-up after he and two other friends dared each other to.

One of them did not show up, and the other one signed up too late.

Benson claimed that "I went in anyway and did my three minutes of whatever I could come with and people actually laughed."

At the age of 22, Benson began performing regularly as a stand-up comedian.

However, it wasn't until 28 that he became a stoner, after a week's worth of gigs smoking pot afterwards alongside Brian Posehn and Greg Proops.

He made his earliest television appearances as a stand-up in the late 1980s and early 1990s on programs such as Comedy Central's The A-List and Two Drink Minimum and was one of the featured comedians in the cast of Joel Hodgson's sketch-comedy pilot The TV Wheel which aired on Comedy Central in 1995.

One of Benson's earliest jobs in television was writing for the MTV game-show Trashed in 1994.

Along with comedian friends Arj Barker and Tony Camin, Benson co-created and performed in the comedy stage-show The Marijuana-Logues.

He also hosted High Times ' 6th annual Stony Awards with rapper Redman.

Benson appeared on the comedy compilation album Comedy Death-Ray.

In 2006, Benson began hosting a weekly comedy podcast, titled Doug Loves Movies (formerly I Love Movies with Doug Benson), which is recorded in front of a live audience at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles.

The show typically tapes weekly, and is later archived on iTunes for fans to listen to for free.

Benson and guests talk about movies and comedy both.

A regular feature of the podcast is the Leonard Maltin Game, which has been described as Name That Tune with movies instead of songs.

The game consists of Benson reading excerpts from a Leonard Maltin review and guests wagering how many names, read from the bottom of the cast list up, it would take for them to identify the movie.

Other regular features of the podcast include the segments Tweet Relief: Tweets About Movies, Watch This/Not That, Not for Emetophobes, and From the Corrections Department, as well as the games Build a Title, Name a Movie, A-B-C-Deez Nuts, How Much Did This Shit Make?, Lincoln or Bane?, Love, Like, Hate, Hate-Like, Doing Lines with Mark Wahlberg, Last Man Stanton, Whose Tagline Is It Anyway, Now Buscemi Now You Don't, Tell The Truth!, Live Die Repeat, Alex and Jason and Deb's IMDB game, and F Marry Kill: Movies.

At the conclusion of many of the early podcasts, Doug would state "As always, Willem Dafoe is a Shithead," which resulted in so many people wondering about why, that Google searches began to automatically complete the phrase as a suggested match.

The Willem Dafoe comment started as a joke based on the fact that it would seemingly be the only bad words ever uttered about Dafoe, but many people didn't catch on and, after explaining it a few times, Benson decided to let Dafoe rest.

In 2007, he was a contestant on the 5th season of the reality competition show Last Comic Standing.

In 2007, he starred in the film Super High Me, a documentary about marijuana usage.

He has also acted in small roles in numerous TV shows, including Trailer Park Boys and You're the Worst, as well as several films, including serving as the voice of Bane in The Lego Batman Movie.

Benson was born and raised in San Diego, California, to parents Wendy (Young), a pharmacy clerk, and Robert Matthew Benson, a former English teacher turned salesman.

Doug attended Grossmont High School and was active in the drama department.

He also collaborated with a friend on several 8 mm action/thriller short movies during his junior and senior years.

After attending Grossmont College, a community college in El Cajon, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.

Benson was raised Methodist.

As a child, Benson struggled with vertigo and poor depth perception as a result of his close-set eyes.

As a comedian, he has released 10 comedy albums, starting with Professional Humoredian in 2008, and has regularly appeared on TV shows including Comedy Central Presents, Best Week Ever and @midnight.

On August 4, 2009, Benson's second album, Unbalanced Load, was released by Comedy Central Records.

His third album, Hypocritical Oaf was released on August 31, 2010.

Benson aims to record a new album every April 20 (with a subsequent summer release date) for as many consecutive years as possible.

In 2010, Benson started an annual, 2 hour Twelve Guests of Christmas special every holiday season.

Benson's fourth album, Potty Mouth, was released on August 29, 2011.

The pattern continued with the release of his fifth album, Smug Life, which was released on July 3, 2012, and Gateway Doug, his sixth album, released on July 9, 2013.

On July 8, 2014, Doug released a sequel to Gateway Doug entitled Gateway Doug 2: Forced Fun.

His latest album release is Promotional Tool which came out on June 9, 2015.

Until 2019, the runners up in the Leonard Maltin game are allowed to name one shithead as a consolation prize.

Starting in early 2019, Benson now closes the show with "Positive Energy" in honor of his late friend, Brody Stevens