Sebastian Maniscalco

Life and career

Maniscalco was born in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois, of Italian descent. After moving from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1998, Maniscalco began his career performing at open mics in bars and bowling alleys while working as a waiter at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, where he worked from 1998 to 2005. In 2005, he began performing regularly at The Comedy Store in West Hollywood. Since then, he has done a half-hour for Comedy Central Presents and four-hour-long specials. His first special, Sebastian Live, was released on 2 June 2009. His next three specials were aired on Showtime, with What's Wrong With People released on 5 January 2012, Aren't You Embarrassed?, taped in Chicago, released on 14 November 2014, and Why Would You Do That?, taped at the Beacon Theatre in New York City and released in 2016.

Maniscalco was one of four comedians featured in Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights – Hollywood to the Heartland, along with Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, and Bret Ernst. Maniscalco has also been on Russell Peters' Best Night Ever, Comedy Central Presents, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Jay Leno Show, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Conan, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Additionally, he appeared in several films, such as The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, The House, and Cruise, and he has a podcast called The Pete and Sebastian Show with fellow comedian Pete Correale. As of January 2017, they have a show on Sirius XM satellite radio's Raw Dog Comedy channel 99. In 2016, Maniscalco appeared on the seventh season of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. He has plans to publish his memoir Where You Wanna Eat? in 2017.

Influences

Maniscalco cites as comedic influences George Carlin, Brian Regan, Johnny Carson, Andrew Dice Clay, Bill Burr, Don Rickles