Seán Cullen
Seán Cullen | |
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Website | seancullen.com |
Seán Cullen (born 29 August 1965) is a Canadian actor and stand-up comedian. He is known for combining improvisation with mimicry and music.[1] He is known for providing voices of characters in shows like Best Ed, Seven Little Monsters, and Almost Naked Animals.[2]
Career
Cullen entered into the public eye in 1987 as a member of musical comedy group
Following the breakup, Cullen began performing solo, often accompanied by musician Dylan Goodhue. He wrote and mounted his own one-man show called Wood, Cheese and Children which went on to become a special in CTV's
Cullen has appeared frequently on Canadian television, including
In 2003, Cullen produced his own sitcom,
In 2004, Cullen appeared as
Cullen has a longstanding relationship with the members of the band Barenaked Ladies, formed when the band, in its original duo form, opened for Corky and the Juice Pigs on an early cross-Canada tour in 1989. On the Barenaked Ladies' 2004 U.S. and Canadian holiday tour, Cullen joined the band on the road. He would tell a comedic version of the nativity story and sing Christmas songs with band member Kevin Hearn accompanying him.[5]
He provides the voice of Lucius Heinous VII, on the Teletoon series Jimmy Two-Shoes, Principal General Barrage on Detentionaire, Narwhal and Piggy on the animated series Almost Naked Animals, Blade Stabbington on the animated series Grojband, and the voice of Gus, Nefarious, and Deep Space Dave on Rocket Monkeys.
In 2008, Cullen was a contestant on NBC's
In the 2010 and 2011 season of the Stratford Festival, Sean played Smee in Peter Pan, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Vinnie in The King of Thieves by George F. Walker. He appeared as a singing camp counsellor in the 2010 short film The Legend of Beaver Dam.[citation needed]
From 2011 to 2020, Cullen hosted the podcast The Seánpod, featuring interviews with guests including Alan Thicke, Norm Macdonald and Doug Benson.[6]
Cullen is associated with Balzac's Coffee, a chain of cafés in southern Ontario. The company frequently sponsors Cullen's events, such as his comedy show, The Sean Schau!. Cullen also appears in other videos promoting the chain, exhibited on his Myspace page, and YouTube.
As of 2012 Cullen was a staple character and a frequent panelist on the Canadian version of
In 2020, Séan voiced the inventive, but "creepy" twin brothers, Barnaby A & Barnaby B in the Netflix original The Willoughbys.
In season sixteen of Murdoch Mysteries, he guest starred as the famous Rudyard Kipling.
Shows
(Un)natural Acts
Unnatural Acts was a television comedy filmed in 1998 which was written by and starring Cullen as well as future The Mighty Boosh actors Rich Fulcher, Julian Barratt, and Noel Fielding.
The Seán Cullen Show
The Seán Cullen Show is a television comedy that appeared briefly in the summer of 2003. The show, starring Seán Cullen, aired a total of six episodes on CBC Television. The show was a surreal sitcom about the life of Seán Cullen, in which Cullen interacted directly with the studio audience and spoke directly to the television audience.
Among the highlights of the show were several songs sung by Seán Cullen in character.[7]
Characters
- Seán Cullen – The head of the household.
- Betty (Jennifer Robertson) – A homemakerperpetually stuck in the 1950s.
- Sonny (Ted Ludzik) – The mentally challenged son of Sasquatch and Betty, who is the apple of Betty's eye.
- Frau Foch (Teresa Pavlinek) – Seán's evil genius next door neighbor who never lets anyone touch her hair.
- Sasquatch (Stephen R. Hart) – Frau's servant.
- Winston, the Cellar Dweller (Winston Spear) – A man who lives in Seán's basement.
- The Critics (Ryan & Jason Belleville) – Two men who sit in the audience and criticize the show.
- Scottish Jesus – A Scottish version of Jesus.
Simply Seán
Simply Seán was a Saturday morning entertainment
The show consisted of Cullen giving commentary and conducting interviews interspersed with musical selections.
The first season of the show ran for a total of 10 episodes, lasting well into the duration of the CBC lockout of 2005. All of the shows were pre-recorded prior to the lockout, and the series ended at the conclusion of its summer run.
The Seán Schau!
Since at least 2006, Cullen has hosted a comedy show entitled The Sean Schau! at the
Cullen opens the show with a monologue and features a variety of recurring comedy bits during the show, including video segments, and improvised songs. Guests are commonly welcomed to the stage by the band and Cullen playing a sting of a classic song with the lyrics altered to include the guest's name in place of a rhyming word or phrase (for example, recurring guest Richard Crouse is usually introduced with "Brick House" altered to "Dick Crouse").
The Nations!
Novels
Outside of performance, Cullen has written three books in his own Hamish X series of novels for young adults,
Cullen has also started writing the Chronicles of the Misplaced Prince series. The first book The Prince of Neither here Nor There was released on 11 August 2009. The book was nominated for a 2010 Toronto Book Award.[12] He also wrote the second book in that series, "The Prince of Two Tribes"
Discography
Corky and the Juice Pigs
- Corky and the Juice Pigs (1993)
- Pants (1994)
Solo
- Seán Cullen Live! (2000)
- I Am a Human Man (2008)
- Live from Planet Serpo (2014)
References
- ^ Hale, Jonathan (16 January 1997) Living like a 145-year-old dame. UWO Gazette
- ^ "About Us". CBC Radio Summer. Archive.org: CBC.ca. Archived from the original on 25 May 2009. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
- Montreal Gazette, 11 August 2005.
- ^ Alex Strachan, "One-time 'Kid in the Hall' wins two Geminis". Regina Leader-Post, 19 October 2006.
- ^ "Seán Cullen on The Hour". Archived from the original on 15 February 2008. Retrieved 22 May 2007.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). Cbc.ca. Retrieved on 27 March 2014. - ^ "THE SEÁNPOD with Seán Cullen". Retrieved 2 March 2022.
- ^ The Seán Cullen Show. cbc.ca
- ^ Simply Sean homepage. CBC.ca
- ^ The Sean Schau! Myspace.com page. Myspace.com. Retrieved on 27 March 2014.
- ^ "The Nations: CAN vs NZ". www.thenations.tv. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
- ^ Hamish X website. Hamishx.com. Retrieved on 27 March 2014.
- ^ Seán Cullen makes Toronto Book Awards short list. Thestar.com (16 September 2010). Retrieved on 27 March 2014.
External links
- Seán Cullen at IMDb
- Seán Cullen's Official Web Site
- Seán Cullen's MySpace page
- The Sean Schau MySpace page
- Sean Cullen interview June 2007
- Sean Cullen interview at exclaim
- Seán Cullen acts at Stratford Shakespeare Festival
- Hamish X, home page of one of Cullen's series of books for young adults