Jake Hurwitz

Jake Hurwitz

Jake Hurwitz in 2007
Born Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz
August 5, 1985
Spring Glen, Connecticut, United States
Nationality American
Occupation Comedian, writer, actor
Years active 2005–present

Jacob Penn Cooper "Jake" Hurwitz (/ˈhɜrwɪts/; born August 5, 1985) is an American comedian, writer and actor. He was hired by the comedy website CollegeHumor after becoming an intern there in 2006, and has written and appeared in original videos for the website, as well as contributing articles which have been published both online and in print. He also starred in The CollegeHumor Show, an MTV sitcom that ran for one season in 2009. Outside of CollegeHumor, Hurwitz has hosted Myspace's BFF series.

He is best known as the comedy partner of Amir Blumenfeld: the two appear as humorous and exaggerated versions of themselves in the web series Jake and Amir, with Hurwitz generally assuming the role of the straight man. Originally made as a hobby by the pair, the series is now produced by CollegeHumor. In 2011, CollegeHumor released Jake and Amir: Fired, a 30-minute special and the company's first paid content. Episodes of Jake and Amir average over 500,000 views; by 2012, over 500 had been produced. The pair have also hosted numerous live shows, and started the advice podcast If I Were You in 2013. In December 2013, it was announced that Jake and Amir would be adapted into a TBS television comedy with Ed Helms as an executive producer.

Early life

Hurwitz was born in Connecticut, United States.[1] The son of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, he had a Bar Mitzvah and attended Hebrew school, but also celebrated the Christian holidays Christmas and Easter.[2] He attended Hunter College[3] and New School University in New York City.[4]

Career

CollegeHumor

In 2005, as the book The CollegeHumor Guide to College was nearing completion, Hurwitz begain to write a column for the comedy website CollegeHumor while attending school. When he transferred to Hunter College, he became an intern at the company[2]—he summarized his duties saying "I put together desks and microwaved". He later got a full-time position at CollegeHumor,[4] where he writes and acts in original videos.[5] Having originally wanted to be a sitcom writer, he "spent a year or two feeling really uncomfortable on camera", but now says he "love[s] it".[6]

Hurwitz was a cast member on The CollegeHumor Show,[7] a 2009 sitcom set in the CollegeHumor offices and featuring videos from the website.[8] His character's biography on the MTV website reads: "Jake might not be smarter than his coworkers, but he's better looking, and that's good enough for him."[7] The show was heavily criticized, being called "a series of atrocious sketches haphazardly strung together" by Pajiba‍‍ '​‍s Dustin Rowles;[9] GigaOM‍‍ '​‍s Liz Shannon Miller said it was "deeply disappointing, given how many of CollegeHumor's web shorts rank as fantastic examples of fresh and creative online content".[10] After it had gone nearly a year without being recommissioned, Hurwitz commented "We stopped holding our breath for a second season".[1]

Jake and Amir

Main article: Jake and Amir
Hurwitz's comedy partner Amir Blumenfeld in 2010

Hurwitz met his colleague Amir Blumenfeld in 2006,[11] when the former began his internship at CollegeHumor.[12] When their offices moved to Union Square, the two were seated across from each other.[13] Hurwitz received a digital camera as a birthday present from his father, and the two used it to make videos together,[13] which they uploaded to the video-sharing website Vimeo.[12] Hurwitz thought Blumenfeld was "the funniest person in the office" and said "Amir and I were constantly joking around in different, strange characters, so it seemed natural that once I had a camera we began to record it."[13] Their first video was called "Quick Characters": it was unscripted, and involved either Hurwitz or Blumenfeld spontaneously pointing a camera at the other and instructing them to act in a certain way.[14]

The two later began the web series Jake and Amir, episodes of which they posted to jakeandamir.com.[12] In it, Hurwitz plays Jake, a "normal guy", and Blumenfeld plays Amir, his annoying and obsessive co-worker, who craves Jake's attention.[11][12] Their videos began to be promoted on CollegeHumor, and the website later adopted the series.[12] By 2012, the duo had made over 500 episodes of Jake and Amir—two per week for five years.[11] Each episode averages more than 500,000 views.[15] The series has featured guest appearances by Ben Schwartz, Allison Williams, Hoodie Allen and Rick Fox, among others.[16]

