Years active 1996–present Name Brian Unger | Role Actor Education Ohio University | |
 | ||
Occupation Actor, comedian, writer, producer, and commentator Parents Eleanor Oprea, Richard Unger Movies and TV shows How the States Got Their Sha, The Daily Show, Some Assembly Required, Fired Up!, Hollywood Off Ramp Similar People Lizz Winstead, Michael Blieden, Will Gluck, Madeleine Smithberg, Shawn Christensen Profiles | ||
Tracy pattin talks to npr s brian unger
Brian D. Unger (born November 30, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and commentator.
Contents
- Tracy pattin talks to npr s brian unger
- FIRED Brian Unger
- Biography
- Career
- How the States Got Their Shapes
- References
FIRED! Brian Unger
Biography
Born in Dayton, Ohio to Richard ("Rich") Unger and Eleanor ("Ellie") Oprea, Unger grew up in Granville. He graduated Granville High School and then from Ohio University in 1987, where he majored in communication. He had worked on a television show called Fridays Live, an OU student-produced comedy show airing on WOUB-TV, the local PBS affiliate. Unger recently returned to make a cameo on the show's Season 17 finale. Unger has Romanian ethnic heritage.
Career
Unger was an original correspondent and producer on The Daily Show, from 1996–99. While working for The Daily Show in 1998, he was named one of Entertainment Weekly's "100 Most Creative People in Entertainment." Unger's other television appearances include O2Be on Oxygen, the Comedy Central shows Reno 911! and The Man Show, various I Love the... shows on VH1, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Hollywood Off-Ramp on E!, as well as appearances on NBC's The Jay Leno Show and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live!, NBC's Later, E!'s Talk Soup, the syndicated entertainment newsmagazine Extra, the stand-up comedy DVD Zach Galifianakis Live at the Purple Onion.
He provided regular commentary ("The Unger Report") for the NPR show Day to Day from its launch in 2003 until its cancellation, making his final "Unger Report" on March 16, 2009. He currently provides regular commentary to NPR's All Things Considered.
He has hosted on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann and Discovery Channel show Some Assembly Required (with University of Virginia Professor of Physics Lou Bloomfield; and then solo in its final season). Unger was one of the co-hosts for the pilot of a new PBS series, Wired Science, which aired in January 2007 and was subsequently picked up to debut later in the year, though Unger did not remain involved with the show.
Unger has appeared as a spokesman for Yoo-hoo and Maxwell House Coffee. In 2008, he appeared in a BMW documentary about testing of BMW diesels as they embark on a 500-mile road trip from South Carolina to Virginia. The film's purpose was to raise awareness of driving diesels in the United States. Unger later became the official spokesman for the BMW Advanced Diesel. He also appears in a number of recent Quicken Loans commercials.
Unger's written commentary has appeared in The New York Times and The Minneapolis Star Tribune, and he has written a book review for The Washington Post. He is a commentator on the internet talk show The Young Turks, which streams on YouTube; it is one of the most watched news programs produced solely for the web. The show was briefly broadcast on the Current TV television network from 2011 to 2013.
Unger also provides the narration for the PBS American version of Nature's Spy in the Wild.
How the States Got Their Shapes
Unger hosted a documentary special on The History Channel titled How the States Got Their Shapes. In 2011, the network expanded the special into a weekly series, which Unger hosts. As of 2014, Unger co-hosts Showdown of the Unbeatables.
As of September 8, 2013, Brian Unger hosted an NFL.com segment titled "Game Day Satisfaction: Week 1".