Michael Ian Black, originally born Michael Schwartz, cultivated his reputation in standup by fusing absurd gags with understated sarcasm after first gaining notice on the MTV sketch series The State. He came aboard the program in its launch season of 1993, having dropped out of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts short of a degree—an episode he later lampooned on the standup record I Am a Wonderful Man. Blending live sketches with segments featuring alternative music videos, the show aired from 1993 until 1995, when CBS acquired it only to drop it after a single Halloween installment failed to deliver the hoped-for numbers. All eleven original performers scattered into separate projects, frequently overlapping, and Black resurfaced on Comedy Central’s Viva Variety before teaming with fellow State alumni Michael Showalter and David Wain. Together the trio produced the cult features Wet Hot American Summer and The Baxter while also launching the anarchic stage collective Stella.
His caustic takes reached still larger crowds through recurring appearances on VH1’s I Love The… franchise, and in 2006 he was named editor-at-large of the relaunched Cracked. Screenwriting jobs followed for the films Wedding Daze in 2006 and Run, Fat Boy, Run in 2007, while his print work included contributions to Dave Eggers’ McSweeney’s anthologies and a children’s book of his own. The sardonic standup set I Am a Wonderful Man, marking his first CD release, arrived in 2007; Very Famous appeared four years later, its artwork deliberately echoing the cover of Dr. Dre’s The Chronic.
