Anthony Jeselnik

At 45 years old, Anthony Jeselnik has this physical status:

Jeselnik's Comedy Central Presents stand-up special premiered in 2009, and he was named one of Comedy Central's breakout comedians of the year alongside Nick Kroll, Aziz Ansari, Whitney Cummings, Donald Glover, Matt Braunger, T. J. Miller, Kumail Nanjiani, and Jon Lajoie. In 2009, Jeselnik was hired as a writer for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. His dream job, predating stand-up or his first comedy class, was to sit around a table and "throw out jokes with people you respected." After getting the job, Jeselnik's pitches would be continually shot down as they were too dark. For example, he routinely fought for a single joke regarding obesity each day for a month, and although Fallon liked the joke, he felt uncomfortable performing it as it would likely jeopardize his likability with the obese. During this period, he was a regular at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, New York City. Jeselnik would work hard each day for the show and then proceed to go to Comedy Cellar, have a "big stiff drink," and do his act, feeling "miserable." In March 2010, he approached the show's producers and told them he wanted to leave. "We understand—you want to go be Anthony Jeselnik," they said.

He recorded his debut album, Shakespeare, and in 2010 began writing for the Comedy Central Roasts. Jeselnik, who refers to roasts as "the Super Bowl of comedy," loved roasts during college and always tried to write for them. While Jeselnik was writing for the David Hasselhoff roast, Comedy Central executives took an interest in him and offered him an opportunity to perform on the next roast. Knowing that this would be his "big moment," Jeselnik refers to the Roast of Donald Trump as "one of my favorite moments of my life […] because no one knew who I was and it just really caught everybody by surprise. And the next day, my life was completely different." While Jeselnik had previously been headlining clubs, the audience often was unfamiliar with his brand of comedy; after the Trump roast, the crowds got bigger and Jeselnik felt more comfortable. Immediately following his performance, the network offered Jeselnik a "three-point deal" in which one receives an hour special, three Comedy Central roasts, and a development deal. Jeselnik went on to perform at two more roasts, the Comedy Central Roasts of Charlie Sheen in 2011 and Roseanne Barr in 2012.

Jeselnik appeared at the Power of Comedy event in November 2012.

In 2013, Jeselnik hosted his own Comedy Central series, The Jeselnik Offensive. In preparing the show, Comedy Central was looking for a half-hour, a four-nights-a-week show following The Colbert Report titled Midnight. Jeselnik's main draw was the monologue, where he felt he could tell jokes that he was unable to do on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. For the pilot, Jeselnik did a test interview with a celebrity but felt "so wrong […] it just fit me like a bad suit." For the show's first episode, Jeselnik performs cancer-related stand-up for a cancer support group. "I had to fight with Comedy Central to put that on the first episode," said Jeselnik. The network felt uneasy using the sketch as an introduction. Jeselnik pointed to the premiere episode of Chappelle's Show, in which Dave Chappelle plays a blind African-American Klansman, which he regarded as "one of the edgiest things they ever did." As such, the sketch opened the first episode and received a positive reception; Jay Leno called to inform Jeselnik "how much he loved the cancer segment." The Jeselnik Offensive ran for two seasons on Comedy Central from February 19, 2013, to August 27, 2013.

Jeselnik's first stand-up special, Caligula, premiered in 2013.

October 2015 saw the debut of The Rosenthal & Jeselnik Vanity Project (RJVP), a podcast available on NFL.com hosted by Jeselnik and fellow Tulane graduate, NFL Network's Gregg Rosenthal.

In 2015 Jeselnik released his critically acclaimed third stand up special, and first for Netflix, Thoughts and Prayers. The hourlong special offers Jeselnik's trademark dark humor for the first forty minutes and personal anecdotes for the last twenty. He discusses his grandmother's funeral, the Boston Marathon bombing, the cancelation of The Jeselnik Offensive, and the death threats he receives.

In September 2018 Jeselnik returned to Comedy Central, signing a multi-platform development deal which includes new episodes of a weekly podcast, The Jeselnik & Rosenthal Vanity Project (JRVP), where Jeselnik is joined by his friend and NFL Network analyst Gregg Rosenthal, and by producer and NFL Network director Erica Tamposi.

Jeselnik's latest stand-up special, Fire in the Maternity Ward, was released by Netflix on April 30, 2019.

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