Greg Proops

Gregory Everett "Greg" Proops (born October 3, 1959) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and television host. He is widely known for his work as an improvisational comedian on the UK and U.S. versions of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He also currently stars as Max Madigan on the Nickelodeon sitcom True Jackson, VP.

Early life
Proops was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in San Carlos, California, a suburb south of San Francisco. He attended the College of San Mateo and spearheaded the comedy duo "Proops & Brakeman". Later, he studied improvisation and acting at San Francisco State University. He was captain of SFSU's winning College Bowl team. He never finished college.

Improv comedy
After college, he joined an improv group with Mike McShane. Both Proops and McShane impressed producers Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson, who put them on their show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He frequently instigated jokes and running gags concerning various idiosyncrasies and differences between British English and American English (e.g. "lift" vs. "elevator"), and would frequently banter with Clive Anderson, on these matters (among others). He lived in London for four years when he was doing the show and lists McShane and Colin Mochrie as among his best friends.

Proops also made appearances on Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, a short-lived program, which showed Proops in every episode. The performers would perform improv games (some of which were taken from the show's main influence Whose Line Is It Anyway?) in front of a massive green screen. Later animators would draw on the background and other props.

Film and television
Proops has performed his stand-up act across Britain, mainland Europe and in New Zealand. However, he remains best-known for appearances on Whose Line is it Anyway?, including both the US and UK versions. His other credits include hosting Space Cadets, a mid-1990s science-fiction comedy game show on Channel 4 in the UK, which also featured Craig Charles (Dave Lister from Red Dwarf) and Bill Bailey, and appearances on BBC2's Mock the Week. He appeared as a panelist on the 2000 revival of To Tell the Truth. Proops also hosted two game shows: VS. in 1999 and Rendez-View in 2001. He was on Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn on the recurring basis. In 2004 he appeared on Drew Carey's Green Screen Show. He is also a panelist on Chelsea Lately.

In addition to his stand-up and improv acts, Proops has done voice work in various films and TV shows, including the miniseries Stripperella with Pamela Anderson, and in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas alongside Whose Line Is It Anyway? co-star Catherine O'Hara. He also provided the voice for the Fode, the English speaking half of the two-headed Pod-Race announcer in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, with Scott Capurro providing the voice for the other, Huttese-speaking half, Beed. Proops provided the voice of Bob in the TV series Bob the Builder for the four seasons of Project Build-It. He has also featured in 2003 film Brother Bear as the voice of one of the Love Bears and also provided the voice as Cryptograf in 2006 film Asterix and the Vikings.

Proops also voiced the film director Quentin Hitchberg in one episode of Dennis and Gnasher.

In 2007 he started his own web show, The Greg Proops Experiment, on online humour site Super Deluxe, which consists of Proops ranting about current events.

In 2008, he was in Cyxork 7.

On 28 August 2008, Greg returned to his UK improvisation roots as he guest starred on Mock the Week having first appeared as a guest in 2006. He was one of the two guest stars for that week along with Scottish comedian Fred MacAulay.

Proops has a recurring role on Nickelodeon's True Jackson, VP. He plays Max Madigan, Mad Style's CEO.

Greg appeared on "A Good Opportunity", the season premiere of the second season of the HBO sitcom Flight of the Conchords.

He is a frequent guest on Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld which airs on the Fox News Channel at 3 AM EST. He joins the show via satellite. Greg is also a frequent guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. He also plays Ben, Illeana Douglas’ agent on her webshow Easy to Assemble.

He hosted a show named Head Games, a Science Channel game show which debuted on Oct. 17th, 2009. As host, he showed clips of somewhat wacky science experiments and asked the contestants to guess the outcome.

Star Wars
Greg is known to get involved with the Star Wars franchise. He played the role of "Fode" in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. He would later work with the Expanded Universe, he reprised his role as Fode in the video games Star Wars Episode I: Racer and the video games adaption of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and guest starred on two episodes of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars "The Mandalore Plot" and "Voyage of Temptation" as Tal Merrick.

Radio
Proops hosts a bi-weekly radio program, and a nightclub-atmosphere talk show at the Largo in Hollywood, and played the title role in BBC Radio 4's sci-fi comedy series Seymour the Fractal Cat.

He was a frequent guest on Marc Maron's radio show, The Marc Maron Show.

He presented Bits from Last Week's Radio on BBC Radio 1 from Jan 1995-July 1996.

He did voice work for the BBC Radio 2 series Flight of the Conchords, first broadcast in September 2005.

Greg Proops was also part of the cast for Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack and movie back in 1993. His name is listed under "Cast" in the original version of the soundtrack's booklet. He provided the vocal work for the Harlequin Demon, the Devil, and the Sax Player.

Video games
Proops provides voice-over work as Howard “Buckshot” Holmes, a game show announcer along with John DiMaggio for the Nintendo Wii game, MadWorld. Both Dimaggio and Proops play as comical announcers on a brutal game show set in the future. Proops also provided the voice of Fargus, a pyromantic court jester for the PlayStation game series "Pandemonium"

Personal life
Proops married his wife, artist Jennifer Canaga, on Valentine's Day in 1990, as he professed in his Jazz Police Department appearance back in the mid nineties and stated in the same appearance that he had known Jennifer since at least the early 1980s. He resides with his wife in Los Angeles. They have no children and according to an interview featuring Proops, he decided he didn't want any kids when he was twenty-three. He does, however, have nieces and nephews and he became an uncle when he was eight.

For several years, Greg upheld the idea that he owned an ocelot. However, on March 25, 2009 in a written interview, he stated that he doesn't actually own one:

"Oh, I say I have an ocelot and it’s a joke, but I’ve had so many news programs in this country say, 'So what’s it like, having an ocelot?” And I’ll say, “It’s marvelous just to see them run free. When feeding time comes and they’re mewling, it just warms your heart.' People will really believe fucking anything. You may have noticed this. It’s not just me. Look around."