Dane Cook

Dane Cook
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Dane Cook
Dane Cook in 2007
Pseudonym
Sav McCauleyGene WinterbuckForeign Guy
Born
March 18, 1972 (1972-03-18) (age 35)Arlington, Massachusetts
Medium
Stand up comedy, film, television
Nationality
American
Years active
1997-present
Genres
Stand-up Comedy
Subject(s)
observational comedy
Influences
Denis Leary, George Carlin, Richard Pryor
Website
danecook.com

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.Please improve this article if you can. (November 2007)
Dane Jeffrey Cook (born March 18, 1972) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and musician. He has released three comedy albums, Harmful If Swallowed, Retaliation (which went double platinum[1]), and Rough Around the Edges: Live From Madison Square Garden. Retaliation became the highest charting comedy album in twenty-eight years.[2] Cook performs on many television shows and in the fall of 2006 performed in his own HBO special, Vicious Circle. As an actor, Cook has appeared in fifteen films since 1997, including Mystery Men, the 2005 film "Waiting...", and starred in the 2006 comedy Employee of the Month with Jessica Simpson. He also appeared in the 2007 thriller film Mr. Brooks in a departure from his standard comedic roles.
Contents[hide]
1 Life and career
1.1 Early life
1.2 Early career
1.3 2005 - 2006
1.4 2007
2 Style
3 Controversy and criticism
3.1 Material/Plagiarism
3.2 Yuk-Yuks controversy
4 Other
4.1 The SUperFInger
5 Discography
5.1 Albums
5.2 DVDs
5.3 Singles
6 Filmography
7 References
8 External links
8.1 News articles & interviews
//

[edit] Life and career

[edit] Early life
Cook was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Donna and George Cook, a radio DJ. He has Irish ancestry.[3] Cook grew up in Arlington, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb and, along with his five sisters and one brother, was raised as a Roman Catholic.[4] He is a fan and collector of Fangoria magazine, claiming to own the first 100 issues.[5]

[edit] Early career
Cook's first on-stage appearance at a comedy club was at a Catch a Rising Star show in Harvard Square, hosted at the time by comedian David Cross.[6] In 1998, Cook was featured on Comedy Central's stand-up comedy showcase Premium Blend. The following year he appeared on the comedy network's Comics Come Home and the straight-to-video Dennis Rodman vehicle, Simon Sez as Rodman's partner, Nick Miranda. He also had a cameo in the film Mystery Men and the music video for the song All Star by Smash Mouth, also featured in the film.
Two years later, Cook pooled $30,000 of his own money from savings and retirement accounts and launched www.danecook.com, his own interactive website, to further his career and stay connected to his fans.[1] Later, Cook would also become one of the first celebrities to make use of the global networking site MySpace. To date, Cook has over 2 million fans listed as friends on his profile. In 2002 and 2003, Cook was featured as the voice of three puppets on Comedy Central's Crank Yankers, which featured real prank phone calls being recorded in a studio and then re-enacted by puppets. Four of Cook's calls were aired between July 2002 and April 2003. He took on the aliases of Sav McCauley, Gene Winterbuck, and Foreign Guy.
Included with Cook's first comedy album, Harmful If Swallowed (2003) was a DVD with the Comedy Central special. Later that year, Cook wrote, directed, and starred in 8 Guys.
Dane released his second 3 disc cd/dvd set Retaliation taking the number 4 slot on Billboards top 100.

[edit] 2005 - 2006
Cook was featured in the 2005 comedy Waiting... as Floyd the cook. Cook hosted SNL for a second time on the premiere of its thirty-second season, September 30, 2006. On January 13, 2006, after months of keeping a "BIG secret" from his fans, he announced via his website an April 15 gig at Boston's TD Banknorth Garden where his first HBO special, Vicious Circle, would be eventually filmed. His first show sold out during the pre-sale phase of ticket sales, and a second show was added for the same night. In all, Dane Cook's Boston concert drew 36,000 fans in two shows, on the same night. A documentary series and a scripted program are also in the works for HBO.[7] In the week prior to the televised gig, he performed at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas (April 8) and Allstate Arena in Chicago (April 13), the largest venues he has ever performed in those cities. Aside from airing on HBO, Vicious Circle is also being screened in select theaters and it features an additional 40 minutes of material.
September saw the release of Employee of the Month, Cook's first movie featuring him in the lead role. He co-starred alongside Jessica Simpson and Dax Shepard. Response to this movie was lukewarm but made an acceptable box office performance.
At the end of December 2006, Cook released "I'll Never Be You" his first single. In the song, Dane sings from the perspective of a normal person ("My life stands still, watching where your life goes"), commenting with envy ("sometimes I picture myself beating you up") at a celebrity or otherwise popular person. He was named in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of 2006.[2]
Dane Cook's first HBO special, Vicious Circle, was aired on September 4, 2006. The double DVD was released on November 28, 2006. It is a 90-minute presentation which was filmed at TD Banknorth Garden in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts on a circular stage surrounded by the audience. The stage had on it the impression of his Super Finger hand gesture. Cook brought the same set to Madison Square Garden for back-to-back sold out shows on November 12, 2006.

