Thomas Lennon

Thomas Lennon (born August 9, 1970) is an American comedian, actor, and screenwriter. He plays Lieutenant Jim Dangle on the series Reno 911!, Andrei Novak on Santa Clarita Diet and Felix Unger on The Odd Couple. He is the screenwriter of several comedies released by major film studios with writing partner Robert Ben Garant, with whom he wrote the Night at the Museum films, The Pacifier, Balls of Fury, and Baywatch.

Lennon was born on August 9, 1970 in Oak Park, Illinois. Of Irish and Scottish descent, he is the son of Kathleen (née McSheehy) and Timothy Lennon. He graduated from Oak Park and River Forest High School in 1988.

At 16, he met friend and future co-star Kerri Kenney at theater camp at Northwestern University. The two later attended NYU, where they joined a comedy troupe called The New Group.

While Lennon was a member of The New Group, the comedy troupe changed its name to The State. As they performed material at theaters and clubs in New York City, they worked on the MTV show You Wrote It, You Watch It. This led to the self-titled series The State, which ran from 1993 to 1995 on MTV. It was nominated for a 1995 Cable Ace Award for Best Comedy Series. In the same year, they created a special for CBS called The State's 43rd Annual All-Star Halloween Special.

After the departure of The State from MTV and failed long-term deals with both ABC and CBS, Lennon, along with Kenney, Robert Ben Garant, and Michael Ian Black, created and starred in the Comedy Central program Viva Variety (1997–99). The show was based on a sketch which Lennon had written for the final season of The State, called "The Mr. and Former Mrs. Laupin Variety Programme." Viva Variety received a 1997 Cable Ace Award nomination for Best Comedy Series.

After Viva Variety, Lennon, Kenney, and Garant created and starred in Reno 911! (2003–09). The series was initially slated to be on Fox, but the channel rejected it for being too risqué and the program ended up on Comedy Central.

Lennon has appeared as a guest star in dozens of TV shows including The League, Childrens Hospital, Party Down, New Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Comedy Bang! Bang!, and Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23. One of his notable guest starring roles was as Joey Tribbiani's blackjack-dealing "identical hand twin" on the Friends fifth-season finale ("The One In Vegas", Pts. I and II). Additionally, he has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show, The Daily Show, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and with 31, had the second-highest number of appearances on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. In 2008, he began doing stand-up comedy, occasionally playing guitar, and incorporating music. He appeared on The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail, John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, The Jeselnik Offensive, and The Benson Interruption. He was the guest on the first episode of Chris Hardwick's The Nerdist Podcast, which was recorded in Lennon's garage. In 2010, Lennon and Garant created and starred in a sitcom pilot for NBC called The Strip. In May of that year, it was announced that NBC had decided not to produce it as a series.

In November and December 2011, Lennon filled in as guest voice for the robot sidekick Geoff Peterson on the CBS show The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Lennon has appeared in many films including Bad Teacher, Memento, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and I Love You, Man, for which he and co-star Paul Rudd were nominated for a 2009 MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss. In two of Christopher Nolan's films, Memento (2000) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Lennon played a doctor.