Hal Sparks

Hal Harry Magee Sparks III (born September 25, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, musician, political commentator, television and radio host and television personality.

He made contributions to VH1, hosting E!'s Talk Soup, and played the roles of Michael Novotny on the American television series Queer as Folk, Donald Davenport in Lab Rats and the voice of Tak in Tak and the Power of Juju television series and video games.

Sparks was born on September 25, 1969, in Cincinnati, Ohio, but grew up in Peaks Mill, Kentucky.

Sparks played Dungeons & Dragons every Sunday with a group of friends at the local library in Frankfort.

At the age of 11, he became a "de facto dungeon master" because none of his friends wanted to do the reading required to be a dungeon master.

When he was 14 years old, he moved to the Chicago area and enrolled at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, where he entered the theater department.

Despite some initial opposition by his father, by 15 he began performing standup comedy and by 17 he won the title of "Chicago's Funniest Teenager" from a stand-up contest sponsored the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sparks had his screen debut on the television movie Frog, starring Shelley Duvall, Elliott Gould, and Scott Grimes in 1987.

Sparks became the United States' youngest game show emcee in 1988 when he hosted the short-lived, syndicated game show, Treasure Mall.

He also participated on GSN's Extreme Dodgeball as captain of the Chicago Hitmen team.

Sparks had made appearances on various television programs from as early as 1994, when he played a long-haired skateboarder on the fourteenth episode of the first season of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

In 1995, he appeared in the "Gentle Horse" episode of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Upon graduation, Sparks moved to Los Angeles and ten years later he was hired to host Talk Soup in 1999.

He appeared as himself in the video "Beat It," the Michael Jackson cover, by Fall Out Boy, and voiced a cameo on Robot Chicken.

His first breakout role in a mainstream movie was in Dude, Where's My Car? (2000), as Zoltan, the bubble-wrapped leader of a clan of nerds obsessed with outer space.

From 2000 through 2006, he appeared in Martial Law, Frasier, One on One, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and Las Vegas.

In 2004, he starred as Deputy Dale in the independently produced Lightning Bug, which was written and directed by Robert Hall, who was an original bandmate in Hal's hard rock band Zero 1.

In 2006, Sparks competed for the charity Habitat for Humanity on the Fox celebrity competition Celebrity Duets.

He performed with such musical legends as Smokey Robinson, Gladys Knight, Wynonna Judd, Dennis DeYoung, Dee Snider and Sebastian Bach.

He made it to the finale along with Lucy Lawless and Alfonso Ribeiro, and came in third in the series.

In 2007, Sparks became the voice of the lead character in the animated series for children, Tak & the Power of Juju for Nickelodeon (replacing Jason Marsden), which ran for twelve episodes between 2007 and 2008.

Sparks played Nelson in the second season of Fuller House (replacing Jason Marsden).

He portrayed Donald Davenport in Lab Rats.

In 2007, Sparks was cast as the host for the WB reality series Survival of the Richest, where wealthy young adults were paired with those young adults with massive debts to complete challenges together and work as a team.

Also in 2007, Sparks joined Roseanne to judge Nick at Night's search for America's Funniest Mom.

He went on to independently produce his first standup comedy DVD Escape from Halcatraz in 2008.

Sparks is a regular guest on CNN's Your $$$, The Joy Behar Show and The View when he is not hosting his own weekly progressive radio show.

Sparks was a contestant on the 2008 VH1 celeb-reality series Celebracadabra, where the celebrities vie to out-perform each other with magic they have learned from their experienced coaches.

Other celebrity contestants competing included Ant, Lisa Ann Walter, Carnie Wilson, Christopher "Kid" Reid, Kimberly Wyatt, and C. Thomas Howell.

Howell was the winner, with Sparks taking second place.

In a 2009 interview with We Are Movie Geeks, he confirmed he created the hand gesture in a "Z" formation.

He also appeared in the opening scene of the 2009 Mike Judge film Extract, as one of the guitar salesmen scammed out of a guitar by the con-woman played by Mila Kunis.

He has also participated in the Progressive Voices Cruise in 2009 and 2010.

Sparks had a leading role on the breakthrough Showtime television series, Queer as Folk, an American adaptation of the UK series of the same name written by Russell T Davies.

He provided the voice of the computer named "Mr. Q" on the U.S. television adaptation of 20Q, which aired on the Game Show Network (GSN) in 2009.

The "Z" hand gesture became the celebratory sign of choice among the members and fans of baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates, of whom Sparks is a fan, starting in 2012.

On July 25, 2012, he threw out the first pitch during a Pirates/Cubs series at PNC Park.

Sparks has appeared in other films, including Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star and Spider-Man 2, where he had a cameo as the elevator passenger who enjoys an awkward moment with Spider-Man.

In early 2012, the Lab Rats premiere received the highest ratings for original series for the network.

Sparks continued portraying Davenport in the spin-off Lab Rats: Elite Force.