Howie Mandel

**Howard Michael Mandel** (born November 29, 1955) is a Canadian-American  comedian, television personality, actor, and producer. Mandel voiced the character Gizmo in the 1984 film *Gremlins* and the 1990 sequel *Gremlins 2: The New Batch*. In 1987, Mandel starred alongside Amy Steel in the comedy film *Walk Like a Man*. From 1982 to 1988, Mandel played the rowdy ER intern Dr. Wayne Fiscus on the NBC medical drama *St. Elsewhere*. He also created, voiced and starred in the FOX children's cartoon *Bobby's World*. Additionally, he has been a judge on NBC's *America's Got Talent* since 2010, and Citytv's *Canada's Got Talent* since 2022. He hosted the American NBC and later CNBC game show *Deal or No Deal*, as well as the show's daytime and Canadian-English counterparts. In 2022, he began hosting the first season of Netflix's *Bullsh\*t the Game Show*.

In the animation field, he is best-known as being the voice of both Bobby and Howard Generic in the series *Bobby’s World*, which he created, and Clam in the *Where’s Clam?* franchise.

## Biography

### Early Life and Education

Mandel was born and raised in the Willowdale area of North York, Ontario. He is Jewish, and his ancestors emigrated from Romania and Poland. Mandel is a distant cousin of Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman. His father was a lighting manufacturer and a real estate agent. Mandel attended William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute, where he was expelled for impersonating a school official and hiring a construction company to build an addition to the school. Afterwards, Mandel worked as a carpet salesman. He was a stand-up comedian at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, and by September 1978 he had a week-long booking as a featured act, which was billed as "a wild and crazy borderline psychotic." His repertoire included placing a latex glove over his head and inflating it by blowing through his nose, the fingers of the glove extending above his head like a cockscomb. When the audience reacted uproariously to that and similar antics, his trademark response was to extend his arms palms up, look incredulous, and say, "It's you."

On a trip to Los Angeles, Mandel performed a set at The Comedy Store, which resulted in his being hired as a regular performer. A producer for the syndicated comedy game show *Make Me Laugh* saw him there, and booked Mandel for several appearances during the show's run in 1979 and 1980. He was booked to open for David Letterman at shows in the summer of 1979. CBC-TV's head of variety programming saw his performance in October 1979 and immediately signed him for a TV special. In 1980, he won the lead role in the Canadian movie *Gas*, co-starring Susan Anspach and Donald Sutherland. Mandel was one of the first "VeeJays" to appear on Nickelodeon's music video series *PopClips*.

### Television and Film Career

Mandel came to national attention in the United States during a six-year run on *St. Elsewhere*, starting in 1982 and playing the role of Dr. Wayne Fiscus, opposite Ed Flanders and Norman Lloyd. He also appeared on a week's worth of episodes of the short-lived NBC game show *Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour* in March 1984. While working as Dr. Fiscus and continuing to work as a comedian, Mandel also did movies, including providing the voice of Gizmo and a few additional gremlins in the 1984 hit *Gremlins* and its 1990 sequel, *Gremlins 2: The New Batch*. In 1985, Mandel made a cameo in the Michael J. Fox directed short "The Iceman Hummeth," which was subsequently broadcast on *Late Night with David Letterman* in November 1985. In 1986, he starred in *A Fine Mess* alongside Ted Danson. He performed his stand-up comedy act in several cities (the *Watusi Tour*), which was followed by his *Watusi* music video in 1987. For the first two seasons of *Muppet Babies*, he voiced Bunsen Honeydew, Animal, and Skeeter. He starred alongside Amy Steel in the 1987 comedy film *Walk Like a Man*. He was also "Maurice" in the 1989 movie *Little Monsters*. In 1990, he starred in the short-lived sitcom *Good Grief* on Fox. He was also the creator and executive producer of the Emmy-nominated children's animated series *Bobby’s World* (1990–1998) to which he supplied the voices of the title character and his father. *Bobby’s World* ran for seven seasons on Fox and was later syndicated.