[edit] 2007
On June 1, 2007, the film Mr. Brooks was released to theaters to generally mixed reviews. Cook played opposite Kevin Costner as Mr. Smith, a devious reporter, and he received generally positive reviews for his performance, with the New York Times saying that "...when he's onscreen, you can't look at anyone else". The same year, he starred alongside Jessica Alba in Good Luck Chuck and Dan in Real Life, as a man whose brother (fellow Massachusetts native Steve Carell) falls for his girlfriend. He also released another album, titled Rough Around the Edges on November 13, 2007.
On July 26, he became the first celebrity on myspace.com to hit 2 million friends. On August 28, 2007, Cook released the DVD collection The Lost Pilots for fans all around the world. Included are the two pilots titled Cooked 1 and Cooked 2. In the former, he plays a stand-up comedian who, after living in the easy life, loses it all and schemes relentlessly to get it back. In the latter, Cook is a charismatic guy who's always looking forward to his next life experience. His best friends, Mike, the perennial cynic, and Dakota, the-girl-next-door, accompany him as he tries to trade an antique electric chair for a knife wielding samurai monkey trained in the martial arts.
Recently, Cook has been doing October playoff commercials for Major League Baseball. He has also released his second single "Forward." He finished filming Bachelor No. 2 in his hometown of Boston with his co-stars Kate Hudson and Alec Baldwin. Cook will be producing the film through his company Super-Finger Entertainment. And he embarked on his first ever 25 city/28 show Arena tour which he called "Rough Around The Edges," to promote the sale of his new album.

[edit] Style
Cook's style is principally observational humor. He tends to talk about his childhood, and his plans for the future, such as his "dream home". He will sometimes deliver jokes in the form of over the top rants. He has commented that:
“
I wanted to create a stage persona for myself that allowed me to really speak on (sic) anything I want... So I can be a storyteller, I can be jokey, I can be corny, I can be a little vulgar, I can be a lot vulgar. And I'm not afraid to go anywhere to get the point of the joke across, even if I have to just blabber like an idiot until it becomes apparent that I'm telling a joke and that the audience should laugh.
”
Cook uses slang vocabulary to match his talkative manner. For example: A bad relationship is a "Relationshit", Walgreens is "The Wall," and a sandwich is a "sangwich".[8] Similarly, he uses such acronyms as BAMF and SUFI, which are short for "Bad Ass Mother Fucker", which is originally believed to refer to 24's Jack Bauer[citation needed] , and "SUperFInger," respectively. He is also known to call Burger King, "the BK Lounge." He also shortens words to keep the same meaning. He has even been known to completely change words or phrases, like saying "Concernicus" instead of concerned, "Chicken Sangwich" instead of Chicken Sandwich, "agrain" instead of again, and "chat-chitting" rather than "chit-chatting". Afterwards he says, "Yeah, I just flipped that shit...they're just words, they don't control us...not anymore."

