Biography: Chris Parnell

Thomas Christopher "Chris" Parnell (born February 5, 1967) is an American actor and comedian who was a Saturday Night Live cast member in 1998-2001 and 2002-2006. He has a recurring role as Dr. Leo Spaceman (pronounced Spa-Che-Man) on NBC's Emmy Award-winning 30 Rock and was a supporting cast member of the short-lived 2008 sitcom Miss Guided.

Biography

Career

Parnell was born in Memphis, Tennessee. His father, Jack Parnell, is a commercial voice actor. After graduating from Germantown High School and the North Carolina School of the Arts, Parnell moved to Los Angeles where he joined the improv-sketch comedy troupe The Groundlings. It was here he was discovered and asked to audition for Saturday Night Live.

He joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player on September 26, 1998, and was promoted to regular cast status the following season. In the summer of 2001, budget cuts and hiring four new cast members required Lorne Michaels to fire two cast members; he chose to lay off Parnell and Jerry Minor over Horatio Sanz, Rachel Dratch, and Maya Rudolph. However, thanks to lobbying from Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan, Lorne rehired Parnell, who returned to the cast in March 2002.^{[citation needed]}

On SNL, Parnell appeared in numerous sketches, and commercial parodies, and performed memorable impressions of various celebrities. Parnell is particularly adept at rapping. One of his most popular rap sketches is Lazy Sunday, a nerdcore rap video he shot with Andy Samberg about buying cupcakes and going to see The Chronicles of Narnia. The sketch has gained such widespread fame that it has been reproduced and parodied. He has also performed raps about hosts Jennifer Garner, Britney Spears, Kirsten Dunst and Ashton Kutcher.

In the summer of 2006, Lorne Michaels announced that four cast members would be fired due to budget cuts, but he did not say who. ^{On September 22, 2006 it was announced that three cast members had been fired: Parnell, Horatio Sanz, and Finesse Mitchell. This effectively made him the only SNL performer to have been fired twice by Lorne Michaels. He had been with SNL for eight seasons; only five people (Darrell Hammond, Tim Meadows, Kevin Nealon, Phil Hartman and Horatio Sanz) have been cast members longer. He has since made uncredited cameo appearances on the show, most recently in 2008 parodying newscasters Tom Brokaw, Jim Lehrer, and Bob Schieffer.}

Recurring characters

• Alan "Sticks" McRae, one of Deandra Wells's drummers
• Daniel, a student from Jimmy Fallon's "Jarrett's Room" sketch who lived in the dorm next to Jarret and Gobi and always falls for their bogus tricks to get girls (because of Parnell's short-lived termination, Parnell's Daniel was replaced by Jeff Richards's character, Jeff, a jock whose gross habits are always caught on Jarret's webcam)
• Jeph, a member of the boy band 7 Degrees Celsius
• Kevin Aquarius, a dancer covered in silver paint who does the robot on the talk show "Veronica and Co."
• One of the Lundford Twins' Feel Good Variety Hour dancers
• Merv "The Perv" Watson, a sleazy man who hits on women with equally sleazy double-entendres. Has a British cousin named Steve the Skeev (played by Colin Farrell) and a twin brother named Irv (played by Johnny Knoxville).
• Sean DeMarco, a wannabe dancer who auditions to be an interpretive dancer for SNL's musical guests.
• Tato, the strange manservant to bizarre art dealers Nuni and Nooni
• An eyepatched Telemundo actor from Besos Y Lagrimas
• Terrye Funck, a wannabe talk show host who creates his own show in the basement of his mom's house
• Thad from Gays In Space
• Tyler, a frequent patient from the recurring sketch Appalachian Emergency Room who always tells Nerod (Seth Meyers) the receptionist tall tales about how he got an object (can of Axe body spray, jar of cotton balls, a plastic bowling pin, a Native American rainstick, his car keys, etc) stuck up his rectum (and in one case, how he got a watermelon stuck to his penis).
• Warren Kirney, a married man who always convinces the hired help in his family to have a three-way with him and his wife (Ana Gasteyer)
• Wayne Bloder, a barfly who always hits on the women there, along with his brother, Kip (played by Jimmy Fallon)
• DJ Intro, a DJ who can sing every action. ("SNL, On "Deep House Dish")

Celebrity impersonations

• Andrew Card
• Arlen Specter
• Bert Convy
• Bing Crosby
• Bob Barr
• Bob Schieffer
• Cameron Crowe
• VH1 VJ Cane
• Chad Lowe
• Charles Gibson
• Chris Fowler
• David Gregory
• Emeril Lagasse
• Eminem
• Eric Bloom of Blue Öyster Cult
• Evan Bayh
• Fred Savage
• Gary Bauer
• George W. Bush
• Jack Osbourne
• Jim Gray
• Jim Lehrer
• Sen. Joe Lieberman
• John F. Lehman
• Sen. John McCain
• Justin Bartha
• Karl Rove
• Kenneth Starr
• Lance Bass
• Mark Geragos
• Michael Isikoff
• Michael Kors
• Newt Gingrich
• Pat Buchanan
• Phil Gordon
• Rick Santorum
• Robert Bork
• Roger Clinton
• Samuel Alito
• Simon Cowell
• Thom Filicia
• Tom Brokaw
• Tom DeLay
• Tom Hanks
• William Daley
• Wolf Blitzer

Filmography

• Jingle All the Way (1996) as a toy store sales clerk
• Operation (1998) as a cadaver
• Megalomania (2000) as Stanley Brutus
• The Ladies Man (2000) as Phil Swanson
• Evil Alien Conquerors (2002) as Du-ug
• Farm Sluts (2003) as Larry
• Down with Love (2003) as the TV Emcee
• National Lampoon's Barely Legal (2003) as Mr. Ronald Greitzer
• Looking for Kitty (2004) as Guy Borne
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) as Garth Holliday
• Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (2004) as Garth Holliday
• I'm Reed Fish (2006) as Ralph
• WordGirl (2007-Present) as the narrator (voice)
• Hot Rod (2007) as Barry Pasternak
• Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) as Theo
• Harold (2008) as Coach Vanderpool
• The Grand (film) (2008) as Harold Melvin
• Labor Pains (2009) as Jerry
• Hollywood & Wine (2009) as TBA

TV guest appearances

• 30 Rock -a recurring role as Dr. Leo Spaceman (pronounced Spuh-Cheh-Min)
• Caroline in the City
• Conrad Bloom
• Ed
• Friends
• Hope & Gloria
• The Hughleys
• The Jamie Foxx Show
• Martin
• Murphy Brown
• Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher
• Seinfeld
• Suddenly Susan
• Union Square
• Saturday Night Live

Music appearances

• Supafloss

See also

• Recurring Saturday Night Live characters and sketches

References

1. Four SNLers are history, says Lorne Michaels