Jim Florentine
Jim Florentine (born August 18) is an American comedian best known for his characters "Special Ed" and "Bobby Fletcher" created for a series of prank phone calls featured on the Comedy Central television show Crank Yankers.
In July 2001, Jim released Terrorizing Telemarketers Volume 1. After numerous plays on the Howard Stern Radio Show, his CD ranking on Amazon.com went from 282,363 to number 2. The only artist ahead of him was the Backstreet Boys. Later that week his CD came in at #17 on the Internet Billboard charts.
After the release of Terrorizing Telemarketers Volume 2 in late 2001, Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla took a liking to his prank calls and hired him for a show to debut in June 2002 on Comedy Central called Crank Yankers. Jim voiced the character of Bobby Fletcher and the break out character from the show Special Ed.
After season one, Rap star Eminem took a liking to Jim's characters and flew him out to his Detroit studio to do prank calls together for the upcoming season of Crank Yankers. The following year in 2004 Eminem and Jim did a bit together on the MTV Music awards show where Eminem beat up Special Ed. Crank Yankers lasted 3 seasons on Comedy Central. The show moved over to MTV2 in 2006 for one season. Jim's Special Ed character that he created is still played at various Sporting Events at stadiums across the USA.
Jim was featured on the series premiere of Down and Dirty with Jim Norton, a stand-up comedy series that aired on HBO on October 3, 2008. The series spotlights new and established talent, including Artie Lange, Bill Burr (Chappelle Show), Patrice O'Neal (Scary Movie 4) and Andrew Dice Clay. Lemmy Kilminster, leader of the heavy metal band Motrhead, serves as musical director.
He is also co-hosting That Metal Show on VH1 Classic with Eddie Trunk and Don Jamieson. The show has been picked up for a fourth season.
Florentine just finished filming a independent dramedy, A Little Help, starring Jenna Fischer (The Office).
Florentine has been seen on The Apprentice, Comedy Central's Mother Load, HBO's Inside the NFL, Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, The Howard Stern Show, Spike TV’s Video Game Awards, MTV Music Video Awards, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Last Call with Carson Daly, Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn on Comedy Central, VH1's The List, and Louie Anderson's Comedy Showcase. He also voiced the redneck radio host Bobbie Ray in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.
He has a series of prank call CDs known as Terrorizing Telemarketers Volumes 1-5.[1] The CDs feature a series of recorded telephone conversations, often with Florentine receiving calls from telemarketers, wherein he turns the tables on often aggressive salespeople by being deliberately difficult and creating awkward situations.
Florentine is currently touring the country performing solo and with Don Jamieson and is part of The Killers of Comedy tour.