1992 saw the weekly airing of his self-titled comedy show *Howie*, with multiple guest stars such as Gilbert Gottfried and Little Richard and Lita Ford as the in-house band guitarist. His character Bobby made a regular appearance on the show. In 1994, Mandel voiced the lead character, Little Howie, of the video game *Tuneland*. He starred in the sketch comedy series *Howie Mandel's Sunny Skies* in 1995 on Showtime. Mandel appeared in the 1995 Clint Black music video "Summer's Comin'." He played the lead role of the professor in the short-lived TV series *The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys*, and he guest-starred on a 1996 episode of the ABC TV series *Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman* as DC Comics supervillain Mister Mxyzptlk. In 1998, he hosted his own syndicated talk show, *The Howie Mandel Show*, which was canceled after one season. In 1999 to 2000, he played Jason in the film *Apocalypse III: Tribulation*, was the voice of Jack in the movie *The Tangerine Bear* in 2000, and in 2002 he played the Sand Man in the movie *Hansel and Gretel*. In 2003, he was offered the titular role of Clam in the upcoming animated film, *Where’s Clam?*; at first he was hesitant, but soon after became more intrigued by the role. He would go on to reprise the role in many other projects related to the film, most notably the 2011 sequel *Where’s Clam? 2: Hello Summer, Goodbye Camp*. In 2006, he appeared as himself as a guest host in a parody of *Deal or No Deal* in the show-within-a-show of the TV series *Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip*. In 2007, he guest-starred as himself in an episode of NBC's *Medium* and made a dream cameo of himself on *Deal or No Deal*. In that episode, he booted the nighttime drama's protagonist off for "cheating" since in the show, he is a psychic medium and appeared to "know" the contents of the cases. Mandel plays his alter ego, Phil Skorjanc, in most of his comedy shows, which are a fan favorite. Bobby also made a cameo appearance in a February 2007 episode of *Deal or No Deal*. On a special two-hour Christmas episode, first aired on December 25, 2007, Mandel delivered one line with Bobby's voice, as requested by the contestant.

Mandel's signature stunt as a stand-up comedian (besides his Bobby alter ego) was stretching a latex glove over his head, inflating it with his nostrils, and filling it until it suddenly propelled itself off his head. That trick also lent itself to the title and cover photo of his comedy album *Fits Like a Glove* (1986). He eventually gave up the routine under doctor's orders after being diagnosed with a perforated sinus. However, in a cameo role as himself on *My Name is Earl*, he did the routine. He guest-starred in two episodes of *Monk* ("Mr. Monk Joins a Cult" and "Mr. Monk's 100th Case").

### Additional Appearances

In 2003, while Mandel was deciding whether or not to quit show business, the executive producers at NBC asked him to host the show, but he declined many times. They then mailed him a tape of the overseas version and he finally accepted.[*citation needed*] In 2007, he hosted a five-episode run of the Canadian-English version *Deal or No Deal Canada*. The show then went to daytime with Mandel remaining as host, although Arsenio Hall was originally intended to host the show. In a January 2009 interview on *Anytime with Bob Kushell*, Mandel expressed mild, jovial frustration over how some of his contestants hold out during the game show, despite the fact that the grand prize is many times what they would make in a year.

On March 12, 2018, it was announced that Mandel would host the 2018 CNBC revival of the game show and also become an executive producer. The show premiered on December 3, 2018.

Mandel is one of three game show hosts to host the same game show in two different countries, the others being Donny Osmond for *Pyramid* and Anne Robinson for *The Weakest Link*.

#### *America’s Got Talent*

In January 2010, it was announced that Mandel would replace David Hasselhoff as one of the judges on NBC's *America’s Got Talent* after Hasselhoff announced that he was leaving to work on a new television series. Out of all judges on the show, Mandel currently has the longest tenure than any other judge or host, spanning thirteen consecutive seasons (season 5–present).

In October 2021, it was announced that Mandel would be a judge on the second season of *Canada’s Got Talent*, which aired in 2022.

#### *Howie Mandel Does Stuff*

Since February 2021, Mandel has hosted the *Howie Mandel Does Stuff Podcast* with his daughter, Jackelyn Shultz, as co-host. According to the Apple Podcasts preview: "Together, these two make prank calls, discuss pop culture, interview interesting people, say weird things, chat with listeners, get deep..."

#### *Bullsh\*t: The Game Show*

On April 27, 2022, Netflix released the 10 episode debut season of *Bullsh\*t: The Game Show* with Mandel as host of the program. It was Mandel's first game show since the cancellation of the *Deal or No Deal* revival on CNBC in 2019. In this game show contestants have a chance to win up to $1,000,000 by answering a series of trivia questions but have to also be able to convince ("bullshit") a group of prospective challengers that the answer they give is right, even if it's not. (The contestant is shown whether or not their answer is correct as soon as they choose it.) After explaining their reasoning, the judges will vote on whether they think the contestant is "bullshitting" (lying), or telling the truth. At a certain time after they are done convincing the judges, Mandel will ask the contestant if their answer is correct, or if they were "bullshitting." If the contestant's answer is correct (or if it's incorrect, but they successfully convinced at least one judge that they were telling the truth), they win and move on to the question. If they lie and none of the three judges buy it, they are removed from the game. The next contestant is the judge who most accurately guessed whether or not the contestant was truthful during each question.