[edit] Controversy and criticism

[edit] Material/Plagiarism
After the release of his CD/DVD Retaliation, similarities were noticed between Cook's work and material recorded on Louis C.K.'s 2001 album Live in Houston.[8] The bits in question are Louis C.K.'s "Itchy Asshole," "Guy On A Bike," and "Naming Kids." In 2005, Dane Cook performed and released three similar routines on Retaliation.[9] These are "Itchy Asshole," "Struck By A Vehicle," and "My Son Optimus Prime," respectively.
In 2005, on the message boards of comedy website A Special Thing, C.K. posted a response to his fans who accused Cook of plagiarizing from him writing "Okay, this kid is stealing from me. And making lots of money. Three bits on one CD." Later, C.K. wrote "Just so you know, guys, I'm not going to do anything about this.... I'm not going to court over a bit called 'Itchy Asshole.'"[10] In an interview on the Free Beer & Hot Wings Morning Show in February 2007, C.K. stated that while the jokes are similar, the issue was "overblown" and may stem from a backlash against Cook's popularity. However, C.K. accused Cook of being "bullyish" and litigious towards comedians for having similar material to his despite Cook claiming elsewhere that comedians often have similar material and it is not a big issue to him. C.K. also stated "Too bad the guy [Cook] can't write enough." C.K. ended the interview by saying, "Fuck Dane Cook, he's a cunt."[11]
Comedian Joe Rogan has spoken on many occasions (including the December 1, 2006 broadcast of the Opie and Anthony Show) about Cook performing a bit on an episode of Premium Blend that Rogan had developed on I'm Gonna Be Dead Someday (sketch titled 'Tigers Fucking'), and claims to have performed the routine earlier in clubs with Cook present.[12] Rob Sheffield criticized Dane Cook's material in a Rolling Stone article from October 2006, claiming a joke he performed was originally done by Emo Philips.[13] Comedian Ron White has criticized Dane Cook for his lack of real material and for his inflated ego.[14] At a 2007 Irving Plaza show, comedian Zach Galifianakis commented, “I saw Employee of the Month the other day...it wasn't as good as I thought it was gonna be.” During his closing number he revealed a sign that read “Kill Dane Cook" before leaving the stage.[15] Less publicized accusations of comedic plagiarism by Cook emerged in September 2006 on Saturday Night Live by Demetri Martin of Daily Show fame. Clips on Youtube show a stand up bit Cook suppossedly lifted from Martin's 9/26/06 release of his live material These Are Jokes on some trouble buying shoes, where Cook goes as far as using the same incorrect shoe size (size 9) that Martin mentioned in his joke that was released 4 days before Cook's performance of a nearly identical shoe joke while hosting SNL on 9/30/06. [16]
In addition to such specific claims of plagiarism, numerous commentators have characterized Dane Cook's humor as unfunny,[17] banal,[18] and lacking jokes.[19]

[edit] Yuk-Yuks controversy
On July 24, 2006 Cook asked for a guest spot at the Vancouver Yuk-Yuks comedy club. Initially he was set to go up at the end of the night, but upon arriving at the club he requested to go up before the headliner. Cook's performance went on for longer than the management had asked him, so the club's manager and headliner (Peter Kelamis) cut off his microphone and tried to "play him off" with music. Cook thought it was simply a mistake and continued his set, but they later cut his mic and played the exit music again. Cook then dropped the mic and walked off-stage, furious. The show then ended, leaving Cook's fans confused and disappointed. Kelamis then refused to take the stage, and later referred to Cook's actions as "the most arrogant thing that I've ever seen in my life".
However, Mark Breslin, the founder of the comedy club chain, quickly apologized and blamed the club's Manager. Breslin stated in support of Cook, "I'm on Dane's side totally, 100 percent." Breslin also explained that Kelamis was the last show that evening and there was no reason he could not have gone on late, stating "the tradition is that stardom trumps everything".[20]

[edit] Other

[edit] The SUperFInger
The SUperFInger or SU-FI is a hand gesture. It consists of raising the middle finger, ring finger, and thumb on the same hand while lowering (or curling) the index and pinky fingers half way. Cook's website explains his idea behind the SU-FI:
“
One night I did a bit on stage about 5 years ago at the Laugh Factory. I was talking about how the finger is lame now and it's lost its pizzaz. I said I wanted to upgrade the finger and so from now on people should use both the ring finger coupled with the middle finger. I called it the SUperFInger (or SU-FI)
”
In 2005, Cook started his own company to produce his albums and videos, which he named SUperFInger Entertainment.[21]

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums
2003: Harmful If Swallowed (CD/DVD) Comedy Central. #67 US. Certified Platinum
2005: Retaliation (2CD/DVD) Comedy Central. #4 US. Certified Double Platinum
2007: Rough Around the Edges: Live From Madison Square Garden (CD/DVD).

[edit] DVDs
2006: Vicious Circle DVD. HBO.
2006: Dane Cook's Tourgasm DVD. HBO. Comedy Central.
2007: The Lost Pilots DVD. Sony Pictures Television

[edit] Singles
Year
Title
Chart positions
Album
US Hot 100
US Modern Rock
US Mainstream Rock
US Pop 100
UK Singles Chart
Germany
2006
"I'll Never Be You"
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
2007
"Forward"
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

[edit] Filmography
Year
Title
Role
1997
Flypaper
Tim
Buddy
Fair Cop
1999
Spiral
David
Simon Sez
Nick Miranda
Mystery Men
The Waffler
2002
L.A.X.
Terrell Chasman
The Touch
Bob
2003
Stuck on You
Officer Fraioli
8 Guys
Dane
Windy City Heat
Roman Polanski
2004
Mr. 3000
Sausage Mascot
Torque
Neil Luff
2005
Waiting...
Floyd
London
George
2006
Employee of the Month
Zack Bradley
2007
Farce of the Penguins
Voice
Mr. Brooks
Mr. Smith
Good Luck Chuck
Chuck/Charlie
Dan in Real Life
Mitch Burns
2008
Horton Hears a Who
Johnny Smooth
Bachelor No. 2
Tank