Hurwitz summed up the writing process by saying "me and Amir sit in a room and we make each other laugh for an hour or two and somehow we leave with a script"—he also noted the series' increased production values, saying that he and Blumenfeld have become better at editing it over time. Describing how his character has developed, Hurwitz said "I think the Jake character has become a little more wacky, which is fun for me. We've given me triggers for my insecurity and then I get to be a little weird which is cool." He also noted that the characters' roles had swapped somewhat because "when we're writing together we do each other's voices sometimes ... it was just making us laugh a lot when I was doing the crazy/funny man and he was doing the straight man when it came to fashion and girls."[16]

In 2008, PC Magazine listed the series among its "Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites", saying: "Considering it's mainly a hobby they do after work, the webisodes at JakeAndAmir.com are better than some of the stuff they get paid to do for CollegeHumor."[17] At the 14th Webby Awards in 2010, Jake and Amir won a People's Voice award for Comedy: Long Form or Series.[18] PC Magazine again featured Jake and Amir in 2011, when it listed the series as one of its "15 Best Web-Only Shows"—Eric Griffith said "they show no sign of running out of very bizarre situations for this sometimes disturbing comedy."[19]

On October 12, 2011, CollegeHumor released Jake and Amir: Fired,[20] a 30-minute episode of Jake and Amir that the pair had produced and edited in the previous months, while continuing to release short episodes. Available to buy for $2.99 on CollegeHumor and Facebook and for $13 on DVD, the special was the company's first paid content.[21] Its plot involves the fictitious new CEO of CollegeHumor, Alan Avery (Matt Walton), promoting Jake and firing Amir; Jake realizes this was a mistake, and the two try to get Amir's job back. Sam Reich, CollegeHumor Media's President of Original Content said "Fired is very much an extension of the Jake and Amir that people already know. ... That being said, it also expands the universe considerably by adding characters, locations, and something even newer to a Jake and Amir plot."[20]

He and Blumenfeld have also hosted various live events as Jake and Amir, including CollegeHumor Live at various locations such as the UCB Theatre in New York[22] and the University of California, Berkeley.[23] They have also performed in Toronto, Canada[24] and London's Soho Theatre. The latter show was in June 2013 with Streeter Seidell,[15] and although it sold out and extra dates were added,[25] the performance was poorly received by local media: The Guardian‍‍ '​‍s Brian Logan said Hurwitz and Blumenfeld "cackle a lot, as they find various ways to repackage tales of puerile behaviour as comedy".[26] Hurwitz has described performing live as "fucking terrifying" as he "usually get[s] pretty shy" and "can't even imagine going up there without a script".[1] In June 2012, at the International Student Film Festival in Tel Aviv, Israel, the pair gave a lecture at the New Media Conference.[27] They have also appeared together on the MTV show Money from Strangers.[28] On December 18, 2013, it was announced that Jake and Amir will be adapted into a television comedy for the network TBS, and that Hurwitz will star in the series, as well as serve as a writer and executive producer (alongside Blumenfeld and Ed Helms, among others).[29]

If I Were You

On May 13, 2013, Hurwitz and Blumenfeld announced their first new project since Jake and Amir: a comedy audio podcast called If I Were You, in which they give advice to listeners who submit questions.[30] New episodes have been released every Monday since then,[31] and the show has featured several guest stars, including Ricky Van Veen,[32] Streeter Seidell[33] and Allison Williams.[34] Kayla Culver of The Concordian lauded the podcast as "comfortable to listen to" and "genuinely funny" and said "It's like listening to two best friends having a hilarious conversation on the couch next to you."[35] The Guardian‍‍ '​‍s Miranda Sawyer called If I Were You "a typical example of a comedy podcast" and "amiable enough", but said it contained "far too much laughing", commenting that "New Yorkers Jake and Amir laugh and laugh, giggle and chortle their way around a topic" and "if I wanted stream-of-consciousness waffle with the occasional funny line, I'd listen to [my small children]."[36]

