Nominated six times for an American Comedy Award, Dom Irrera’s stand-up material was honed in a multi-generational Italian household in South Philadelphia with his mother, sister, grandmother, uncles and cousins all under one very big roof. A great-grandmother even lived across the street. Together there were three floors and four generations of family.
His first big break was his performance on Rodney Dangerfield's "Nothing Goes Right" comedy specials for HBO. In 1989 Irrera’s own HBO special "One Night Stand" earned him his first Cable ACE award for Best Stand-Up Comedy Special. In '95 he won a second Cable ACE for the Showtime stand-up series he hosted, "Full Frontal Comedy". That same year he received a second Cable ACE nomination in the writing category for his work on Comedy Central's animated series, "Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist". He also starred in a solo stand-up special for HBO in '92 titled "Command Performance" and a "Comedy Central Presents" special more recently. Dom was part of the 2010 Emmy-winning cast of Nickelodeon’s "Back To The Barnyard", where he played "Duke" the sheepdog.
He has performed on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", "The Late Show with David Letterman", "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson", "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart", "The View", and has made several appearances on "Oprah". Recent credits include the Joy Behar show on HLN, hosting "Half Time" on the NFL network and starring in his own series for Direct TV (now in its 3rd season), "The Supreme Court of Comedy".
As an avid sports fan, he hosted four seasons of Comedy Central's irreverent football show, "Offsides", where he conducted hilarious on-the-field interviews with football greats. He also hosted Comedy Central's "Behind the Scenes at the American Comedy Awards: specials in '98 and '99".
Irrera was a series regular on the ‘98 Fox comedy "Damon" starring Damon Wayans and his guest-star credits include "Seinfeld" (he played an annoying prop comic needling Jerry in the memorable episode), "Becker", "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "King of Queens". In addition, Dom voices the character Ernie, the demolitions expert, on Nickelodeon's "Hey Arnold".
His film work includes a featured role in Robert Townsend's "Hollywood Shuffle", a cameo in the Coen Bros. Film, "The Big Lebowski", "The Fourth Tenor", starring old pal Rodney Dangerfield, and he played himself in the Rodney Dangerfield / Dom De Luise film, "The Godson".
Dom has performed at Montreal's prestigious "Just For Laughs Festival" and "The Cats Laugh Festival" in Kilkenny, Ireland (he's made more appearances at both festivals than any other American comic). He also has performed at the "Melbourne Comedy Festival" in Australia and at "Edinburgh Festival’s" Assembly Hall. It was there that he received the "Herald Award" for artistic excellence.
In 2010, Dom continued his quest for international DOM-ination with a 10-day run at the Sydney Comedy Festival and his first ever one-man show, "Plugged, Unplugged then Plugged Again" played to sold out audiences in Montreal.
Photo by Susan Maljan
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