Patton Oswalt Biography

Patton Oswalt was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and had his comedic sensibilities infiltrated at an early age by the likes of Sesame Street and classic Warner Bros. cartoons. Oswalt’s father -- a member of the U.S. Marine Corps -- also exposed him to early Jonathan Winters albums, which eventually led him to discovering comedic icons like Steve Martin and Richard Pryor. With his comedic influences in tact, Patton Oswalt graduated from Broad Run High School, and went on to attend the College of William and Mary, where he majored in English.

patton oswalt gives stand-up comedy a go

Before he knew he wanted to be a comedian, Patton Oswalt wanted to be a writer. To support himself, he took jobs as a paralegal, a DJ and a sports writer before finally deciding to give stand-up a shot (apparently, working in an office filled with failed jocks was too much for the self-professed nerd and indie rock enthusiast).

Oswalt’s first gig was in 1988 at an open mike night in Washington, D.C., where he performed alongside a fellow fledgling comedian named Dave Chapelle, who at the time was just 14. In 1992, after building a name for himself in the local comedy scene, Patton Oswalt moved to San Francisco where he would become deeply inspired by the burgeoning comedy scene. After plying his trade for three years, Oswalt moved to L.A. where he became a writer for MAD TV and landed his own HBO Half Hour Comedy Hour.

patton oswalt becomes a regular on the king of queens

To this day, Patton Oswalt’s most ubiquitous role was as the nebbish Spence Olchin on CBS’ long-running sitcom The King of Queens. He’s also guest starred on some of our favorite TV shows ever, including Reno 911!, Human Giant, Seinfeld, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, and more recently United States of Tara, Flight of The Conchords, Community, and Bored to Death. Clearly the man has good taste. Oswalt has also been a regular on Comedy Central’s painfully funny roasts, and if you haven’t seen his already legendary skewering of William Shatner and Flavor Flav, you don’t know what you’re missing.

patton oswalt comes of age

With the indie comedy movement in full force, Patton Oswalt quickly became one of its figureheads. His four comedy albums, 222 (Live & Uncut), Feelin’ Kinda Patton, Werewolves and Lollipops, and My Weakness Is Strong all sold well, but it was his spearheading of the Comedians of Comedy Tour that really established him as one of the leaders of the new wave. After rounding up fellow like-minded alt-comics like Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn and Maria Bamford, the group embarked on a nationwide tour of more intimate indie rock venues, and released a documentary and a six-part Comedy Central series chronicling the tour. The whole endeavor was a hit, and Patton Oswalt’s name has been ingrained in comedy’s nouveau elite since.

patton oswalt, the movie star

Patton Oswalt has always been able to get work in films, having appeared in Down Periscope, Man on the Moon, Magnolia, Zoolander, Taxi, Blade: Trinity, Starsky and Hutch, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Balls of Fury, and Observe and Report,among others, but he never bagged a starring role. Even his biggest film, Ratatouille, in which he voiced the gastronomically-inclined rat, Remy, featured his voice (Oswalt is an accomplished voice actor) and not, well, everything else. It was only the director, Robert D. Siegel, who had the foresight to cast the previously unproven Oswalt in Big Fan, his bleak character study of an obsessed sports fan. The film tore through the festival circuit, earning nearly unanimous praise from critics, with Oswalt’s devastating portrayal hailed as a revelation.