BFF

In 2009, Hurwitz was selected as the host of the second season of BFF, a game show produced for Myspace that Hurwitz described as "The Dating Game for friends". This was the first time he had been hired to appear in a non-CollegeHumor series; he called it "the first time I've been tapped on the shoulder to do anything that wasn't frat boy humor" and said the show's format was "out of [his] wheelhouse".[1] Hurwitz was given the chance to film a Jake and Amir video on the set, which he said "turned out pretty well".[13] Tubefilter‍‍ '​‍s Marc Hustvedt said of the season: "It's a bit of a shame to see the typically absurd Hurwitz stripped of any real comedy purpose and thrown into what is pretty squarely a young, fashion-loving women's chit-chat."[37] Although some episodes of the season appeared to have been viewed over 500,000 times, Hustvedt said that many of them appeared to come from embedded video advertising and doubted the veracity of this number.[38]

Personal life and influences

Hurwitz attends a gym every morning.[5] He has been in several relationships since he was a senior in high school, but wrote in an article for AskMen, "I have yet to find true love".[39] Beginning in 2009, he was in a relationship with Bee Shaffer, the daughter of the English fashion journalist Anna Wintour, whom he met after Shaffer became CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen's assistant.[40] The two attended the Webby Awards in 2010, where Hurwitz was awarded for his acting work.[41] They moved to Los Angeles together in 2011, and split up in May 2012.[40] He has cited the television series Arrested Development and comedian Mitch Hedberg as influences;[11] he also said "My humor came from my dad, who definitely has Jewish humor."[12]

Filmography

Television

Jake Hurwitz's television appearances
Year Title Role Notes
2009 The CollegeHumor Show Jake
2012, 2013 Money from Strangers With Amir Blumenfeld; 2 episodes

Online video

Jake Hurwitz's online video appearances
Year Title Role Notes
2007–2015 Jake and Amir Jake Also writer
2007–2015 Hardly Working Jake Also writer
2010–2015 CollegeHumor Originals Various

