Dana Gould

Dana Gould (born August 24, 1966) is an American comedian and comedy writer born and raised in Hopedale, Massachusetts. His upbringing in the "weird little" factory town and the backward eccentricities of his extended family lent themselves to his stand-up routine, which has been seen on HBO, Showtime, and Comedy Central, among other places. After high school, he studied communications and theatre at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

He eventually moved to San Francisco to pursue a career in comedy. It was there he, along with fellow comedian Alex Reid, founded the San Francisco Comedy Condo in 1986. He now lives in Los Angeles, California.

Gould has written and performed on The Ben Stiller Show; one such sketch features Gould as Otto, Cupid's twisted brother, whose arrows convince a young man to fall madly in love with an elderly woman. Another series of sketches features a heavily disguised Gould as Wilford Brimley advertising "Grady's Oats" (a parody of Brimley's Quaker Oats advertisements). In one, he speaks of his hobby of dressing in a taffeta gown and filling his panties with oatmeal; in another, he brandishes a revolver through the window at children.

Gould had a featured cameo in the 2003 film Girls Will Be Girls, in which he played a hit-and-run victim who admits to his alcohol problem after having a desperate one-night stand with aging C-list actress Evie Harris, the other driver in the car accident.

Gould provided the voice for the title character in the U.S. versions of the Gex video game series and the UK version of the first game. Gould, with his frequent writing partner Rob Cohen, wrote the majority of the jokes for the games.

Gould was featured in the film The Aristocrats, where, among other commentary, he presents an Amish version of the dirty title joke.

For six years Gould wrote for The Simpsons, on one episode of which he provided the voice of Don Knotts as Barney Fife (an impression that originated in his standup routine). He left the show in late 2006 in order to focus on his own screenwriting.

His short films, Last Man On Earth, Break On Through With J.F.K., A Night On Java Island, and Soul Mates are also available for download on his site. Except for the latter, all feature Gould in acting roles.