Career
Peele regularly performed improv comedy at Boom Chicago in Amsterdam and The Second City in Chicago. He and Nicole Parker were well known for their musical duets at Boom Chicago. He portrayed a popular character called "Danish Supermodel Ute" during his time at Boom Chicago and hosted MTV's Comedy Weekend in 2002.
Peele appeared on the Comedy Bang Bang podcast as disqualified American Idol singer Jermaine Jones alongside Gillian Jacobs of Community.
In 2003, Peele joined the cast of MADtv for its ninth season. Around the time Keegan-Michael Key joined the cast as a featured performer, it was assumed that Key would be chosen over Peele. Peele performed celebrity impersonations, which included favorites Caroll Spinney (as the voice of Big Bird), Ja Rule, James Brown, Flavor Flav, Justin Guarini, Montel Williams, Morgan Freeman, and Forest Whitaker.
Peele was absent for unknown reasons from the first four episodes of his second season on MADtv. He made a cameo in "Weird Al" Yankovic's video "White & Nerdy" with MADtv co-star Keegan-Michael Key.
Peele was nominated for a 2008 Emmy for his song "Sad Fitty Cent," a music video parody about 50 Cent lamenting over his rivalry with Kanye West. The lyrics were, according to the music video, written by Peele, and he was involved in arranging its music.
Peele appeared in a viral video titled "Hillary vs Obama" (which was shown as a MADtv sketch) where he and a Hillary Clinton supporter (played by short-term castmember Lisa Donovan) argue over whether Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would make a better president, only to get upstaged by a Rudy Giuliani supporter (played by Donovan's brother, Ben). Peele auditioned to be a castmember for Saturday Night Live when SNL producers were looking for someone to play Barack Obama (around the time when SNL and MADtv — and other scripted shows — were put on hiatus due to the 2007-2008 Writers' Guild of America strike). Peele remained at MADtv, and the role went to Fred Armisen until September 2012, when Jay Pharoah took over the role.
After five seasons on MADtv, Peele left the cast at the end of the 13th season.
In 2010, Peele co-starred in the FOX comedy pilot The Station and appeared with a recurring role in the Adult Swim series Childrens Hospital. He had a supporting role in the David Wain-directed comedy Wanderlust, which was released on February 24, 2012.
Peele and his former MADtv castmate Keegan-Michael Key star in their own Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele, which began airing in 2012.
Read more about this topic: Jordan Peele
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“John Brown’s career for the last six weeks of his life was meteor-like, flashing through the darkness in which we live. I know of nothing so miraculous in our history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)