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Hustvedt, Marc (November 30, 2009). "Jake Hurwitz Tells All: Amir, 'BFF', 'CollegeHumor Show', and Those Terrifying UCB Shows". Tubefilter. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Moses, Jeremy (April 21, 2009). "Jake & Amir: Funnier Than You". MyJewishLearning. Retrieved October 2, 2013.
  3. ↑ "CUNY Hunter College – Alumni & Post-Grads". College Prowler. Niche. Retrieved October 2, 2013.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Monasky, Briana (May 14, 2008). "Jake and Amir: Setting the bar for College Humor". The State Hornet. Retrieved October 2, 2013.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Jake Hurwitz". CollegeHumor. IAC. Retrieved October 3, 2013.
  6. ↑ Garrison, Laura Turner. "Crushable 25: Jake Hurwitz (And Amir Blumenfeld) From ‘Jake And Amir’". Crushable. Alloy Digital. Retrieved October 3, 2013.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "The CollegeHumor Show – Cast Bios". MTV. Viacom. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  8. ↑ Stelter, Brian (February 4, 2009). "Dudes! Time for Beer Pong! CollegeHumor.com Invades MTV". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  9. ↑ Rowles, Dustin (February 10, 2009). "Only Stupid People are Breeding / The Cretins Cloning and Feeding". Pajiba. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  10. ↑ Miller, Liz (February 9, 2009). "MTV's CollegeHumor Show Stumbles With Sitcom Cliches". GigaOM. GigaOmniMedia. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Kushigemachi, Todd (July 24, 2012). "Hurwitz & Blumenfeld: College Humor duo graduate to next level". Variety. Penske Media Corporation. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 Kenan, Ido (May 31, 2012). "Meet Jake and Amir, the most successful Jewish comedians on the Internet". Haaretz. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 "Jake Hurwitz & BFF". BFF.tv. TotallyHer Media. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  14. ↑ Lorenzini, Wesley (director) (December 12, 2008). Amir Blumenfeld Interview. YouTube. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Jake Hurwitz & Amir Blumenfeld with Streeter Seidell". Soho Theatre. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Davis, Deirdre Ann (February 20, 2013). "Talking to Jake and Amir About Their Web Series, CollegeHumor, and More". Splitsider. The Awl. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  17. ↑ Monson, Kyle (August 11, 2008). "The Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites". PC Magazine. Ziff Davis. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  18. ↑ "2010 – Comedy: Long Form or Series – People's Voice – Jake and Amir". Webby Awards. International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  19. ↑ Griffith, Eric (May 27, 2011). "15 Best Web-Only Shows". PC Magazine. Ziff Davis. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "CollegeHumor Media Presents 'Jake and Amir: Fired'". PR Newswire (Press release). October 12, 2011. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  21. ↑ Kafka, Peter (October 11, 2011). "Serious Business? CollegeHumor Tries Selling Web Video.". All Things Digital. Dow Jones & Company. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  22. ↑ "Two Live Shows This Week!". Jake and Amir. CollegeHumor. January 25, 2010. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  23. ↑ "CollegeHumor Live! Featuring Jake and Amir". SUPERB. Associated Students of the University of California. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  24. ↑ Kopun, Francine (January 26, 2011). "Jake and Amir touch down in Toronto". Toronto Star. Star Media Group. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  25. ↑ "Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld with Stretter Seidell". Time Out. Time Out Group. April 8, 2013. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  26. ↑ Logan, Brian (June 27, 2013). "Jake Hurwitz & Amir Blumenfeld with Streeter Seidell – review". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  27. ↑ "Israel Meet Up". Jake and Amir. CollegeHumor. May 30, 2012. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  28. ↑ "Money from Strangers". Jake and Amir. CollegeHumor. Retrieved September 21, 2013.
  29. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (December 18, 2013). "TBS To Adapt Hit Online Series 'Jake & Amir' As TV Comedy With Ed Helms Producing". Deadline.com. Penske Media Corporation. Retrieved September 13, 2014.
  30. ↑ "New Podcast!". Jake and Amir. CollegeHumor. May 13, 2013. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
  31. ↑ "If I Were You Show". If I Were You. Retrieved September 15, 2013.
  32. ↑ Episode 6: Tattoos (with Ricky Van Veen). If I Were You (Podcast). June 10, 2013. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
  33. ↑ Episode 9: Communism. If I Were You (Podcast). July 1, 2013. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
  34. ↑ Episode 11: Zero to D (with Allison Williams). If I Were You (Podcast). July 15, 2013. Retrieved September 14, 2013.
  35. ↑ Culver, Kayla (September 30, 2013). "'If I Were You'". The Concordian. Concordia College. Retrieved October 2, 2013.
  36. ↑ Sawyer, Miranda (July 27, 2013). "Rewind radio: If I Were You; TED Radio Hour; Stuff You Should Know; Stuff Mom Never Told You; Desert Island Discs – review". The Guardian. Guardian Media Group. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
  37. ↑ Hustvedt, Marc (August 27, 2009). "MySpace Rolls New 'BFF' Season, Taps Jake Hurwitz to Host". Tubefilter. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  38. ↑ Hustvedt, Marc (September 17, 2009). "Is MySpace's 'BFF' Buying Views?". Tubefilter. Retrieved October 5, 2013.
  39. ↑ Hurwitz, Jake. "Interviews With Exes". AskMen. Ziff Davis. Retrieved October 2, 2013.
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 "Bee Shaffer, Anna Wintour's daughter, has split from comic Jake Hurwitz, sources say". Daily News. New York. May 30, 2012. Retrieved October 4, 2013.
  41. ↑ Ruiz, Michelle. "A Sarcastic Moment With Bee Shaffer and Her Boyfriend, Jake Hurwitz". The Cut. New York Media. Retrieved October 4, 2013.

External links